One of Tidal's celebrity owners has admitted that its launch was 'poorly managed'
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Speaking to The Independent, Butler said that "none of the artists knew anything about the PR," referring to the collection of famous people who were on stage for Tidal's press conference in New York.
Butler went on to say that he thought Tidal's New York event "was a poorly managed launch, but conceptually the thing that we liked about Tidal was that it's HD streaming quality."
Stars including Kanye West, Madonna and Daft Punk joined Jay Z on stage for the launch of Tidal, the music streaming company that he purchased earlier this year.
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Despite the star power, many people criticised Tidal's launch event. Dr. Todd Green, a professor at the Goodman School of Business at Brock University, told Business Insider that he thought Tidal's New York event was a major mistake. "The true criticism of Tidal went back to the launch," he said. "They started out on the wrong foot from the beginning."
Many journalists felt that the overall tone of the press conference was strange. Bloomberg described it as filled with "utopian rhetoric," and Music Ally called it "big on stars, less so on details."
Things got worse when Jay Z gave interviews after the event. He told Billboard that "people are not respecting the music, and devaluing what it really means. People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it's good water."
#NeverForget"Water is free." -Jay Z pic.twitter.com/1fwGLFUgBS
- Nessa. (@curlyheadRED) May 27, 2015
Elsewhere in the interview with The Independent, Butler blames record labels for Tidal's $20 monthly price for high-resolution music streaming. "They dictated that Tidal has to cost $20," he said. "The major label music industry has completely ruined every aspect of their business. At every step of the way they've had the tools offered to them to create an industry that works, and they've completely blown it."
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