Musicians including Kanye West, Rihanna and Beyoncé have turned their Twitter profiles blue to promote Tidal, the streaming music service recently acquired by Jay Z.
Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Deadmau5 and Jay Z himself are among the other artists taking part in the campaign, which comes hours before the rapper is due to announce his plans for Tidal at a press conference.
The musicians have replaced their Twitter profile pictures and header images with blank blue images – actually turquoise, if we’re being picky – in the kind of coordinated campaign that’s more often used for charitable purposes.
"The Tides They Are-A Changing" #TIDALforALL
— Mr. Carter (@S_C_) March 30, 2015
Music makes the people come together. Join Madonna and turn your profile picture blue. Do it for the music. #TIDALforALL
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 30, 2015
Together, we can turn the tide and make music history. Start by turning your profile picture blue. #TIDALforALL
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) March 30, 2015
NAVY, turn the tide…#MakeMusicHistory #TurnitBlue #TIDALforALL
— Rihanna (@rihanna) March 30, 2015
Tides are about to turn. #TIDALforALL
— deadmau5 (@deadmau5) March 30, 2015
Tidal is a Spotify rival originally launched by Norwegian firm Aspiro in October 2014, before the company was acquired by Project Panther Bidco, a company controlled by Jay Z, in March 2015.
Tidal’s key selling point so far has been its “lossless” quality streams, for which the company charges a monthly subscription of £19.99 – double its rivals. It is available in 31 countries, with six more to follow by the end of June.
Tidal’s website has been counting down to a press conference due to take place at 10pm BST today (Monday 30 March) at which Jay Z is expected to announce his plans for the service. It will be streamed live on the Tidal website.
Some of those plans have leaked already, with a report earlier in March by entertainment site Showbiz 411 that he had convened a summit of music stars – Madonna, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Jack White, Beyoncé and Rihanna included – to outline his ambitions.
“The subject was how they could turn Aspiro – which will be known in the U.S. as TidalHifi when it relaunches – into a streaming music and video service akin to the old United Artists pictures, in which artists would actually profit from their art and put out quality material.
In 1919, a handful of movie stars – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and director D.W. Griffith – banded together and started their own studio to combat what they saw as growing commercialism of the majors. I’m told that Jay Z, who can be a bit of a visionary, sees his new service just this way.”
Tidal has since posted a video to YouTube showing footage of the meeting:
Meanwhile, in a recent press release, the company described Tidal as “a single destination for artists and fans to share ideas, exclusive content, songs, videos, studio sessions, rough tracks, personal conversations and more”.
Project Panther Bidco paid $56m for Aspiro, which ended 2014 with 500,000 paying users for its subscription services. Tidal will compete with Spotify, Deezer and other streaming services, with Apple also set to relaunch its own Beats Music while YouTube brings its YouTube Music Key out of invite-only beta.
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