Tidal is trying really hard to change its image and clear up misinformation

At the MIDEM Conference in Cannes on Friday, Vania Schlogel, Chief Investment Officer of the embattled new streaming service Tidal, gave a talk that was long on talking points, charm and positivity but short on new information. It was the sort of talk that probably would go over like gangbusters with investors, but was less suited to a music-industry conference. Accompanied by a power point presentation of hand-drawn illustrations, Schlogel noted that music has lost a third of its value over past decade while demand increased exponentially. “From an investor standpoint,” she said, “it’s strange to see demand and value so far apart: the only time you see this is when the underlying product is commoditized.” To emphasize the “baseline belief that music has value,” she showed a personal video of her father, who’d recently suffered a stroke, singing along with a song that her brother played on the piano, and discussed how familiar music helps him to regain some lost facility: He turned to her and asked, “So how is Jan Z?” to laughter from the crowd.