I wouldn’t write anything about Tidal – that flea among music streaming services, bought last year and re-branded by one Mr Z – except that the company did something really stupid. In order to try and show that it’s not irrelevant, Tidal blamed Apple for something it didn’t do.
Here’s the deal. There was a charity concert in New Orleans a few days ago, and one Drake was scheduled to sing. Yet Tidal, who was streaming the concert, wasn’t allowed to stream Drake’s performances. Tidal claimed it was Apple that prevented them from doing this, because Drake has an exclusive contract with Apple:
Yet BuzzFeed contacted Drake’s manager who said:
“The decision to not have Drake participate in the Tidal steam has nothing to do with Apple or Drake’s deal. Point blank, 100%. I made a business decision. Apple doesn’t have the power to stop us from being part of a live stream. The only people that have the power to do that are Cash Money and Universal, and they’re our partners.”
Tidal, in an attempt to get people to talk about them, make the dumb decision to lie about something and blame it on Apple. Because they’re trying to pretend that they’re David to Apple’s Goliath. Actually, Apple doesn’t care about Tidal, because this tiny streaming service is no threat.
It’s worth noting that one of Tidal’s key selling points is exclusive releases…