Jay Z and friends re-launch Tidal, the lossless streaming service

While it was already known that Jay Z was buying Swedish company Aspiro, owner of Tidal and WiMP, for an altogether-not-insignifcant $56m, it was only today revealed that the rap mogul was going into co-ownership with a significant group of fellow performers. 

On-stage at the New York event, Jay Z was joined by artists spanning multiple genres including Rihanna, Daft Punk, Beyoncé Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Madonna, Usher, J. Cole and Nicki Minaj, while Calvin Harris and Chris Martin of Coldplay dialled in through video conference. Alicia Keys gave a speech signifying the newly re-launched company’s intent, describing it as the first music streaming service owned by artists themselves. 

Today sees the introduction of a new lower-priced tier, at $9.99 a month for standard quality streaming, whereas the lossless subscription will cost $19.99 a month. The prices in the UK translate to £9.99 and £19.99, which are less than favourable exchange rates. There will be no free streaming option, which will be music to the ears of arists such as Taylor Swift and Bjork who both bemoaned services such as Spotify allegedly paying low royalties to artists.

If you’re looking for a new streaming service, read our guide: Best music streaming service – which should I subscribe to?

Tidal is being advertised as the streaming service of choice for the discernible audiophile. While rival services such as Spotify and Google Play Music All Access top out at 320Kbit/s, Tidal streams its music at up to 1,411Kbit/s in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) format. This means music is streamed in lossless CD-quality, although this shouldn’t be confused with high-resolution audio, which uses up to 24bit/192kHz files that equate to 9,216Kbit/s. It’s still considerably higher than rival services.

Tidal also made available the following promotional video that features some of the prominent artists: