This week, Jay Z debuted Tidal, a streaming music service whose makers say it offers better sound quality and something called a “curated editorial” experience. Which, we guess, means people are picking music for you. You know, kinda like the radio. That whole package will cost you $20 a month, twice what Spotify charges. We asked the Grantland staff what other services they’d pay $20 a month for.
Rembert Browne
- The “FourFiveSeconds” Grammy performance on loop
- All of the G.O.O.D. Friday tracks
- A Fader, Vibe, and Jet covers slideshow
- All of the Rap City freestyles and BET cyphers (high-fidelity, of course)
- The full This Recording archive
- Every issue of Eastbay
- Every Sampras-Agassi match, plus the Sampras throw-up set vs. Corretja
- Something that sent me notifications whenever someone posted clothing on eBay tagged “chaka khan”
- Every crossover television show episode, as well as The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
- A good instructional video for how to tie a bow tie — one that doesn’t include that annoying sleight-of-hand fifth step
- Every Rock N’ Jock game (baseball and basketball)
- Pandora, but for picking out two Broadway shows a month that I should enjoy, based on my mood
Wesley Morris
- An alert for real croissants within a thousand feet of where I am
- Help for Emma Stone to make 12 movies a year
- Help for Lupita Nyong’o to make even one
- A blog that just did hot takes on Beats headphones
- Archived issues of Star Hits and Right On!
- Something that makes every time I see the video for “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” the first time
- Let’sRaiseMoneyToBuyAdamantiumForJuanMartínDelPotro.com
Shea Serrano
- A service that sends alerts to my phone every time one of my favorite parts of a movie was coming on TV
- A thing that anytime someone tweeted me about J. Cole they’d get a DM that was a video of a person making fart noises for 60 seconds
- A subscription to a website that is just a slideshow of photos of Tim Duncan doing ordinary things like riding a bicycle or holding a butter knife
- A program that allows me to paste the link to a fight clip someone made in Vine and it’d show me the full video of that fight
- A program that allows me to paste the link to a fight clip someone made in Vine and it’d show me the full video of that fight (I really want this)
Ryan O’Hanlon
- The ability to stream “a historical drama in which Nelson Mandela lifts weights on the beach while he watches a cruise ship sink a couple of miles offshore” on my phone
- A daily newsletter version of the Guardian’s “Said & Done” column
- A digital copy of the April 2015 issue of Shooting Gazette
- A subscription to a Joe Biden/Paul Pogba fan-fiction zine
- A bot that locates anyone who owns these cleats in a size 10 and finds me his or her home address, Social Security number, relevant negotiating weaknesses, deepest insecurities, darkest secrets, etc.
Dave Schilling
- A sequel to the world’s greatest movie (Dredd), which only I can watch
- On-demand life advice from Cookie Lyon from Empire
- Unlimited daps from Kobe Bryant (or Derek Fisher, if Kobe’s not available)
- The jet pack from Thunderball … for my commute to work
- Access to the entire back catalogue of National Lampoon before 1980
Holly Anderson
- A bot that automatically unfollows, blocks, and reports for spam any user in my Twitter timeline threatening to unfollow a celebrity with more than 100K followers over some imagined offense
- A bot/script that auto-responds to every “follow so I can DM” request with this
- High-quality streaming access to every episode of Sports Night with all the laugh tracks taken out
- All of Steve Martin’s unreleased banjo tracks
Sean Fennessey
- Spotify/endless music delivery system
- Netflix/endless movie delivery system
- Digitized tablet versions of Wizard/Spy/Entertainment Weekly/Sports Illustrated, circa 1993-97
- A weekly variety pack of pretzels, mixing flavors, styles, and brands
- A strap-on electroshock unit that disallows Twitter usage
Mark Lisanti
- Jeremy Piven’s Instagram feed soundtracked with lossless streaming audio recordings of his joyful amateur drumming
- Exclusive insider access to premium features on Vin Diesel’s Facebook page
- An all-guitar-solo playlist service curated by a rotating lineup of editors including Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Eric Johnson, Slash, and the ghost of Jimi Hendrix
- An all–Billy Corgan–talking-shit-about-prominent-musicians-of-the-’90s channel
- Something where Kanye emails me pictures of dope sofas like four or five times a month
Dan Fierman
- Selective, advanced AI pre-outrage auto-Twitter mute
- Shane Black email insult punch-up generator
- Five daily style tips from Dwyane Wade’s stylist (Note: Not from Wade himself. His stylist.)
- Val Kilmer’s version of Goop, whatever that would be (besides glorious, obviously)
- Vintage 1999–2001 Pedro Martinez clips on infinite loop
Katie Baker
- A monthly members-only Google Hangout with Martha Stewart and her chowchow Genghis Khan
- Complete searchable Mike and the Mad Dog archives (would pay an additional $5 if they threw in streams of old Mike Breen spots on Imus in the Morning)
- Up-to-the-minute, high-definition photographic alerts of the best cloud formations around the world
- A 12-step program to wean me off an overreliance on exclamation points in emails
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Recipe blogs without commenters who were out of cinnamon so used cumin instead and concluded that this recipe SUCKS!
Chris Ryan
- Digitally remastered streaming of hip-hop mixtapes from 1998-2008
- Turner Classic Movies on demand
- Access to a site that broadcasts full episodes of Yo! MTV Raps and 120 Minutes
- A stream of NFL football games that have no commercials and instead show shots of the fans or sidelines during stoppages in play