Tidal ‘Opened Many Doors’ For Famed Music Producer Jonathan Hay And Partner Mike Smith

When producer turned PR mogul Jonathan Hay and his co-producer Mike Smith initially uploaded “When Music Worlds Collide” to Tidal it was purely experimental. They hoped that by taking a bare-bones approach to creating music and hosting it on both the pricey streaming site and Spotify, which can be accessed for free, they would be able to confirm that Tidal was or was not the superior service. What they didn’t expect was for their album to take off.

According to Tidal execs, streaming of “When Music Worlds Collide” took off after being featured on the service's home page. They included the project in both the “What’s New” and “Tidal Rising” sections of the site, drawing in curious users looking for something different to listen to. Tidal says they “saw a tremendous upstick in streams” after they began pushing Hay and Smith’s album. Ten days after being featured there was an 11,564.8 percent increase in streams of “When Music Worlds Collide.”

“It’s a testament to what a partnership between quality music and Tidal can accomplish,” said a company representative.

Hay echoed those sentiments, saying having the album backed by Tidal “opened many doors” for him and his partner. The producer, credited with launching Rihanna’s career, recently opened a boutique record label called Urban Hitchcock. He says the label recently added four artists to its roster “who really understand and embrace [their] vision.” All music produced by Ubran Hitchcock artists will be made available exclusively through Tidal according to Hay.

“Their co-sign for ‘When Music Worlds Collide’ has been a game changer,” he says. “Going forward, all of our digital music will stream exclusively through Tidal. For the physical component, we will manufacture limited-edition and special packaging in both vinyl and CD, which we will sell online and in stores across the country.”

As we previously reported, after conducting their experiment, both Hay and Smith conceded there was in fact a difference in the quality of service provided by Tidal, which is owned by Jay Z and other well-known artists. Although the streaming site costs more than most, offering users two options at sign up: $9.99 per month and a $19.99 per month premium package, the PR maven says it’s well worth it. Hay notes that “quality does matter," adding that “Spotify can’t touch [Tidal] -- nobody can. It’s truly brilliant.”

“When Music Worlds Collide” is available for streaming now on Tidal.