Tidal

https://medium.com/cuepoint/tidal-wave-or-shallow-pool-27f148337cc7

In a way, Tidal is a product without an audience. Hardcore fans probably already use Spotify or Rdio and there’s not much to convince them to shift. Casual fans are using Pandora for background music. Older fans are probably beyond the point of signing up for something because someone famous promoted it. Younger fans weren’t really represented on stage, except by Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. Rock fans only got Arcade Fire (BTW, Win, please square your comments about broke artists “selling out” by accepting free burritos with your decision to own part of a streaming company) and Jack White, who now has interests in both vinyl pressing and streaming music. He’s the music version of the corporate exec who gives money to both parties, just to be sure.

good to have videos and curated playlists. articles and interviews could be cool if the writing is good. def support the pay only model if that's what it takes to make streaming sustainable. don't care about higher than 320kbps quality. this kinda just look like mog. I left mog for spotify because of amount of music available and the better apps at the time (suppose this is lol now, but the mog ipad app was o_O back then).

worth noting that tidal does have a ten dollar model with standard quality streaming; if the curation/writing is strong i could see transitioning but i would need for them to be able to transfer playlists.
ime the shift to a new provider only happens when the old provider implodes; that medium piece is roughly otm that there's no market niche being filled here.

I see "oh the egos" thrown around a lot I don't necessarily agree w that criticism tho (that is a large part of the reason they are at the level they are) but that list of artists is so over-saturated that I could hear songs by every artist in an hour or two of running errands. I can't see the point of paying for more of what I would rather have less of but if you are a fan I guess the more choice the better.

Trying it out now because of the regular fi option's 30 day trial. Still no Hounds of Love. It's got all the Peter Gabriel albums, which US Spotify doesn't, but it's also missing some under the radar indie stuff that Spotify does have. Also, there's no standalone client. It's browser-based, which is basically a dealbreaker.

lol @ how us spotify had peter gabriel for like a week

Oh hang on. The PG albums are there, but they're designated "Unavailable for streaming" so fuck you very much.

is 1989 available? or just the older swift?

guess I can find out for myself

It looks like just the older Taylor albums are up.

Do people really use streaming services

Almost exclusively, yeah.

thanks, JF

"browser based" = thanks, i'll pass

So, UX wise this is pretty nice. A lot neater and more finished looking than either Spotify or Rdio, but the list of most popular tracks on each artist page is 10 instead of Spotify's 5 which means more vertical scrolling. You can enlarge the album art, but you can't save it. Playlist making is as simple as any other service. Would be interested to see if they do enable porting of playlists from other services down the road. Still the main gripe is that it's browser based, which is something I don't think I'd ever come around to liking/using.

https://tidalsupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/202692602-Desktop-Application-Unavailable-for-Download

There is a desktop app in development (or redevelopment), so all hope is not lost.

one mostly unremarked bit of news today was that sony gave up on the music unlimited streaming service and now offers spotify on PS4 and PS3 consoles for in-game streaming of playlists
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/03/30/spotify-launches-on-playstation-music-today/

I hate streaming with a passion.

streaming is dumb yeah

why

spotify is trash

streaming is great

Streaming is great for me, because I never went to the trouble of cataloguing all my mp3s (because I hate iTunes and other bulky mp3 players), so something like Spotify where you can just type something in the search field and hit play is great. Also, since my car stereo is bluetooth equipped, I can use the app on my phone to just beam a gazillion albums straight to it. Streaming is fucking rad.

*pays monthly fee for shit*

is this tanuki premium?

$10 is peanuts considering how much I use it.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/03/30/tidal/

good for a dn

browser-based? oh dear that's a shot in the foot and no mistake. the auto-start soon as you switch the PC on is a big part of the appeal for me and i'm sure many others. sounds dreadfully lazy that but you know.. it's neat.

it's probably unfair to compare the 2 but the launch needed something more like this and less like a bunch of corporate stiffs signing pieces of paper.

http://c0248141.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/BDDC_06137_0048992A.JPG

I hate streaming with a passion.

― raih dednelb (The Reverend), Tuesday, March 31, 2015 5:53 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

streaming is dumb yeah

― deej loaf (D-40), Tuesday, March 31, 2015 5:54 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't hate streaming, but I do wonder what all the streaming champions are going to do when Spotify goes under.

Guys you know there isn't actually any difference, from the pov of the listener, between streaming an album and listening to it on MP3, right? Also RMDE at anyone cosigning that sentiment who has also made a Youtube playlist.

If Spotify does go down, it's not like music will suddenly become difficult to come by, nothing's going to vanish overnight. FWIW I still think Google or Apple or someone will buy Spotify before it goes down - why wouldn't they?

why's it going down??

MP3 in 320 and Spotify in 320 seems very different to me but i like things kinda treble-y and Spotify (for reasons that remain a mystery) has no graphic equalizer.

nothing's going to vanish overnight

apart from all your playlists and saved albums, which is basically an outsourced chunk of my musical memory (i don't have the spare braincells these days)(is there an easy way to export and save such data?)

between streaming an album and listening to it on MP3, right

everyone who uses spotify has a default must have a much better broadband provider than i've ever had (and how do you even do it while travelling?)

spotify is still pretty bad for being able to consistently listen to what i want to without having to switch back to itunes so i've never been remotely tempted. on the rare occasion i log in the adverts do my head in and the interface is clunky.

i had no idea until yesterday that it was in any way low quality sound though! who gives a fuck about that kind of audio fidelity outside of a bret easton ellis novel and/or scik mouthy

The interface is annoyingly clunky but on a decent broadband connection the streaming is fine. On mobile it's pretty much the best option there is for on-demand listening (you can download to your phone, but I wouldn't to that if I didn't have an unlimited data tariff). Anything I really like I make sure I have on MP3 anyway, I'd never rely solely on streaming and I suspect most listeners don't.

It's easy to take the piss out of things like yesterday's launch but surely any competition in this market is a good thing? The existing services are far from perfect and anything that encourages proper improvements is a good thing. The big problem I foresee is when services start battling each other for content and entire catalogues start disappearing from one service and reappearing on another. That'll probably be the beginning or the end because Spotify's big plus point is the size of its catalogue.

really thought exclusive content could've been a game-changer for tidal - if v annoying for the consumer - but no new rihanna album, no new kanye album, it's one thing to show your face at a launch and do a tweet but no one was really up for a step as big as that

how does spotify work when you're out of signal on your mobile? which is a lot of the time

I don't bother streaming on mobile, the interface allows you to download the album or playlist straight to your phone (either over wi-fi or mobile).

that sounds rubbish unless you've decided in advance what you'll want to listen to for your entire travelling time

You don't - you can do it when you're out and about, unless you're in a 3G black spot like the Tube or the middle of the countryside. I regularly download thing and listen to them on a whim throughout my commute, like every day.

no new rihanna album, no new kanye album

Can you elaborate on this, given that neither have been released yet? If they're not going to be on Tidal at all then that's ridiculous.

the tube, the countryside and aeroplanes are pretty large parts of travelling listening though. like great i have a 3hr train journey and spotify won't work.

(there was speculation that rihanna and/or kanye would release exclusive tidal-only material as part of the launch, i'm not sure how seriously anyone expected that but if it had happened it would've been pretty huge)

Also in what universe is the technology going to get any worse? In a few years' time there'll probably be full mobile data coverage pretty much everywhere. No one's advocating streaming to the exclusion of all else, but you're essentially using your lack of familiarity with the technology to justify your already-made decision that it's basically shit.

xp I'm about to take a three-hour train journey. I have around 1300 tracks downloaded to Spotify at 320-equivalent on my phone, including my rolling current tracks and current albums playlists. Around 300 of those tracks weren't on the Spotify database, so I dragged and dropped them from iTunes into the desired playlist positions within the Spotify desktop client. I almost never use iTunes to play music, because it's so straightforward to seamlessly integrate MP3s into Spotify playlists. If I use iTunes for playback, I've only got access to a minority of the music I might want to play. If I use Spotify for playback, then I can access all of it.

Seems insane to me that anyone could call this amazing technology 'shit.'

Also, yes, it seems insane to me that they didn't tie this in to some massive release(s) - how could they have been so blind with this? If the thing launched with the new Kanye people would be sprinting to sign up rather than laughing it off entirely

I actually think Spotify's library feature is terrible, I don't understand why they don't just lift that functionality from iTunes or any number of half-decent media players so that you only ever need to use one desktop player.

I hate streaming with a passion.

― raih dednelb (The Reverend), Monday, March 30, 2015 10:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

streaming is dumb yeah

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, March 30, 2015 10:54 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why

― jaymc, Monday, March 30, 2015 10:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have spotty wifi and a weak data plan, plus I'm a dj and need mp3/wav to play out. Also I just intuitively hate it.

What's the difference between downloading via Spotify onto your phone for places with no signal vs. sticking to MP3s altogether so you don't have to do all that in the same situation?

If Spotify goes under we all have to use tapes again.