As you may have heard Jay-Z just pulled together some important friends for the launch of Tidal, a European streaming service he just purchased for $54 million.

Guests included Daft Punk, Calvin Harris, Kanye West, Beyonce, Madonna and more and were presented as co-owners of the hi-fidelity streaming service which left tech site Gawker fairly unimpressed.

Aside from the fanfare of the launch we’ve been scratching our heads as to what Tidal is and what it’ll actually provide over competitors such as Beats, Spotify and Rdio.

Here’s what we know;

Tidal

 

Tidaly is a European streaming service that Jay-Z picked up for a cool $54 million and has set about changing the future of music somehow.

The bits and bones of the service boast it as – “the first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial”.

There is word that the service will also give more back to the artists and is probably down to the $19.99 monthly fee that is around double that of its competitors.

Service

 

Tidal is a paid-only service costing as mentioned $19.99 a month. No freebies so once your in you get to try the goods which some say quality wise lacks in UI but makes up for it in high fidelity in sound (assuming you’ve got the HiFi to utilise it).

Artists

 

Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J. Cole, Jay Z, Kanye West, Deadmau5, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher joined the launch with Chris Martin and Calvin Harris zooming in via skype.

It’s expected these guys might give up exclusives or link to the service ahead of other competitors. It’s rumoured that Taylor Swift who jettisoned from Spotify to be independent somehow just meant she’s pushing her catalog over to Tidal.

We just want new Daft Punk to be honest.

Numbers

 

So far the service only has 30,000 or so paid subscribers which is fine considering this is it’s official hard launch. Expect to see these numbers jump over the next 6-12 months.

First impressions

 

Hard to pick it, with that much oomph behind it it’s surely going to gather some traction but with it’s competitors such as Beats, now owned by Apple and curated by BBC’s Zane Lowe it’s going to be tough.

Maybe it’ll fit into a niche such as Rdio that is a personal favourite and owned by Microsoft. Maybe we should you know, start paying for things instead of always going for free?

Head to the official Tidal site before checking out the launch video below