Sony deal brings 23 more Prince albums to Apple Music

An avalanche of Prince albums is hitting Apple Music this week, thanks to a June agreement between Sony's Legacy Recordings and the estate of the late pop and funk musician.

Mosf of the records were originally released between 1995 and 2010, such as "The Gold Experience," "Emancipation," and "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic." The one exception is in fact a new compilation, simply called "Prince Anthology 1995-2010."

Sony will have to wait until 2021 to gain the U.S. distribution rights for some of Prince's best-known work, such as "Controversy" and "1999," Variety noted on Friday. Warner Bros. Records — Prince's original label — will continue to hold onto his soundtrack albums, such as "Batman" and his most famous work, "Purple Rain."

Prince died of a drug overdose in 2016. While he was alive, the musician was notoriously opposed to having his music on streaming services, which meant that for a stretch just a handful tracks were available on platforms like Apple Music and Spotify.

That changed early last year, when Warner brought its share of Prince's discography to the streaming world. The Prince estate has also reportedly been shopping around unseen film footage to companies like Apple.

15 Comments

nunzy 662 comments · 6 Years

About 6 years ago

Anybody who wants can already download his entire discography.

What other major artists are unavailable to stream? Isn't the ability to listen to everything you want the whole point of making monthly payments?

rogifan_new 4297 comments · 9 Years

I’d say nearly all of his discography is on streaming now. But for some reason The Most Beautiful Girl In The World is not. Odd as it was one of his bigger hits.

Roger_Fingas 148 comments · 8 Years

nunzy said:

Anybody who wants can already download his entire discography.

What other major artists are unavailable to stream? Isn't the ability to listen to everything you want the whole point of making monthly payments?

It seems like if you want it, it's probably on Apple Music, Spotify, or Pandora - but sometimes artists, labels, or what have you have specific objections, especially since streaming doesn't pay that well even on Apple Music. Sometimes "minor" albums are missing for similar reasons - I have a hundreds or thousands of tracks in my local iTunes library that never saw widespread release.

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

An unusual amount of criticism of his music on the iTunes page for this new collection:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/anthology-1995-2010/1421530791

(Partial clipping)

Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums, wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music was inconsistent, in part because of his eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeeded; no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.

Prince's first two albums were solid, if unremarkable, late-'70s funk-pop. With 1980's Dirty Mind, he recorded his first masterpiece, a one-man tour de force of sex and music; it was hard funk, catchy Beatlesque melodies, sweet soul ballads, and rocking guitar pop, all at once. The follow-up, Controversy, was more of the same, but 1999 was brilliant. The album was a monster hit, selling over three million copies, but it was nothing compared to 1984's Purple Rain.

Purple Rain made Prince a superstar; it eventually sold over ten million copies in the U.S. and spent 24 weeks at number one. Partially recorded with his touring band, the Revolution, the record featured the most pop-oriented music he has ever made. Instead of continuing in this accessible direction, he veered off into the bizarre psycho-psychedelia of Around the World in a Day, which nevertheless sold over two million copies. In 1986, he released the even stranger Parade, which was in its own way as ambitious and intricate as any art rock of the '60s; however, no art rock was ever grounded with a hit as brilliant as the spare funk of "Kiss."

By 1987, Prince's ambitions were growing by leaps and bounds, resulting in the sprawling masterpiece Sign 'O' the Times. Prince was set to release the hard funk of The Black Album by the end of the year, but he withdrew it just before its release, deciding it was too dark and immoral. Instead, he released the confused Lovesexy in 1988, which was a commercial disaster. With the soundtrack to 1989's Batman he returned to the top of the charts, even if the album was essentially a recap of everything he had done before. The following year he released Graffiti Bridge (the sequel to Purple Rain), which turned out to be a considerable commercial disappointment.

SpamSandwich said:

An unusual amount of criticism of his music on the iTunes page for this new collection:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/anthology-1995-2010/1421530791

(Partial clipping)

Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums, wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music was inconsistent, in part because of his eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeeded; no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.

Prince's first two albums were solid, if unremarkable, late-'70s funk-pop. With 1980's Dirty Mind, he recorded his first masterpiece, a one-man tour de force of sex and music; it was hard funk, catchy Beatlesque melodies, sweet soul ballads, and rocking guitar pop, all at once. The follow-up, Controversy, was more of the same, but 1999 was brilliant. The album was a monster hit, selling over three million copies, but it was nothing compared to 1984's Purple Rain.

Purple Rain made Prince a superstar; it eventually sold over ten million copies in the U.S. and spent 24 weeks at number one. Partially recorded with his touring band, the Revolution, the record featured the most pop-oriented music he has ever made. Instead of continuing in this accessible direction, he veered off into the bizarre psycho-psychedelia of Around the World in a Day, which nevertheless sold over two million copies. In 1986, he released the even stranger Parade, which was in its own way as ambitious and intricate as any art rock of the '60s; however, no art rock was ever grounded with a hit as brilliant as the spare funk of "Kiss."

By 1987, Prince's ambitions were growing by leaps and bounds, resulting in the sprawling masterpiece Sign 'O' the Times. Prince was set to release the hard funk of The Black Album by the end of the year, but he withdrew it just before its release, deciding it was too dark and immoral. Instead, he released the confused Lovesexy in 1988, which was a commercial disaster. With the soundtrack to 1989's Batman he returned to the top of the charts, even if the album was essentially a recap of everything he had done before. The following year he released Graffiti Bridge (the sequel to Purple Rain), which turned out to be a considerable commercial disappointment.

WTF is that??? I thought these notes were usually non-opinion, fact based.