Coinciding with Sunday night’s Grammy Awards, the arrival of Prince’s music on services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora comes 10 months after the artist’s untimely death at the age of 57.
Prince devotees who prefer streaming to digital downloads can now hit their favorite music service for all the classics, including Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, 1999, and Sign O’ The Times.
In protest at Spotify’s free streaming tier and in support of his fellow artists, Prince pulled his catalog from music streaming services in the summer of 2015. But a short time later the artist struck a deal with Jay Z’s Tidal service to host much of his work.
“After one meeting, it was obvious that Jay Z and the team he has assembled at Tidal recognize and applaud the real effort that real musicians put in2 their craft 2 achieve the very best they can at this pivotal time in the music industry,” Prince said in a statement at the time.
However, following the artist’s death in April last year, his estate moved to ink a deal to get Prince’s tracks back on all of the major streaming sites, a process leading to Sunday’s launch.
Commenting on the return of The Purple One’s catalog to online music services, Cameron Strang, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Records said, “Prince recorded his most influential and popular music during his time with Warner Bros. and we are deeply aware of our responsibility to safeguard and nurture his incredible legacy.”
He added that the record label was “thrilled to be able to bring Prince’s music to his millions of fans around the world via streaming services, fittingly on music’s biggest night.”
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