Kanye’s Zuckerberg Plea And Album Mishaps

Few might be better at building hype for their own work than Kanye West himself, and when it was announced over the weekend that fans would have to flock to the streaming service TIDAL for a first listen of Yeezus’ new album “The Life of Pablo,” the app shot to the top of the charts.

Now, it seems like TIDAL is about to come crashing back down.

TechCrunch reported that some TIDAL users, and some TechCrunch staff members themselves, have taken to Twitter to complain about not receiving download instructions for TLOP despite paying for the album. Some users even report being charged multiple times by TIDAL for a single, download-less purchase. While it is unclear if the two events are related, Kanye himself pulled down a link he had previously put on his website that redirected visitors to a TIDAL-sponsored download page.

TIDAL has remained conspicuously silent during the whole TLOP ordeal, with some customers reporting official help tickets still unanswered since being submitted over the weekend. The problems are enough to make one wondering about long-term viability of TIDAL as a music distribution platform. Gizmodo explained that while TIDAL has scored some major press recently with exclusive releases from artists like Rihanna and Beyonce, these stunts are just blips on the radar compared to the market penetration that Spotify already boasts. Soon after fans get over the initial rush of TLOP hitting TIDAL’s congested airwaves, the interest in getting music from that specific platform quickly erodes as users turn back to more established apps like Spotify.

Although, if Kanye really is in debt to the tune of $53 million as he claims to be, perhaps his plea to Mark Zuckerberg for a $1 billion loan to fund his “ideas” could include some charity to TIDAL as well.