Jay-Z is about to enter the fray with other music streaming services with his newly acquired TIDAL.

The Swedish streaming service was purchased by the rapper last month and he is on the verge of announcing how the newly launched service will benefit artists. This is of course a hugely prominent argument in the music business at the moment with artists such as Taylor Swift having already lifted their music from other services because they believe that there shouldn’t be a free subscription option.

TIDAL already has a growing army of fans amongst artist including Rihanna and Kanye West who have changed their profile pictures on social media to blue to show their support. This suggests that artists have already been familiarised with the service and what it has to offer them and that they like what they see.

It has been announced that a month’s subscription will set you back £19.99 which is a hefty sum when you consider that the average of other streaming services such as Spotify is around £10 a month but Jay-Z has a very unique selling point.

TIDAL is being sold as "the first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial". That all sounds like a very fancy way of saying “it sounds good” but this is bound to attract music connoisseurs who until now have had to deal with sub-standard quality music. No other services currently available are able to boast such claims so it is definitely a unique selling point for TIDAL.

Another point that will be reassuring to many music fans is the sheer level of support that there seems to be from just about every artist in the business. Many people may not care too much about how artists view such streaming services but at the end of the day, if they like the platform, you are more likely to be able to access their music through it in the future. A prominent example of this is again with Taylor Swift. Her music is not available on Spotify because of her great contempt for the ad-supported platform but you will be able to listen to her on TIDAL.

TIDAL certainly represents a shift in the way in which the public consume their music. It worryingly does seem to be championing a new, more costly method of listening to music which may price some people out of business with it but at the end of the day, more music being pumped in to the industry means more music with more diversity. That can’t be a bad thing.

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