UPDATE: New York dealer Jeanne Greenberg-Rohatyn of Salon 94 confirmed this morning that Jay Z did in fact keep his donation promises. Greenberg-Rohatyn, who helped organized the video shoot for "Picasso Baby," read a receipt from the Hudson, New York institute to artnet News that said, "Thank you for your donation."

Need some music right now to make whatever you’re doing better? Even if you’re not already a Google Play Music subscriber, we’ve got you covered. Google Play Music now has a free, ad-supported version in the U.S., giving you a new way to find just the right music—and giving artists another way to earn revenue. In less time than it takes you to read this sentence, you could be exercising with Drop-a-Beat Workout, cooling off with Poolside Chic, or spending quality time with Songs To Raise Your Kids To.

At any moment in your day, Google Play Music has whatever you need music for—from working, to working out, to working it on the dance floor—and gives you curated radio stations to make whatever you’re doing better. Our team of music experts, including the folks who created Songza, crafts each station song by song so you don’t have to. If you’re looking for something specific, you can browse our curated stations by genre, mood, decade or activity, or you can search for your favorite artist, album or song to instantly create a station of similar music.

We hope you’ll enjoy it so much that you’ll consider subscribing to Google Play Music to play without ads, take your music offline, create your own playlists, and listen to any of the 30 million songs in our library on any device and as much as you’d like. You’ll also get ad-free, offline and background features for music videos on YouTube. And with or without a subscription, you can store and play up to 50,000 songs from your own collection for free.

To help you get started, check out the top 10 most popular activities on Google Play Music, each of which offers several radio stations to choose from based on what you like:

1.Brand New Music
2.Driving
3.Working Out
4.Boosting Your Energy
5.Having Friends Over
6.Having Fun at Work
7.Entering Beast Mode
8.Waking Up Happy
9.Unwinding
10.Bedtime

The new free, ad-supported version of Google Play Music is launching first in the U.S. It’s available on the web today, and is rolling out this week to Android and iOS. And while you’re checking it all out, we’ll be catching up on our Blogged 50.

Posted by Elias Roman, Product Manager

Apple in Talks to Acquire Jay Z’s Tidal Music Service

Sources say talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal

June 30, 2016

Apple Inc. is in talks to acquire Tidal, a streaming-music service run by rap mogul Jay Z, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple is exploring the idea of bringing on Tidal to bolster its Apple Music service because of Tidal’s strong ties to popular artists such as Kanye West and Madonna.

The talks are ongoing and may not result in a deal, these people said. Terms of the potential deal aren't known.

Jay Z bought the service in March 2015 for $56 million from Swedish company Aspiro, which had created the brand Tidal. He has given 19 famous artists and bands small stakes in Tidal and promised each millions of dollars worth of marketing, according to people familiar with the matter.

A Tidal spokesman said Tidal executives hadn’t held talks with Apple.

Tidal charges $20 a month for a high-fidelity version of its 40 million-song catalog or $10 a month for standard-quality sound. Tidal said it has 4.2 million paying subscribers, most of whom it amassed this year with a string of exclusive releases from stars including Mr. West, Rihanna and Beyoncé, who is Jay Z’s wife.

Tidal is also the only service offering the catalog of the late pop star Prince, who was wary of other streaming services but had a close relationship with Jay Z. Prince died in April at the age of 57 of an overdose.

But the company has experienced management turmoil, churning through three chief executives, one of them interim and one appointed by prior management, in less than a year. Jeff Toig, former chief business officer of SoundCloud, a Berlin-based audio-sharing service, has been CEO since January.

Though it hasn’t generated significant revenue for the industry given its relatively low subscriber numbers, Tidal has an artist-friendly reputation, thanks to its artist ownership, high-quality sound and the fact that it only offers paid subscriptions, which generate far more for the industry than ad-supported services.

Spotify AB, by contrast, the subscription-streaming leader with about 30 million subscribers and about 70 million free users, has irked some stars by refusing to let them limit their music to its paid tier. As a result, artists such as Taylor Swift and Adele have withheld new releases from the entire service, with Adele only making her 2015 album “25” available on Spotify this month.

Tidal has held exploratory talks beginning last year with other potential partners, such as the streaming service Rhapsody, according to a person familiar with the matter. Rhapsody recently changed its name to Napster.

The news of the talks comes about a year after Apple launched its own streaming music service, Apple Music. Apple said on June 13 that it had 15 million paying subscribers to the service, which costs $9.99 a month for individuals, or $14.99 a month for families. The same day, Apple said it would redesign Apple Music in the fall as part of an update to its iPhone software, to address complaints that the software was confusing and hard to navigate.

Apple Music was based on the streaming service Beats, which Apple acquired with headphone maker Beats Electronics for $3 billion in May 2014. As part of the deal, Apple acquired the services of rap star Dr. Dre and music mogul Jimmy Iovine, who have played critical roles in warming the music industry to Apple’s music service.

A deal with Tidal would bring two of the most legendary names in hip-hop to Apple’s camp, uniting East Coast and West Coast rap under a single business interest.

There might be areas of friction as well. Tidal executives pride themselves on giving artists unusual freedom, such as tinkering with their music after releasing it, a person familiar with the matter said.

Apple has been working to secure close relationships with recording artists. It has provided marketing assistance to artists, while also helping to pay for music videos for high-profile artists in exchange for a certain period of exclusivity on Apple Music.

Tidal’s allegedly bogus streaming numbers are under investigation in Norway

Jan 14, 2019

Norwegian authorities have opened an investigation into reports that millions of Tidal’s streams never happened, reports Dagens Næringsliv, a Norwegian financial newspaper. Økokrim, Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, is conducting the investigation after reports emerged last May that 320 million streams of Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo were fraudulent.

If true, inflating the number of streams that each album received would artificially increase the royalty payments for each artist. The same month that reports emerged about the fake streaming numbers, Tidal was reportedly months behind on its royalty payments to three major record companies. The streaming service has also been accused of inflating its overall subscriber numbers from 350,000 to 1 million.

The investigation, which has been ongoing since last fall, began after four Norwegian music organizations filed police reports in light of the allegations. Dagens Næringsliv reports that Økokrim is thought to have already cross-examined four former Tidal employees for 25 hours.