The tide wasn't as strong as Jay-Z was told

Oh, poor Jay-Z. He's currently threatening to sue the people who sold him Tidal, as it turns out that he might not have been buying quite what he expected:

"It became clear after taking control of TIDAL and conducting our own audit that the total number of subscribers was actually well below the 540,000 reported to us by the prior owners," Tidal said in a statement sent to Variety. "As a result, we have now served legal notice to parties involved in the sale."

Norwegian press reports relayed by Music Business Worldwide estimate that Tidal wants about $15 million back; the company declined to comment on these specifics.

There may be, at the heart of this, an attempt to make the weak figures they've managed so far (about three million subscribers) seem a little better if it's coming from a lower starting point.

Just a little better, though.

Tidal about to be washed away

According to rumours, Samsung is about to buy busted flush Tidal.

In other words, Samsung has come up with a quick way of acquiring music rights.

That free Rihanna album redux

Last weekend I was in Amsterdam, so this is the first opportunity to react to the question why did Rihanna give her album away for free on Tidal?

To which there are two, interconnected answers:

Number one: because it's effectively patting Taylor Swift on the head and saying 'shush now about streaming sites only making you a tiny, tiny bit richer';

Number two: because when was the last time you even remembered Tidal even existed?

Hats off to her for coming up with an advertising campaign for a dying platform in which she's invested while making it look like she doesn't care about money. It's evil, but stylishly evil.

Steve Albini isn't impressed with Tidal

It's not just a damning-but-amusing comparison with another celeb-led endeavour from Steve Albini [via NME]:

Now, the Shellac and Big Black member has spoken to Vulture, raising doubts over the platform and calling it a "budget version of Pono", Neil Young's high-definition music player

Albini also shows his working:

"Historically, every time there’s been a new technological progression, there’s been a new convenience format [for listening to music]," Albini is quoted as saying. "So the question is, is it possible for something to be more convenient than streaming? And the answer is obviously yes. If you want your music to play at the push of a button, convenience is going to trump sound quality 100 percent of the time."

"It's for the same reason that if you had a screen that displayed paintings in your living room, very few serious art enthusiasts would care for such a screen despite the fact that it might show you very high-resolution images of artworks. They want to own a piece of art that is a direct connection to the person who made it. Having an HD screen in your house that would display artwork might have a market, but it’s not the same market as people who are interested in owning art."

Actually, he might have wanted to go with the idea that most people are quite happy to stick up a poster with a Matisse printed onto it, even though that might not be the real thing. But aside from a poorly worked through metaphor, his basic point (that there's no mass market for paying through the nose for a product where there's a perfectly good-enough, cheaper, free version) is sound.

Tidal already trying to shore itself up as the, erm, tide goes out

I suppose Tidal's USP is that its incredibly wealthy owners make music, so it's probably no surprise that Beyonce has chosen Tidal to "surprise release" a new song.

(Are we still surprised at people releasing music without three months of run-up and hoopla before? Isn't that just how things are done nowadays?)

Rumours that the song goes "if you like it then you shoulda built a paywall round it" could not be confirmed at time of publication.

Tidal: Artists unite to launch doomed streaming service

A bunch of rich people have come together to launch a video music streaming service:

Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire's Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J. Cole, Jay Z, Kanye West, Deadmau5, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher – rubbed elbows onstage at the swanky launch event while two others beamed in digitally (Calvin Harris and Coldplay's Chris Martin). Aside from making a spectacle, the musicians made the case for an artist-owned streaming service.

Fun fact: besides being millionaires, most of those people also used to make records at some point.

An artist-owned streaming service isn't a bad idea, it's just that one which is owned by rich, dominant artists isn't really going to do much for the 99% of musicians who don't have to worry about which house they left their other wallet in.

Naturally, the whole thing is being ridiculously oversold:

"We come together before you on this day...with one voice in unity in the hopes that today will be a moment that will forever change the course of music history," said Keys, the only artist to address the audience, in an exuberant speech. "Our goal is simple: We want to create a better service and a better experience for both fans and artists, and that is our promise to the world."

No, you just want to keep a bigger share of the royalties. The world doesn't need you to promise about this sort of thing.

Keys, of course, has been involved in a big tech launch before, having signed on to be the face of Blackberry shortly before that company introduced its 'rotting turd' range of phones.

I know what you're thinking. Is there a risk this event couldn't be self-agrandising enough?

No, they stepped up on that one:

[Keys] explained that the mission statement of the musicians, who stood patiently listening to the speech, was "to preserve music's importance in our lives." She spoke of artists delivering "exclusive experiences" via the service and ultimately finding a way to "preserve" the industry and the value of music. She also quoted Friedrich Nietzsche: "Without music, life would be a mistake."

Although since the point of Tidal is about restricting the flow of music, and when they speak about 'music's importance' what they really mean is 'the price of music to the listener', arguably they're making Nietzsche's mistake more, not less, likely.

But quoting a philosopher beloved of the Nazis might not have ratcheted up the pomposity to the sort of level we'd expect with Madonna and Jack White involved. Could you push it a little further, guys?

"Today is the day," she repeated before inviting her co-owners to sign what she called a "declaration," though she did not expound on what it said. "This is the beginning of a whole new era," she said before each present musician made his or her way over to a podium to sign a document.

Oh, yes. Signing a declaration. Because it's historical, right? That'd do it.

Unfortunately, video of the event wasn't put on YouTube so nobody really noticed this happening.