People don’t like Tidal. No matter how much damage control founder Jay-Z has had to perform in order to convince the public that the music streaming service isn’t just another way for the rich to get richer, and that it actually helps out up-and-coming artists despite none of those artists having been featured in its promo material, being pushed aside in order for the likes of Madonna and Kanye West to inform us that the money handed out by those tight-arses Spotify are really hurting their financial bottom line, guys, and the state of the music industry has caused them to delay plans to install a sixth golden-lined bathroom in their castles, many still aren’t buying it.
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Simply put, many don’t believe that Jay-Z & co. aren’t just pissed off that Spotify is making it more difficult to sell their music. While this is certainly a problem the music industry faces and, yes, it IS hurting the wallets of struggling musicians, no one took too kindly to being guilt-tripped by a multi-millionaire and his friends.
Now Tidal’s public image will take another battering, as one of its biggest coups to date, an exclusive music video of Nicki Minaj and Beyonce’s track ‘Feeling Myself,’ depicts Beyonce pouring highly expensive champagne into a bathtub.
The champagne, a bottle of Armand de Brignac to be exact, is sold for up to $20,000, and Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z loved it so much that he purchased the brand label from Sovereign Brands for an undisclosed amount back in 2014.
While the rapper and his wife are evidently not struggling for a penny or two, and we all know that an average person’s weekly wages could probably be equaled by the champagne spillages on their living room floor after one of their lavish house parties (do rich people even have house parties?), it still doesn’t detract from the fact that when you’re trying to sell a product to Average Joe and Jane with its main selling point being that it gives more money to musicians, don’t depict one of those musicians quite literally pouring money down the drain.
But I get it: Jay-Z owns the champagne brand, so he probably gets those bottles for free. But still, given the hugely negative response to Tidal, if you were Jay-Z or Beyonce at this point you’d surely want to stop slapping your plethora dollar bills against the public’s face?
Jack White, another supporter of Tidal, recently answered a Q&A with fans and when someone piped up with the opinion that Tidal comes across as somewhat elitist, he replied: “What is elitist about it? Who’s speaking for the little guy?” Well, Jack, if your famous friends are so intent on helping out the little guy, then perhaps some of the money they’re spending on pouring Armand de Brignac into a hot tub could’ve gone into helping out those little guys, rather than them trying to pass Tidal off as some charitable organization for poor artists that we should all put our money towards.
The annoying thing about Tidal is that they have a point. Many musicians have complained about the supposed disproportionate royalties Spotify pays out, and the streaming service could certainly do with some competition that is as kind to the musician as it is to the consumer. But Tidal has gone out of its way to take a decent concept and smear it with images of globally famous singers pouring liquid expensive enough to pay off a student’s college tuition fees into a tub, and Daft Punk attending VERY SERIOUS MEETINGS about the future of the music industry whilst still wearing their fucking space helmets.
Regardless of whether Tidal could actually be a good thing for the industry if enough people backed it, at this point no one wants it to succeed and, given the circumstances, who can blame us?
