Very few industries have as rich of a timeline than the
music industry. Everything from radio, vinyl records, live performances to
cassettes, compact discs and digital platforms, the music industry has been an
ever growing entity through history.
Being a 90s child, cassettes were just starting to go out of
style as the new compact disc was beginning to be the new wave of technology. I
remember how I would always have my CD player on me with my CD album holder
that could hold up to 20 CDs. Crazy, right?! Back in these days I’m sure it was
much easier for artists to get their share of income as everyone was buying CDs
left and right. Although CDs, cassettes and vinyls are still around, it appears
that many artists feel short handed with the music sharing capabilities of the
Internet.
With platforms like Spotify, SoundCloud and the new Tidal,
users can pay a monthly fee to have complete access to a vast array of music.
Platforms like YouTube can do the same but for no cost at all. It is too
familiar that people can easily pull the audio from a free YouTube music video
and upload it to his or her’s iTunes with no expenses. This is where many
artist are becoming frustrated with.
Tidal, a music-sharing platform created by Jay Z, is in attempt
to stop this. Various artists have joined up with Jay Z in his attempt to
create a Spotify like music platform that offers high quality music and videos
for users to enjoy. Users pay a monthly price, which will eventually make its
way to the artists who are participating in Tidal. What may seem like the
perfect solution has unfortunately fallen short. With an incredible amount of
negative review and backlash, Tidal has turned into a mere ripple.
I do not have a Spotify account nor do I ever plan on getting
a Tidal account. As one of my previous blogs mentions, I mainly listen to my
music off of YouTube, and occasionally buy an album off of iTunes. I completely
understand why musical artists are becoming concerned with what they perceive
as low income, and I’m not sure how this problem can be solved.
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