Jay Z‘s music streaming app TIDAL launched just last month, with a grandiose press conference attended by Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna and Nicki Minaj, but the Spotify competitor already appears to be in trouble. TIDAL’s plummet out of the top 700 iOS download chart has been widely reported and yesterday Kanye West appeared to be distancing himself from the app.
Kanye supported the launch with tweets like “Together, we can turn the tide and make music history. Start by turning your profile picture blue #TIDALforALL” but yesterday he deleted that tweet and seemingly all other tweets referencing the app, as well as removing the TIDAL logo from his profile picture. However, as of this morning, it does seems that he is back on board, tweeting “The love of music is louder than words. TIDAL.COM”.
Despite the flashy launch and high-profile support, things have been looking bleak for chart-flop TIDAL, but there may be one stunt left up Jay Z’s sleeve to revive the service he bought $56 million in March. There have been murmurs of a Jay Z-Beyoncé joint album since last year and it is now rumored that the record will be released exclusively on TIDAL. American musician and presenter DJ Skee said on his YouTube music show The Red Pill: “I first reported last year that Jay Z and Beyonce were working on a joint album, which by the way is finally nearing completion, and now my sources are saying that it will be released exclusively on TIDAL.”
If it’s true, then a Jay Z-Beyoncé collaboration should be big enough to draw huge waves of fans back to TIDAL… so long as they can avoid the chaos that followed Jay Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail album launch. Released as a free digital download exclusively to Samsung customers four days before the official launch via the Jay Z Magna Carta app, fans were actually not the first to get their hands on the music when the app crashed and the tracks played on the radio before being leaked online. If he is hoping that the exclusive release of a joint album with Beyoncé can save the service, then Jay Z better make sure TIDAL can cope with the inevitable demand.