monday, the new music streaming service TIDAL was announced.  everyone in the music business currently already making money joined forces to tell us, the consumer, that they aren’t making enough money.  there on the stage was a combined wealth of about 3 billion dollars.

alicia keys took the stage to make the announcement of their intentions.  she proclaimed that TIDAL would be a huge victory for the artists……………………………………………..and the consumer.  watch the press conference.  the pause was lengthy.  the consumer was an afterthought.  they usually are though.

guys, we already HAVE services that we can stream music from.  we have spotify….pandora….slacker…….youtube…..radio……internet radio….satellite radio…….soundcloud…….itunes……there are options.  what artists like beyonce, jay-z, kanye west, madonna, alicia keys, coldplay, rihanna and everyone else from the TIDAL group i’m sure intend to do is limit or yank all together their participation in spotify (who has everything except taylor swift, i think) and force the consumer to either purchase their product instead or purchase both to get all the music they want.  they’re fragmenting the streaming game and forcing a consumer to pick or choose.

don’t get me wrong.  if that’s what they want to do, it’s their music, but don’t pretend you’re doing it for us.  nobody is doing anything for us.  they’re doing it for our $20 a month.  alicia keys played 72 concerts in 2013 and made 60 million dollars from it.  i don’t fault her for that, and i’d never call someone out for wanting to make more money than they already have.  striving for more is important no matter how much you have.  i just wish the richest group of people on earth wouldn’t stand up on a stage and pretend like they’re doing what they’re doing for anyone but themselves.  and i wish somebody would tell daft punk that nobody gives a shit what they look like and to take off the god damned space outfits.

TIDAL is a power play.  TIDAL is a group of musicians telling the distributors of their product that they’ll distribute it themselves because they’re rich enough to do it.  TIDAL does nothing for us but limit our access or increase the amount of money we will need to pay to get it.  if you’re celebrating this announcement, you’re not paying attention to the way the world works.  no one is sitting around a table trying to figure out how to make things more convenient for you.  they’re trying to figure out how they can make you think what they’re SELLING you is something you need.