Rihanna's new single debuts on Tidal: Is her streaming strategy working?
Rihanna's new song 'Work' is available on the streaming service Tidal but not on other services like Spotify. How is Tidal doing almost a year after its launch?
Rihanna poses at the second annual Diamond Ball fundraising event in Santa Monica, California in 2015.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Singer Rihanna has released a new single, titled 鈥淲ork,鈥� that is a collaboration with rapper Drake and which debuted on the streaming service Tidal.
Rihanna鈥檚 last album was the 2012 work 鈥淯napologetic鈥� and since then, she has released various singles, including 鈥淔ourFiveSeconds,鈥� which was a collaboration with rapper Kanye West and Paul McCartney.聽
cites anonymous sources in reporting that her album 鈥淎nti鈥� will be released sometime before Friday, Jan. 29, though an official release date has not been set.聽
The singer will embark on a tour in North America and Europe promoting 鈥淎nti鈥� on Feb. 26.
鈥淲ork鈥� was released on the streaming service Tidal, of which Rihanna is a co-owner. It is apparently on Apple Music as well, though it does not appear on Spotify or YouTube.
How is Tidal doing now? Is it standing out from its competitors?聽
When it was created, Tidal made headlines for the fact that it was owned by musicians. Singers including Taylor Swift and Radiohead鈥檚 Thom Yorke have spoken out about streaming service Spotify, claiming it pays artists too little. Swift also wrote a letter to Apple because of the service鈥檚 lack of payment to artists whose songs were streamed by Apple Music users in their free trial. Apple Music changed its policy soon after.聽
Tidal users pay about $10 a month for normal-quality streaming and about $20 a month for high-quality streaming.
When Tidal was created, musicians including Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Jack White of the White Stripes, and Madonna were called co-owners of the service.聽
鈥淭he challenge is to get everyone to respect music again, to recognize its value,鈥� Jay-Z said in at the time.聽
He said the way things were before the creation of Tidal was 鈥渃riminal.鈥澛�
鈥淓veryone knows that the pay system is unfair to artists,鈥� he said. 鈥淓verywhere else, everyone gets compensated for their work. Music is everywhere 鈥� you consume it every day, everywhere you go. The content creator should be compensated. It鈥檚 only fair.鈥�
How has Tidal done since its launch almost a year ago?聽
In September, the service hit one million subscribers, a number that is obviously far behind Spotify鈥檚 more than 20 million at the time and the more than six million paid subscribers on Apple Music . However, Spotify, for one, had been around much longer at that point (though Apple Music is in fact newer).聽
But many songs that debuted on Tidal got much lower numbers on that service than they did once they appeared on places like Spotify. , when Rihanna released the song 鈥淎merican Oxygen鈥� last spring, it got 142,000 streams on Tidal, but when the first-week exclusivity was over on Tidal and the song went to, for example, Spotify and YouTube, the song got more than a million streams from the two together.
If, for example, Rihanna decides to make 鈥淎nti鈥� available on Tidal exclusively for a week, 鈥淪potify and YouTube dominate the streaming landscape, and to cut the two pillars out for a week means that Rihanna's聽鈥楢NTI鈥櫬爊umbers are bound to suffer during the period of exclusivity,鈥� Billboard writer Dan Rys and Glenn Peoples wrote.
writes of Rihanna's strategy of exclusivity on Tidal, 鈥淏eing able to use one of the most hotly anticipated albums of the year as a way to get people to sign up could be a huge advantage. But that also represents a huge risk. Keeping 鈥榃ork鈥� and聽possibly聽鈥楢nti鈥� off rival streaming services will severely limit the number of people who can listen to it 鈥� a dicey proposition for an artist who reportedly expects her album to debut at the top of the Billboard charts.鈥�