The Swedish company was bought by Jay Z earlier this year for a reported $56 million.
A host of high profile artists including Madonna, Kanye, Daft punk, Rihanna and Jack White joined the rapper on stage to present this new artist owned platform.
They all signed a declaration at the launch – a vow to re-establishing the value of music.
Here’s a video from the event:
It appears that Tidal is being presented as a service that gives back to artists. Taylor Swift, who removed her music from Spotify, has confirmed that her catalogue will be available on Tidal.
But the launch event failed to highlight specifically how it would support smaller musicians more in the online music market.
Essentially, the business plan was lacking. For most people who paid attention to the event, it was little more than an awkward mega-celebrity endorsed Illuminati-esque reunion.
On her Instagram account, Madonna addressed this sentiment:
A photo posted by Madonna (@madonna) on Mar 31, 2015 at 1:34am PDT
According to the Tidal website, this is the “first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial”.
Exclusive material including The White Stripes first television appearance and Daft Punk's 2006 movie 'Electroma' is already available to new subscribers, as well as curated playlists by Arcade Fire and Coldplay.
Unfortunately, the price of this premium Tidal service is €19.99 – twice the price of its leading competitor.
The music streaming market has been dominated by Spotify since it launched in 2008. Competitors already include Google’s Rdio, Deezer, and Pandora, not to mention free services like Youtube and Soundcloud.
Following yesterday’s re-launch, it’s sink or swim for Jay Z’s newest business venture. It already looks like the service is up the stream without a paddle - only time will tell if we’re all swept away by the tide.
