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Kanye West settles lawsuit over 'The Life of Pablo' Tidal exclusivity
Kanye West has settled a lawsuit with fan Justin Baker-Rhett, who sued the artist over claims that West's album The Life of Pablo would be available exclusively through Tidal. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed but all charges filed in the case have been dismissed, including a potential class-action lawsuit that will no longer move forward.
Tidal reportedly inflated streaming stats for Beyoncé and Kanye West
Tidal is under fire once again for allegedly inflating its streaming numbers. This time, it's for misreporting the amount of plays Beyoncé's Lemonade and Kanye West's The Life of Pablo had by "several hundred million" false plays. According to a report (translated) from Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN), there's no way that the streaming numbers could've been that high without Tidal manipulating its data. More plays meant that the two artists garnered higher royalty payments. The publication received a hard drive brimming with Tidal play data including play times, song titles, user IDs and country codes.
Kanye West album is the first to go platinum from streaming alone
Kanye West's The Life of Pablo may have had excessive hype between the initial Tidal exclusive, the expansion to other services and the changing tracklist, but it's definitely a commercial success. The RIAA has confirmed to Engadget that Pablo was recently certified platinum, making it the first-ever album to get the honor based solely on listens through streaming-only services. While it's not exclusively a streaming album (Kanye sells it as a download on his site), its 1.5 billion US streams were enough to achieve platinum status by themselves. Downloads represented less than 0.1 percent of Pablo's performance back in May 2016, and it's safe to say they didn't climb higher without availability in iTunes and other download stores.
Frank Ocean's 'Blonde' has been pirated 750,000 times
It seems streaming exclusives are continuing to create a rise in piracy. After a four-year hiatus Frank Ocean finally resurfaced, dropping his long-anticipated sophomore album, Blonde, on Apple Music last weekend. Critics and fans are enjoying it, but it's not all good news for the R&B singer. So far, the album has been illegally downloaded over a whopping 750,000 times.
Kanye West adds 'Saint Pablo' track to his living album
Whether you love, hate or have been pushed to piracy by either the artist or his unconventional release strategy, Kanye West will continue meddling with his The Life of Pablo album. After announcing the Saint Pablo tour early in the day, the album disappeared from its listing on Tidal before reappearing with an extra song. The 20th track on the ever changing album is also titled Saint Pablo and features Sampha. It's live on Tidal and iTunes/Apple Music so far, although we haven't heard about any other changes to the album. Saint Pablo isn't an entirely new piece however, as the track leaked online around the same time TLOP stopped being a Tidal-exclusive. Of course, while the lack of exclusivity could be a downer, West is still pushing Tidal with the new tour, promising its members will have early pre-sale access to tickets tomorrow on the 16th.
Producer recreates 'The Life of Pablo' without ever hearing it
If you didn't know, Kanye West's latest album was a Tidal exclusive for a pretty long time. Tidal isn't available in Japan, and pirating music is a criminal offence with penalties as harsh as up to two years prison time for downloading and ten (yes, ten) for uploading. With no way to listen to the album, producer Toyomu decided to take matters into his own hands. He decided to make his own The Life of Pablo (TLOP).
Kanye West's new album arrives on Spotify and Apple Music
You can finally listen to Kanye West's new album, The Life of Pablo, on a streaming service that isn't Tidal, including Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play Music. The much-anticipated record has been a Tidal exclusive since February, although since then the rapper has been quietly tweaking and refining many of the headline tracks. It's rare for an artist, especially one as big as Kanye, to fine-tune an album in such a public manner. Notably, The Life of Pablo is also available to purchase now -- something the broke superstar had previously promised would never happen.
Kanye West's new album may hit Apple Music, Spotify tomorrow (update)
Anyone who's familiar with Kanye's antics knows to always take his words with a grain of salt. Back in February, after releasing The Life of Pablo exclusively on Tidal (a music service he owns a stake in), West tweeted that the album would "never never never be on Apple [Music]." But, thankfully for some of his fans, it looks like that statement won't hold true. According to reports from Mashable and Recode, citing sources familiar with the matter, TLOP will be released on Apple Music and Spotify this Friday, April 1st. Shocker.
Kanye caught on Pirate Bay while his album streams on Pornhub (update)
In the picture above, you'll spot Joel Zimmerman's alter ego, Deadmau5, standing side by side with Kanye West. Last night, the rodent-headed musician was putting a little distance between him and his Tidal buddy, for apparently using Pirate Bay to download a software synthesiser called Xfer Serum (a $190 purchase). Deadmau5 was responding to a tweet from West that simply read "Day 3," along with a screen shot of what he was listening to (Sufjan Stevens' "Death with Dignity"). Zimmerman noticed West's other browser tabs in view, which included one for Xfer Records' Serum, one for "Pirate Bay Torrent Xfe..." and another for "The 50 best VSTs" (software instruments). Oh, and the surest giveaway you're browsing something dodgy: MacKeeper.
Kanye West's Tidal exclusive could hurt both him and his fans
Kanye West spent the weeks leading up to the release of his long-awaited new album going wild on Twitter. He simultaneously reaffirmed his runaway ego and also gave an inside look at his thought process as he finalized The Life of Pablo before its Valentine's Day launch. Album titles changed at will and West continually added and dropped songs. He took so long to finish things up that he missed the promised February 12th release date. Whatever you think of West, he's an artist. Even if his personality or songs turn you off, he's one of the most creative and successful musicians of the last decade. That makes his stubborn insistence on making The Life of Pablo a Tidal exclusive even more puzzling, because he's putting his stake in the music streaming service over his art. Both West and his fans will likely suffer for the decision.
Pirates prove Kanye's new album isn't really Tidal-exclusive
Kanye West's anticipated album had a bizarre launch, but once the album was finally released early Sunday morning, we hoped the drama would be over. We were wrong. Shortly after putting up The Life of Pablo as a Tidal streaming exclusive that you could also buy outright, West decided to pull the album from standard sales entirely. In one of his increasingly-commonplace Twitter rants, West practically begged followers to sign up to Tidal and proclaimed The Life of Pablo will "never never never be on Apple" and would never be for sale.
Kanye West's new album is streaming exclusively on Tidal
Music icon (and owner of perhaps the weirdest account on Twitter) Kanye West has finally delivered his highly-anticipated new album, The Life of Pablo. West has been teasing the album on Twitter for weeks now, changing the title and adding tracks at will. But now the full album (18 tracks, with four of those considered "bonus tracks, if you're keeping count) is streaming exclusively on Tidal for the next week. If you don't want to sign up for Tidal, you can also purchase a digital version for the eye-raising price of $20.
