Tidal was, in a word, stuffed. And then ... Kanye.
With all the ridiculous and boringly offensive brouhaha he creates it's easy to forget that Kanye is actually a musician. A damned good one. I'd hesitate to call him a genius, a qualm he does not share, but he's certainly incredibly talented and undoubtedly the most influential person in hip-hop. A position he's held for a long, long while.
Whatever you think of the man, his clout, importance and influence on not just rap but on modern pop music too is undeniable. His albums, each startlingly different, have repeatedly changed the game.
The College Dropout dismantled gangsta rap posturing, the boo-hoo confessionals of 808s & Heartbreak ushered in emo-rap and Vocoder abuse, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy brought back the dreaded "concept album" in triumphant, grandiose fashion, and Yeezus pioneered an abrasive, aurally confrontational, synthetic direction.
When they dropped there was nothing else like them. They challenged the listener and the boundaries of the rap genre. Each displayed uncompromising vision and restless talent. By the time the world caught up and commercialised one sound, Kanye had already moved on to the next.
So when The Life of Pablo was announced there was real excitement and genuine curiosity over what this trailblazer was going to do next. But with TLoP he's disrupted the album concept. Possibly destroyed it.
Like many music fans I've been listening to it for the past week. Even though it's not out yet. Well, it is, kind of, but the final, finished version is not. It's all a tad confusing. Kanye is still tinkering with it.
Whether by accident or design, TLoP has been a total calamity of a release. Some tracks were previewed months ago while others sound unfinished. The title kept changing, the track list kept shifting, songs came and went and came back again.
He documented the whole, chaotic, creative process, posting it all online for dissection, discussion and occasionally the illusion of input. We watched him labour and fuss and foolishly declare it to be "one of the greatest albums of all time", which - spoiler alert - it's not. It's too messy, too muddled and too horribly misogynistic.
It was released for one whole day before Kanye yanked it back. "Ima fix Wolves," he tweeted as way of explanation. Has an artist ever had the means, power or fortitude to recall an album before?
A day later TLoP reappeared as a Tidal exclusive, saying it wouldn't be released elsewhere or ever be made available for sale. A bold and bizarre strategy for a man supposedly $53 million in debt.
But this is why I, and countless others, found ourselves signing up to Tidal. It's the only way to listen to the album - which I did right after setting a reminder to cancel Tidal before its free trial ended.
Was all the hoopla worth it? It's been interesting, at least. Entertaining, certainly. More so than the actual record. TLoP's defining feature is that it's been completely overshadowed by the circus surrounding it. Musically, the album doesn't push forward, instead it looks back over his oeuvre in the most haphazard way possible. There's no consistency, instead embracing an anarchic, punkish vibe that only sometimes works.
There's hits and misses. It's frustrating and fantastic all at the same time. It's a peculiar vision, but he's mostly pulled it off. Kanye truly is an incredible artist. So it's a real bugger that he's also an insufferable jackass.
Well, nobody's perfect. But the Twitter rants, the outbursts, his dumbass antics threaten to overshadow his very real achievements. Sadly, these days he's as much meme as he is musical hero.
For someone so concerned about their legacy, he sure does seem to be going out of his way to destroy it.
