Recode today reports that Kanye West might be making a full u-turn with his latest album by actually offering it to stream on Spotify and Apple Music. Just this week one of the tracks from the album hit Apple Music, further driving speculation that a full release was imminent.
Apple Music may be sorting through its own not so behind-the-scenes shuffling ahead of its launch in one week, but the Jay-Z backed Tidal music streaming service is continuing to struggle at the top. Less than three months since starting the job of interim CEO, Peter Tonstad will no longer be leading the company, the WSJ reported today.
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Apple’s upcoming Beats-based streaming music service will likely be named “Apple Music” and will have deep social networking integration for artists, according to industry sources briefed on the plans for the new service.
Taking a page out of the discontinued iTunes Ping feature from earlier this decade, the service will allow artists to have their own pages within the streaming music service that they can use to post track samples, photos, videos, and concert updates.
Artists will also be able to share the content of other artists in an effort of cross-promotion. For example, all-gold Apple Watch wearer Kanye West could promote a new album from Taylor Swift on his “Apple Music” artist page, if he so chooses…
New iPhone 6c rumors have begun as an alleged plastic housing surfaces, but is there room for a new model? Also, Jay-Z is coming after Beats Music with some hi-fi competition. Along with that, we discuss exclusive Apple Watch details that you don’t want to miss out on. The Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and through our dedicated RSS feed…
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In case you hadn’t heard, Jay-Z is this week launching (relaunching) the Tidal music service he recently acquired along with a lot of help from industry friends. The company is hoping its model is innovative and helps artists earn more, but its UI for the web app appears to be a shameless copy of Spotify, as you can see in the comparison screenshot: Tidal above, Spotify below.
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Jay Z suggested in an interview with Billboard that Jimmy Iovine had tried to lure away top-selling artists from his newly-relaunched streaming music service, Tidal, but that he wasn’t angry about it. Iovine had reputedly offered more up-front cash to Tidal artists who agreed to do a deal with Apple.
I think that’s just his competitive nature, and I don’t know if he’s looking at the bigger picture: That it’s not about me and it’s not about him; it’s about the future of the music business.
The rap and hip-hop star said that he had initially hoped to work in cooperation with Iovine, having “talked to every single service,” but had apparently been rebuffed …
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If Apple plans to offer artist exclusives as a way to encourage sign-ups to its rebranded Beats Music streaming service, it will be facing new competition. TechCrunch reports that Tidal, the high-definition music service being relaunched later today by new owner Jay Z, is set to announce some exclusive deals with big-name artists.
Tidal is […] reportedly making a move to snag new releases by some of the biggest musicians of the moment including Kanye West, Madonna and Daft Punk […]
Tidal’s plan of attack will be to ink first-window deals with the artists, where Tidal would get first releases of tracks from big-name artists ahead of any other digital streaming services.
The artists named in the report have all been using the #tidalforall hashtag in recent tweets and Instagram posts …
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Kanye West hasn’t been shy when it comes to expressing his opinions about Apple. Earlier this week he sat down for an interview with AdWeek and noted he thought Samsung’s deal last year with Jay-Z might have influenced Apple to invest in pop culture through its purchase of Beats. Above, Kanye expands on that thought in an interview with Bloomberg during the Cannes Creativity Festival. In the interview, while explaining that he thinks Apple didn’t see the value in investing in pop culture before the Samsung deal with Jay-Z, Kanye drives the point home by noting Apple offered artists “extra space on the iTunes page” instead of paying them to perform at the iTunes Festival.
We already knew that Apple wasn’t paying artists to perform at its iTunes Festival, which arrived in the U.S. for the first time this year during the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. Kanye previously called out Tim Cook during one of his usual onstage rants earlier this year, but we didn’t know Apple was offering artists prime real estate on the iTunes store in exchange for their performances.
Kanye’s full quote is below:
“It showed, now that Steve has passed… It showed a number one company the importance of connecting with culture. And I know you might of heard about this thing where I was on stage calling Tim Cook out and saying why do you have these guys performing at SXSW and you don’t want to pay them. You just want to give us extra space on the iTunes page and stuff. Meanwhile, Samsung realized, the whole point of what we’re saying, is that no you have to go and pay these guys. And that culture and creativity is worth something. The best thing about the fall of Blackberry and the rise at Apple is the win for creativity…
Noted marketing and branding genius Kanye West said in an Adweek interview published today that the recent deal between Apple and Beats Electronics only came about because Apple rival Samsung inked a deal with Jay Z. In Kanye’s view, this makes all the sense in the world.
According to West, who is a dedicated Apple fan and dislikes Samsung, the Korean phone maker earned substantial “cultural credibility” with the public when it signed a promotional deal with hip hop artist Jay Z last year. Oh, and that time Kanye joined Jay Z at a Samsung-funded concert a few months ago probably helped, too.
As we’ve previously reported, Apple began giving away select paid apps in its Apple Store app recently as an added incentive to download and check out the app.
This week in particular Apple has replaced the free app with free music from iTunes instead. The playlist is appropriately holiday themed and features songs such as Silent Night by Kelly Clarkson and The First Noel by Mary J Blige.
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