Tidal: Probably the Best Music Streaming Service
The battle between music streaming services has gotten more and more competitive as of late. The three streaming giants of Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal have been competing between exclusive music, playlists, interviews, even to radio stations. With each of them having their perks, I’m here to tell you why Tidal is probably your best option.
Disclaimer: Tidal is not paying me to endorse them in this article (although I would love a Tidal bag)
I have a lot of experience with many different music streaming services. Since 2014, I have used Spotify, Beats Music (which later became Apple Music), Google Play Music, Apple Music, and now Tidal. After moving around all of these music apps, I had seemed to find my favorite in Apple Music. I was subscriber for all of 2017, but I was being tempted by Tidal all year.
Between the exclusive Prince discography, the latest Jay-Z album with exclusive videos, and the Rap Radar Podcast eventually moving to the app, I kept considering switching to their service. Finally, out of frustration of my entire library on Apple Music being accidentally deleted one day, I said “Screw it”, and went to Tidal.
After 2 months with the service I can say that Tidal is the best music streaming service option for a few reasons.
- It’s User Friendly
Tidal’s interface is efficient and easy. The home screen is the hub for new music, giving you the latest new tracks and albums, the top music being streamed, as well as suggestions for music you may like based on your listens. The explore page allows you to search through any of the many genres available, as well as find music videos or listen to podcasts. The collection gives you easy access to all of your favorited music. The app’s layout is simple and covers all the bases without cluttering your screen.
- The Collection is well organized
Tidal’s music library makes it easy to find whatever song or album you want to play. Everything can be found sorted in categories by playlists, albums, tracks, videos, artists, and downloaded music. Along with these many different categories, you can sort the content alphabetically, in order of recently added, and even by release date.
Being somebody who has a plethora of music saved in my collection, the ability to organize the content however I want is extremely useful.
- There’s a lot of exclusive content
As I was first signing up for Tidal, I figured that the exclusive content the company raves about only included some albums from Prince and Jay-Z, maybe a few podcasts. Once I got the app, I realized that there is way more content then you would think.
Exclusive Videos: Not only are there exclusive music videos from artists such as Jay Z or Bon Jovi, there are tons of video series that Tidal has in their content. Some of the series include Car Test with Elliott Wilson, Side Hustle, and Bless The Booth.
Exclusive Podcasts: From the Rap Radar Podcast, To Coca Vision with Fat Joe, to 47 Minutes with Joey Bada$$, Tidal’s Podcasts have some great interviews with the industry’s best artists / producers.
Exclusive Concert Footage: Tidal gets footage from some of the biggest concert festivals like The Meadows and Made in America. They also have individual concert experiences from artists like Lil Uzi Vert, Chris Brown, and Miguel.
- Tidal pays their artists more per stream than Apple Music and Spotify combined
(Graphic made by David McCandless, InformationIsBeautiful.net)
In today’s new age technology, streaming has become very important to artists. Each music streaming platform pays their artists differently, as you can see in the chart above by informationisbeautiful.net. These numbers may seem minuscule, they are still important, especially for independent artists. Without a major label backing, independent acts rely heavily on streaming revenue. With a Tidal subscription, you are helping your favorite artists way more than you would on other platforms.
While you may be comfortable using your current streaming service, don’t close be closed off to the idea of switching over to Tidal. If anything, start a 30 day free trial on the app and see for yourself if its the right fit for you. You could even get a 3 month free trial of Tidal through Groupon here.
