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Jay Z's Music Streaming Sounds Great, But It Will Cost You

Tidal prides itself on providing a high-quality sound and video experience, but the next-level service costs nearly twice as much as its competitors.

Jay Z's Music Streaming Sounds Great, But It Will Cost You
Tidal
By Matt Moreno
SMS
March 30, 2015

Jay Z is launching a new music streaming service, and boy, does he have the star-power backing to do so. 

Rapper/business mogul Jay Z bought Tidal from a Scandinavian company last month and will launch the service Monday. The service describes itself as "the first music streaming service that combines the best High Fidelity sound quality, High Definition music videos and expertly Curated Editorial."

Here's the site's home page, where you can search by featured content, videos, albums, playlists, tracks and more. Jay Z will have no issue getting the word out about the new service, either. 

On Twitter, the biggest names in the music world tweeted about the service and changed their profile pictures to a tidal wave shade of blue, including Lil Wayne, Beyonce, Kanye West, Madonna and more. 

Still, that doesn't mean the music service will be totally successful. It already has its fair share of competitors, including Spotify, iTunes, Beats Music — all with significantly lower price tags than Tidal's $19.99 a month cost for lossless sound quality. 

"HiFi is kind of what Tidal is theming off of. Tidal, they want to be the luxury of streaming services, hence the price point being double that of Spotify and most other streaming services out there," Revolt TV reviewer Desean Barnes said. 

Company representatives tell Page Six it will not only be user-friendly but artist-friendly, too — something Taylor Swift complained about months ago when she pulled her music from Spotify, explaining to Time she didn't feel the service compensates artists fairly. 

Assuming it is a success, it could make Jay Z and friends a lot of money. As the founder of entertainment company Roc Nation and sports agency Roc Nation Sports, Jay Z is worth some $520 million, according to Forbes. 

And a writer for that outlet says this latest venture could put him over the edge. "For Jay Z, considering the current climate, owning a music-driven tech company presents the perfect path for quickly breaking into the real billionaire boys club." 

Jay Z will launch the service at a press event Monday evening in New York.

This video includes images from Getty Images and music from Brenticus / CC BY 3.0.