Who should buy TIDAL? What should it become?

Music
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I hope Rihanna and Taylor Swift decide to buy Tidal. Or someone like that.

Then put passionate people who love music to the fore of it, leading curation like Mubi does for film (they’re behind the massive Demi Moore Substance movie too!) (I’ll be stunned if it doesn’t do well ar awards season)

If Jack from Twitter’s company, who owns Tidal, wants to focus on BitCoin, perhaps it’s an opportunity for someone who loves and cares about music to focus on fandoms and building a new music industry.

That Tidal becomes some of what its launch hype suggested: a social space for music lovers, with Substack-like tools to connect artists to fans - not just thinking another Insta Stories, Snapchat/TikTok clone is what the music world needs but visual albums and voice notes and quick paragraphs from your favourite acts. A multitude of ways in which an artist can provide the depth of liner notes around their music in a slow, world-building way. And not just for new music but the entire history of music, with expert guides, where the DJ making a playlist / radio show are valued like a Peloton coach

It’s depressing how curation now feels like something people do for free but we wouldn’t expect a yoga teacher or online lecture to be free. Why not blend all of these things into a music platform? I’d love to pay for Kathleen Hanna’s 3 part lecture on Riot Grrrl to Brat or Rough Trade’s Guide to Dub or a guitar lesson from Matt Bellamy or Shirley Manson chatting to Angel Olsen or Alanis Morrissette (her podcast was amazing with these sorts of chats).

Someone could easily turn Tidal into a music platform that puts artists and fans at the top of the food chain, rather than somewhere below shareholders, podcasters, selling iPhones, selling ads, and corporate label interests.

The platform could be built around touring and local live music and clubs scenes, rather than the weekly deluge of corporate album releases, where how big and impactful an album’s week one marketing campaign is isn’t confused with how good the music is.

Mostly, I miss those moments when being on the front of MySpace changed an artists career. Where MTV2 could take a grassroots act to become a festival headliner. And I know those days are gone in our fragmented, hyper-personalised world where we’ve lost trust in the algo slop recommendations but it doesn’t always have to be this way.

Not saying it would be easy. It will take bravery and vision and keeping the internet weird. It will take being unafraid of challenging music and understanding the thrill of a merch drop.

Be curious of your thoughts to my Saturday morning ramble, as I might turn this into a Drowned in Sound newsletter about the music platforms we want and an industry in crisis needs.

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Not sure how you’re squaring these 2 things

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I don’t know who should buy tidal, but I don’t think I’d put Taylor Swift at the top of my list of generous, not in it for the money philanthropists

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Maybe shrewbie and jordo should buy tidal

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TIDAL is by far the best streaming service imo

They should just leave it pretty much as it is. Maybe they could improve the search a little and perhaps get the distributors to do 4k re-ups of legacy music videos if that’s possible, but otherwise it’s perfect - the music quality is great, the interface is clean and uncluttered and the algorithm that compiles you a playlist of related stuff after you’ve finished listening to something is PERFECT. I have do discovered SO MUCH great stuff new and old thanks to their algorithm. If they just added a function to save the whole algorithm playlist in one go that would be tremendous

But no, don’t turn it into any of that other stuff, it’s simple, elegant & top quality as it is

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Thank U

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I’ve been using TIDAL since 2020. I tried Qobuz for a year before that and was a very early adopter of Spotify before that.

I love what TIDAL has attempted to do so far. Their music discovery algorithm is impressive.

Your ideas sound great, @sean. It would be incredible to see them become a reality. Even one of those ideas would be cool!

I think for it to work it’s gonna need someone with a whole tonne of money to invest with pure philanthropy — and that person wouldn’t expect a return or any form of growth.

Just enough money to keep things ticking over with a regular customer base willing to pay fairly for the service. And pay more for extras to get them closer to the artists they love.

Taylor Swift owning TIDAL would make for a fascinating story for the industry and no doubt would bring in more customers who seem locked in to ways of Spotify.

Let’s see. I’m keeping a keen eye on this.

If TIDAL disappears then maybe it’s back to Qobuz — or day I say it — I’ll have to try Apple Music. :pensive:

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I would like that but

And

Yeah she’s far from the worst person in music but she’s hardly thinking that the industry needs to change direction. Hardly gonna spend her enormous wealth on TIDAL when she’s one of the few acts big enough to actually negotiate with the mega squids like the big streaming services

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This is your first post 8 (eight) years after signing up? Welcome!

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I know – shocking. Finally got around to posting. :sweat_smile:

Thanks for the welcome, @iamwiggy.

Will endeavour to make it a habit to come back and post here more often than the last 8 years.

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Totally! Would be very cool.

And how about flipping the idea around? Fans submit their written or video articles to an editorial team. The editorial team can choose to work with whomever and help the folks behind selected ideas to craft whatever it is they are writing about. And they help them become better music journalists. And then the service pays them for their efforts.

TIDAL could lead the way with this if they were to invest in an educational platform for future music journalists or just people who are well into their music. Imagine a whole team of brilliant music journalists hired by TIDAL to lead the way and establish a process for this. I’d love to be part of that process as a non-muso writer to learn how to write about releases and artists. And get the odd quid for doing it.

Better still, writers who get an article published within TIDAL could donate their fee to a scholarship fund to support those that aren’t in a position to pay for TIDAL or other fan connection features.

Over time it would help a large amount of folks who are passionate about music to feed into the narrative that feeds into the TIDAL algorithm.

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Often when big names buy things, they front the deal, like Musk did with Twitter.

I think in terms of their profile and reputations it would make so much sense and even if they just used the database and clout to sell their next albums or tours, it would probably payback a decent return for them.

This was a pre-coffee idea and a conversation starter rather than an undeniable business idea.

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I think it follows the logic of the levy on stadium and arena tickets. If the biggest names in music, who have benefitted from the ecosystem, can’t put back in to build a future for everyone, who truly can?

And let’s not forget, the industry is so uneven that the head of UMG, makes more than all the songwriters in the UK

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Right but there’s nothing to suggest Taylor Swift supports a levy on stadium gigs or wants to do anything to correct payment to songwriters. Or to get back to this point, would run a streaming service in a way that doesn’t favour bigger artists.

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I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who uses Tidal.

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She did support fairer deals for artists and re-recorded her catalogue. So she’s not oblivious to it and she does like to do big stunts.

Let’s remove who it might be (I just picked two of the richest women in music) and perhaps in figuring out what it could or should be, a better buyer could emerge

(Let’s hope it’s not LiveNation to further their dominance)

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I hope Tim Henman and the former commonwealth gold medal winning high jumper Dalton Grant buy it. They could rename it Henrant

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The songwriters should write harder!

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I switched to Tidal at the start of the year and tbh I’d just like it to work a bit better.

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Have songwriters considered pivoting to video?