The road to ANTI has drawn criticism for its lengthy and confusing album roll out, but one component that wasn't intentional was last week's accidental leak via streaming app TIDAL. Rihanna's eighth studio album leaked Wednesday (Jan. 27) a few hours ahead of schedule sending the Internet into a frenzy.
While many saw it as a strategic move, TIDAL reps today are confirmed to Spin that the leak was due to a "system error" on the part of Universal Music Group.
"Look, we know what happened here, in the sense that unfortunately we still rely on systems, and there was a system error" said Grace Kim, TIDAL's director of Marketing. She later went on to clarify that the system error was on the part of UMG.
Despite the leak the album still managed to move 1.4 Million copies in 15 hours. "This is a really big deal for us. I don't think it hurt it at all" in regards to the leak.
Despite the impressive numbers, Billboard will not be counting ANTI's free downloads toward its first week total. "There were conversations [with Billboard] early on when this promotion and partnership started, but ultimately it became about giving music directly to the fans," Kim explained. "While everyone would've loved to have it count, the thing that we're focused on here is that it's number one."
Kim later went on to clarify '"Billboard and Nielsen are counting ANTI's sales on TIDAL towards their totals, [but] they aren't counting the Samsung/Rihanna download code gift to fans. The 400k+ sales of ANTI via TIDAL will be counted by Billboard."
"This is the new model. The new model is about how many fans are we getting the music to," she went on to tell Spin. "Soon enough everyone else with have to come along for the ride. We believe this is just the beginning of how we market albums, how we distribute music to fans, how fans consume music. It's just a different way of thinking."
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