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Tidal Discovery will give independent artists more control over their music

Tidal Discovery will give independent artists more control over their music

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The forthcoming service will allow artists to bypass distribution services and upload their music directly

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Even though Tidal is backed by some of the biggest and richest artists in the world, it hasn't forgotten about independent artists. Speaking to Smashd, Tidal CIO Vania Schlogel detailed an upcoming service called Discovery that will make it much easier for independent artists to get their music on Tidal. Discovery will allow independent artists to upload their music directly instead of the current model which requires them to go through a third-party service.

Tidal will share user listening habits with artists

"When it comes to the distribution of music, I want to get to a point where there are no blockades for artists in order to be able to easily do that for themselves," Schlogel told Smashd. Artists using Tidal Discovery will also get access to an artist dashboard, which will display data generated from users like listening habits, location, and email addresses. That information is usually given to the distributor, but Tidal is looking to change that. "The end game [is] that we want everyone to be able to self-upload their own music and then track it very intuitively through this artist dashboard."

The streaming service also noted that its payouts to indie labels are equal with those to majors, unlike the rest of the streaming industry. The industry standard payouts are 55 percent for indie labels and 60 percent for majors, but Tidal is paying 62.5 percent to all labels, regardless of size. Tidal hasn't said when Discovery will be available, but continuing to add more features directed at artists may help slow the criticism from other musicians. The question is how much will it appeal to consumers?