Why are all of the Twitter profiles blue? Millionaire musicians appropriate the language of charity to promote more expensive alternative to Spotify
Forget Spotify – why not pay double for a nominally higher quality audio service instead? That’s the message being sent out by a bunch of popular celebrities on the Twitters today.
You may have noticed that a bunch of famous names that the kidz like, including Kanye West, Rihanna and Madonna have all turned their profile photos to a block of solid blue. No, it isn’t to promote equal marriage (remember when we all did that?) or some other worthy cause, but is in fact to promote music streaming service “Tidal” which will launch later today.
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
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
Astonishingly, some of the artists’ feckless followers are actually following the instructions, and changing their avatars to do this corporate bidding.
What makes Tidal different is that it offers lossless “high fidelity” audio for $19.99/month – up from the $9.99 that Americans pay for Spotify. There’s also a near identical $9.99 normal quality version. So much, so not-too-remarkable, right? So why are all of the slebs giving it a plug?
The reason behind the ‘campaign’ is because the service was bought not too long ago by novelty artist Jay-Z, who once recorded a misogynistic version of this Martin Luther rap.
Its currently unclear exactly whether Tidal offers better terms for artists than famously stingy Spotify, but as far as I can tell, it is simply some of the biggest artists attempting to use the power of brand to force a worse deal on to the consumer.
