Kanye West Reverses on Album, Makes It Available Everywhere
posted Sunday Apr 3, 2016 by Scott Ertz
Six weeks ago, the increasingly confused Kayne West released a new album, The Life of Pablo. The release came with a strange caveat, though: it would be available exclusively to Tidal, the beleaguered streaming service owned by fellow rapper Jay-Z. There would be no purchasing anywhere, or streaming anywhere else - only on the one service. West was adamant about this decision, tweeting,
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale... You can only get it on Tidal.
This decision, while appearing to be supportive of a new version of the music industry, was actually a sign of confusion. More and more people are moving to streaming, but very few are moving to Tidal, and some people do still prefer to purchase an album to own. The movie industry knows this and continues to support DVD/Blu-Ray. The scenario this created for Kanye was no one switched to Tidal to listen to his music, and a digital version of the album became almost immediately available on torrent sites worldwide.
Kanye's initial reaction was as rational as his decision to go Tidal-exclusive: he threatened to sue The Pirate Bay, an organization with no entities in any country where Kanye could file said suit. Assumedly after a lawyer explained this very large roadblock to this plans, he abandoned them.
Apparently time does makes fools of us all, as this week all of that became nonsense. As of right now, the album which will always be a Tidal exclusive, is available on Groove, iTunes, Spotify and more. The availability is not just streaming, either, as it is available for purchase from the Windows Store. If you are a fan of Kanye, go enjoy his latest album on your favorite platform. If you're not, just wait a little while for his next confusing tweet.
