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Kanye West
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In my early 20s, I dated a woman (“Kim”) for a little over a year. We met at the Gap—she was working there and I entered the store while she was working there to pretend like I was buying a “sweater for my sister” with the hope that she’d ask if I needed any help (she did)—and we went on our first date three days later. After a few more relatively decent dates, she introduced me to her mom (“Ms. Johnson”).
Ms. Johnson took a bit of a liking to me. So much so that she invited me to join the family for the Sunday brunches she’d host twice a month. A breakfast foodophile myself, I happily accepted. “Great!” she said. “And now you’ll get to try my world-famous eggs!”
As I’d come to learn, Ms. Johnson was very proud of these eggs. So much so that she considered them her second-greatest achievement next to her daughter. She’d even joke that, in her youth, men would travel for miles just to eat her eggs. Which I really, really, really, really hoped wasn’t a double entendre.
But there was one problem: Her eggs sucked. They weren’t the worst eggs I’ve ever eaten—that title goes to Ritter’s Diner in Pittsburgh—but nothing was special about them. They were just … eggs. And they were consistently runny. So not only were they average, they were wet. But Ms. Johnson took so much pride in them that for two Sundays a month for an entire year, I’d force them down my throat. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I hated them, so I’d just disguise the taste by using them to make bacon sandwiches. (With tons of salt and pepper.)
Kim and I eventually broke up for reasons I honestly don’t even remember now. But I do remember how happy I was that I didn’t have to pretend to enjoy Ms. Johnson’s soggy eggs anymore.
Anyway, I’m sharing this story today because the feeling I felt after Kim and I broke up is the same feeling I felt last week when hearing that Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo would be available on Spotify. Like hundreds of thousands of others still on Kanye West Island, I downloaded Tidal moments after learning TLOP would stream there exclusively. But since TLOP is now on Spotify, I never have to listen to Tidal again. Which is a shame because, like Ms. Johnson’s eggs, I really wanted to like Tidal.
When Jay Z held his Super Friends press conference a year ago to introduce Tidal as a streaming service that would benefit artists, I wasn’t as skeptical as the general sentiment about this service seemed to be. Yes, the press conference was a study in obnoxious ostentatiousness. And it seemed strikingly, almost intentionally, tone deaf. (If trying to convince the public we should care that the other streaming services take advantage of artists, it’s probably not the best idea to use multimillionaire artists as an example.) I wasn’t turned off by that, though. I didn’t expect Jay Z to sway me. I expected Tidal to. I was interested in both the mission behind the service and whether it would provide access to music unavailable on Spotify.
So I downloaded it. I even decided to grade my experience on a curve. If it gave me even 80 percent of the satisfaction Spotify did, I’d allow it to replace Spotify as my primary streaming service. I was ready and willing to eat the eggs. But after a week of randomly dropped signals, two- and three-second-long pauses between songs (which can be irritating when expecting the music to blend) and counterintuitive search and stream functions, I had enough of the soggy eggs, er, Tidal, and went back to Spotify. I knew some of these issues could apparently be rectified with an upgraded subscription, but I didn’t—and still don’t—believe they should have had to have been. It’s like buying a drink and being charged extra for the ice.
The only thing that would bring me back was if it had the exclusive rights to an album I really wanted to hear. Which is what happened with TLOP. I came back hoping things had changed—wishing someone had finally told Ms. Johnson she didn’t need to whip her eggs with a half-gallon of milk—but the same issues that plagued Tidal last year still existed. But I gritted my teeth and stuck it out because it was the only way I’d be able to listen to “Father Stretch My Hands” in the whip.
Today, however, I feel like an albatross has been lifted from my neck. A soggy albatross with the audacity to ask me to pay double for it to be less wet. I tried, Tidal. I really did. But I can only eat so many Tidal sandwiches before I start getting sick.
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