Kanye West cuts ties with Tidal as Jay-Z’s latest album pops up on Apple Music

“The same day that [Tidal owner] Jay-Z[‘s] album ‘4:44’ exits Tidal exclusivity, heavy Tidal promoter Kanye West has reportedly cut all ties to the streaming service,” Mike Wuerthele reports for AppleInsider. “After initial indications suggesting that 4:44 would remain a Tidal exclusive, the Platinum-certified album has popped up on Amazon Music, and Apple Music — but not on Spotify as of yet.”

“Platinum records are those albums associated with one million ‘album units,’ according to the RIAA. One album purchase, 10 tracks purchased off an album, or 1500 streams of a track on services like Tidal or Apple Music equal one album unit,” Wuerthele reports. “However, the status was gained by Sprint’s purchase of one million copies of the album according to Billboard, to give away to subscribers. The status was awarded on Sprint’s purchase, and not by listener streams.”

Wuerthele reports, “Also on Friday, high profile artist Kanye West has split with Tidal.”

Read more in the full article here.

Andy Gensler reports for Billboard, “A source close to Kanye West [one of Tidal’s initial 16 artist-owners] has confirmed that Tidal’s exclusivity rights have been terminated based on what is alleged to be Tidal’s failure to honor its financial obligations.”

“According to a report that originally appeared on TMZ, West claimed that Tidal owes him ‘“more than $3 million’ after his album The Life of Pablo allegedly ‘resulted in 1.5 million new subscribers to Tidal, for which he was supposed to get a bonus but the company hasn’t paid,'” Gensler reports. “The report also claimed Tidal failed to compensate Kanye for his music videos.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple Music roadkill cling to truck that flattened them.

SEE ALSO:
Jay Z’s Tidal music service loses its third CEO in two years – May 26, 2017
Sprint buys stake in Tidal Music Service – January 23, 2017
Kanye West tries to goad Apple CEO Tim Cook to buy Tidal – August 1, 2016
Kanye West calls for Apple to buy Tidal, demands executive meeting – July 31, 2016
Apple buying Tidal would be a very savvy move – July 1, 2016
Why the heck would Apple want to buy Jay Z’s Tidal? – July 1, 2016
Why Apple buying Jay Z’s Tidal makes sense – and why it doesn’t – July 1, 2016
Desperate Spotify tries to manufacture an Apple App Store antitrust issue that does not exist – July 1, 2016
Spotify accuses Apple of ‘grave harm’ – July 1, 2016
Apple in talks to acquire Jay Z’s Tidal music service – June 30, 2016

30 Comments

        1. Apparently, I’m still off your Christmas list. Further, as to the logic of it, you are the one who claimed to not care about the topic, not I. Of course it’s well known that logic is neither your forte nor concern.

        2. Oh, Buzzy: After filling-out the above form (in triplicate), mail to:

          Crazy Ol’ Maxine
          Chairperson, The House Butthurt Oversight Committee
          The US House of Representatives
          Washington DC 20515

          thank you for your gracious cooperation…and remember:
          “stay woke, muh-fuh, stay woke!”

  1. You still bust on Tidal – Kanye and J-Z can leave the building.
    They are worthless..

    But from an audio standpoint, and the amount of integration of Tidal into the various music streamers it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Roon / Tidal pairing is by far the greatest pairing.

    Apple would be well served to buy it for $1 less than what J-Z paid. $59,999,999.00. And turn Tidal into iTunes.

  2. Kanye West sold out. I used to respect him, but then he started acting like a damn fool. Don’t get me started on his BS politics. He is an embarrassment to my people.

    1. Kanye West sensed Tidal exclusivity would not bring him the riches he felt he deserved, so he demanded that Apple buy out Tidal, demanded a meeting with the Apple bigwigs. I almost expected him to yell, “Do you know who I am?!” Now he isn’t making enough ducats from his latest diatribal monotonic miasma, so he’s supplying it to other channels (even Apple) to jack up sales, filing a bogus charge against Tidal to cover his capricious, dissembling ass. I expect Dr Dre advised Tim Cook to avoid Kanye West like an STD, saying something like “we got enough adventure over here without him strutting around like a cakewalker. It’d be Kanye this, Kanye that, all the time. Nobody wants that.”

  3. The whole idea of Tidal was that its multi-millionaire musician founders were supposed to keep more of the money from sales/streams.

    That worked out well, I see.

    Tidal doesn’t really have much of a future. It’s ‘partners’ are flakes. Upon its passing, we shall not mourn.

    1. Do you suppose that any product Apple makes is not also intended to make its multimillionaire managers even richer? Right or wrong, that’s the goal of capitalists, to extract the maximum amount of cash from you.

      Tidal, by the way, defeats iTunes in many ways. You should try before you judge.

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