Beyoncé‘s highly anticipated new visual album Lemonade dropped Saturday night on HBO and Tidal to massive fanfare. If you want to stream Bey’s new music, you’re going to have to use the latter, however. The superstar is streaming Lemonade exclusively on Tidal indefinitely, the Verge reports.
Tidal, the music streaming service co-owned by Jay Z, has struggled to gain users as apps like Spotify and Apple Music remain vastly more popular.
It’s not the first time an artist has used Tidal to “exclusively” launch an album—Kanye West released The Life of Pablo on Tidal, where it lived for six weeks before being made available on other streaming services.
West and Tidal are now currently facing a lawsuit for deceptive advertising; West eventually released the album on free ad-supported services, frustrating users who signed up for the $9.99 monthly Tidal subscription.
A lot of fans will likely be using the free first month Tidal trial for the Lemonade album, if they didn’t already spend it on West. There’s no word yet on when or how the album will be made available for purchase, but considering how vast the Bey Hive is—and how small Tidal’s audience—it will likely be made available for purchase soon.
Indeed, Lemonade will indeed be available for purchase sooner rather than later. The visual album is for sale exclusively on Tidal until 10pm this evening, notes the Verge’s Micah Singleton:
https://twitter.com/MicahSingleton/status/724324205160964096
Update 3:12pm CT, April 24: Lemonade is also expected to be available for purchase on iTunes late Sunday night, presumably following the Tidal sale.
H/T The Verge
