Madonna’s major video fail

It seems all the money – and fame – in the world can’t buy credibility. Madonna has earned a major fail today upon the release of her latest music video, Bitch I’m Madonna – ironically due to her celebrity connections and that ugly thing called hype.

Forget the fact the title of the song alone oozes egocentricity and that the lyrics relentlessly remind listeners of the star’s ‘staying power’ – it is the video that’s causing the uglier fuss.

Featuring a dozen or so celebrities in ‘cameo’ frames (mostly musicians; some for a split second), the likes of Beyoncé, Kanye West, Diplo, Nicki Minaj, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Chris Rock all throw their vain two-cents’ worth in for the sake – presumably – of cross-promotion.

You see, most of these musicians are investors in new streaming service, Tidal, an artist-focused alternative to all the free and low-fee streaming services out there including TuneIn, Spotify, Radionomy, Pandora and Deezer.

But, rather than promote the service as something good and ‘for the people’, these celebs have gone and presented themselves are some kind of elitist group, parading about in each other’s music videos and blowing smoke up each other’s proverbial arses.

The clip sees Beyoncé, for example, pulling a silly pose in ‘tribute’ to Madonna’s Vogue video, Miley Cyrus sticking her fingers up at the camera, and Madonna forcing a shooter down an unsuspecting model’s throat (probably illegal).

The clip was released on Tidal 24 hours before it would be available on other platforms, and while Madonna had high hopes it would have a positive viral effect online – mostly due to its heavy star cameo factor – the opposite has actually occurred.

Fans who can’t afford the $12 (AUD) minimum monthly fee to subscribe to Tidal miss out on seeing the video early – and they’re the ones who up until now have been doing most of the positive cross-promotional digital marketing for the artist. Instead, punters are now demanding, “Where is the music video?” – adding complaints such as “This Tidal stuff is ridiculous”, “Tidal sucks”, and “We want the clip, not your fucking (re)mixes”.

For a company formed by some of the biggest names in music (albeit, led by one very confident Jay-Z) it’s amazing just how big a stuff-up this is for Tidal.

The streaming service has only been operating for a month and already it appears negative feedback is outweighting the positive, from the company’s clunky launch where its high-profile investors paraded on stage like spoilt rich kids, to a strong lack of subscription interest, to Madonna’s latest video fail, it seems all the money and fame in the world can’t be funnelled into something good. Ironically, the latest failure was supposed to push subscription levels up. Instead, potential users have been greeted with online technical difficulties and freezes.

Oopsies.  Antonino Tati