Initially billed as an exclusive to Tidal, Beyonce’s new Lemonade album is now available to buy on iTunes. Jay-Z’s streaming music service had been touting itself as an exclusive location to listen to Beyonce’s latest album. While Tidal maintains exclusive streaming rights, the album is now being freely sold for download elsewhere.
Tidal has attempted similar stunts in the past, with Kanye West famously stating his album ‘The Life of Pablo’ would never be on Apple Music and would be exclusive to Tidal. However, a track from the album soon showed up on Apple’s services a few weeks later. There is currently a class action lawsuit forming around the false claims of exclusivity.
The Lemonade album features 12 tracks and an accompanying hour long ‘visual album’ video. It was thought to have the potential to break streaming records, as a high profile artist was never promising exclusivity to a streaming platform in such a manner before.
However, the proliferation of the album onto other outlets like iTunes means historical streaming records aren’t likely to be met.
That being said, Beyonce has not given complete control of the album away from Tidal. The service will continue to be the only place to stream Lemonade, at least until someone changes their mind …
Exclusives are becoming a big part of the streaming music service wars. Apple has promoted exclusives heavily on its service to attract customers, including content like the Taylor Swift World Tour video.
Tidal is thought to have around 3 million subscribers. Apple’s streaming competitor, Apple Music, last announced it has 11 million paying subscribers. Spotify continues to lead in the space with 30 million subscribers, although Apple Music’s adoption rates are suggesting it will catch up eventually.
Lemonade is available now on iTunes for $17.99.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Why put it out on Title first?
Thats just stupid.
Her and her husband are both invested in Tidal and want it to make money. She probably also knew it would be for sale on iTunes. She probably also knows that it will eventually be on the other services. She’s one of the biggest and most successful music stars currently making music… I would imagine her and her team are not stupid.
Because Jay-Z (her husband) is the Owner of Tidal ?
Beyonce’ is Jay Z’s wife, so she wants to promote Tidal. Kanye West is just trying to get promotional value over these “exclusive deals’, and then publicize it again when they release it elsewhere. They are just doing what’s called excessive promotion because it’s FREE promotion because the media gets sucked into it.
These ‘exclusives’ are such a con. I am glad I didn’t fall for signing up for this cr*ppy Tidal nonsense.
It seems like the advances streaming has made against piracy are hurt by these exclusives.
There’s nothing wrong with streaming services launching their exclusive titles, I’m also sure that making an album available for purchase doesn’t hurt the exclusivity because they are attracting totally differen consumer groups.
Apple has their share of exclusive titles, Tidal does so too. That’s fine with me if it’s limited to very few albums or if it’s only exclusive for some weeks. If consumers (of streaming services) are forced to sign up for 2 services or are constantly forced to buy an album in addition to their streaming cost then this brings back complexity of consuming music and makes it more expensive. Both reasons lead to napster & co a while back….
I can easily wait 2-3 weeks for a new album or buy 1-2 albums a year which they decide not bring to a streaming service. But that’s the limit.
Agreed. When you consider the amount of money we all save by paying just $10 a month for access to millions of tracks I think buying an album a few times a year seems reasonable.
And when you consider that the $18 price tag comes with that hour long HBO special you’re basically buying the album as well as a movie.
In other news, Prince has the top two albums on the Billboard 200 Album Chart, even though news of his death came in the afternoon of the last day of eligibility for that week.