Only a few minutes ago, the entire music industry stood on a stage in a collective display of how rich and out of touch they are. They think you are willing to pay up to double the price of other streaming music services to pay for their streaming music service, because they are crazy.
Imagine this: canceling your Spotify subscription, and paying $20 for a Tidal subscription instead. It's more expensive because it's "higher quality" and "artist-owned," which is important because Usher, Daft Punk, and Madonna have been living in wretched penury for far too long, and it's time for people to give back. The modern-day Our Gang (which counted among its members not only the aforementioned supernovas, but also Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, Chris Martin, and Jack White) held a "keynote" to promote Tidal, the already extant European streaming company Jay Z recently purchased for $56 million because he's bored.
Jay Z and Beyonce (also present, beaming) dug up an old email thread (SUBJ: SURPRISE BRUNCH PARTY SATURDAY!), hit reply-all, and look at how many of their family friends turned out to stand on stage, visibly uncomfortable, and listen to Alicia Keys give an incoherent speech. At the conclusion of Keys' statement, which merged the rarely combined traits of being about an app and quoting Nietzsche, the artists all signed some sort of "declaration" one by one. I don't know what the document said—it was probably just a blank piece of paper, or perhaps an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that Deadmau5 received as a White Elephant gift.
When it came time for Madonna to sign, she put her whole leg up on the table, as if to say to the world World, I'm MADONNA and yes I am not too old to move my leg this way. No one is going to use Tidal. These dummies!
In case you had any lingering sympathy for the struggling mega-famous recording artist, here's a video they made to make you hate them:
"We're going to change the course of history," Jay Z says on camera. Then he and his friends raise a champagne toast to the glorious future.