TIDAL Embroiled In Fresh Streaming Numbers Drama Over Meek Mill Album

For every win TIDAL scores, it feels like a loss quickly follows.

It’s apt then that their latest scandal involves Meek Mill‘s new album ‘Winners & Losers.’

Find out why below…

According to a new report by Hits Daily Double, JAY-Z’s TIDAL is under increased scrutiny over streaming figures for Mill’s LP. So much so that Billboard are being critiqued for even counting them.

So, what’s the tea?

Meek, who is managed by Jay’s Roc Nation, is seeing his album made available to stream without any cost – in front of a paywall. Perplexing given that TIDAL is one of the few streaming platforms that doesn’t have a free ad-supported tier.

Indeed, if you click here, it’s presently possible to stream ‘Winners & Losers’ in full without even having a TIDAL account. This, despite a message saying plays are limited to 30 second snippets – which clearly isn’t the case.

Per HDD, these free streams generate no revenue and thus equate to free goods, ultimately making them ineligible for chart inclusion.

[Note: the “free-ness” of rival services like Spotify is supported by ads, which – by way of iron clad contracts – generates revenue for labels and artists too.]

Perhaps most worrisome for some industry commentators is that the presence of the album in front of the paywall (without need for login) opens the way for unlimited use of robots to drive up streaming totals.

Tyler The Creator, whose new album is in a three-way dance for the top spot with Meek’s and Lana Del Rey‘s – has spoken up and against the practice:

A post shared by DJ Akademiks (@akadmiks) on Jul 26, 2017 at 10:04pm PDT

TIDAL have yet to refute the claims, but whichever way it’s diced or sliced this is not a good look.