Industry insider and founder of Dash Radio, DJ Skee in his "Red Pill" address, where he breaks down the issues facing the industry today, discussed the fragmentation of the streaming world and how the industry is cannibalizing itself in an attempt to try and minimize losses in the short term. At about 1:50 in, Skee causally broke the news that Beyoncé's and Jay Z's joint album (which he also broke the news about it happening in general) is nearing completion and will be released exclusively on TIDAL.
Exclusive content has been one of the major selling points for TIDAL thus far with its 16-member, pop star investor force of artists. So far the exclusives from Daft Punk, Rihanna and Beyoncé have yet to pay dividends for the service, but this could be the first major break for them.
It would not be the first time Jay Z has partnered with a service or brand to exclusively present an album. He released his last album Magna Carta with Samsung, but as Skee notes, the rollout crashed the servers and forced fans who were eligible to get to download it, to go outside of the service and illegally acquire the LP.
Some of these concerns can be alleviated with streaming since many services make it nearly impossible to pirate a download from streaming services, but with such a high profile release, TIDAL will be under fire from those who want the album.
The news comes conveniently just as TIDAL started to look like it was busting. It had fallen out of the top 750 downloaded apps in the Apple app store and its rivals Spotify and Pandora were only gaining revenue with the negative publicity gained from the rollout.
Skee also revealed that Tyler, The Creator's Golf application, which he recently released had more signups in its first day than TIDAL without the illuminati press conference or any marketing gimmick. Maybe Jay Z just needs to get back to basics with quality content and let it sell itself.
