Tidal is now undoubtedly the best music streaming service for musicians and music fans alike.
A rough start…
There is no doubt that Tidal had a rough go at the start. Its initial launch campaign left a bad taste in some consumer’s mouths. Unfortunately what was lost was the point that Tidal doesn’t just pay more money to music’s biggest starts, but more importantly, it also provides much better payments to independent artists.
Tidal pays artists more than almost all of its competitors…
The difference in payouts to between Tidal and a service like Spotify can be the difference between putting food on the table and not for an independent artist.
Tidal’s new UI is responsive, intuitive, and gorgeous…
Although it hasn’t always been this way. When I first signed up for a Tidal subscription back in 2016, Spotify’s mobile and desktop apps were quite a bit faster and much more modern looking. I’m happy to say that’s no longer the case.
In July 2017 Tidal released a re-designed version of their mobile app for iOS and Android, and in 2018 they launched their new desktop apps for Mac and PC. They took things to a whole new level. The re-design made the application lightning-fast and took away any advantages that it’s competitors once had.
Why you need to use Tidal if you’re a musician…
One word – “Credits”.
In 2018 Tidal added extensive credits to tracks, albums, and artists. This is like having the original liner notes you would get when purchasing a physical copy. Spotify and other services often only provide the songwriter of the track — you don’t know who produced it, who’s playing drums, who’s playing guitar. All of this information is on the vast majority of albums and tracks in Tidal (as long as the label provided it)
Study Musicians and See Everything They’ve Done
In 2019 Tidal expanded the credits functionality even further. Now you can click on the name of one of the musicians you see in the credits, and go to a dedicated page for that musician. This also works with recording engineers, producers, and other roles. You can even sort by category, as shown above.
Want to see everything Jon Brion produced? You can do it.
Want to see everything Jon Brion played on as a musician? You can do it.
If you are a student of music, or a superfan, you can now explore an artist’s extensive history. This is invaluable for a musician/producer/engineer to be able to study one of their inspirations.
Learn more about Tidal Credits on their website.
Tidal delivers better sound quality than Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and most others
This is what Tidal is most known for. Tidal offers CD quality HiFi audio, which offers much greater detail and dynamics than its competitors.
Then there’s Tidal Masters, introduced in 2017. These are MQA files that offer master-quality audio, much closer to what the artist recorded in the studio than any other format.
As of March 2019 Tidal has brought MQA master-quality audio to both its Android and iOS apps, in addition to its desktop apps.
Although the MQA format has been the subject of a lot of debate, my experience listening to Tidal Masters can be summed up in one word — breathtaking.
In conclusion…
We love Tidal and think that the service is superior overall to its competitors, and and we believe it is the best music streaming service for musicians and serious music listeners.
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