Sony Legacy announced over the summer that it had obtained the rights to release the "bulk" of Prince's back catalog, namely the albums he debuted after he left Warner Bros. in the mid-nineties. Today, The Prince Estate digitally released 23 total Prince albums that first launched between 1995 and 2010 onto "all major streaming services," including Apple Music and Spotify.
As Variety points out, today's launch marks the first time that many of these albums will be available for listeners to stream and download. Along with the individual albums, The Prince Estate released a new album called "Anthology: 1995-2010," which curates a collection of 37 songs from this period in Prince's career.
The 23 Prince albums now available on Apple Music include:
- The Gold Experience (1995) (“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” greyed out, partial album streaming only; album unavailable for download)
- Chaos and Disorder (1996)
- Emancipation (1996)
- Crystal Ball (1998)
- The Truth (1998)
- Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic (1999)
- Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic (2001)
- The Rainbow Children (2001)
- One Nite Alone… (2002)
- One Nite Alone…Live! (2002)
- One Nite Alone…Live – The Aftershow: It Ain’t Over (Up Late with Prince & The NPG) (2002)
- Xpectation (2003)
- N.E.W.S. (2003)
- C-Note (2004)
- Musicology (2004)
- The Chocolate Invasion (Trax from the NPG Music Club: Volume 1) (2004)
- The Slaughterhouse (Trax from the NPG Music Club: Volume 2) (2004)
- 3121 (2006)
- Planet Earth (2007)
- Indigo Nights (2008)
- LOtUSFLOW3R (2009)
- MPLSoUND (2009)
- 20Ten (2010)
To find the albums and anthology, visit the Browse tab on Apple Music and swipe through the carousel until Prince's "Featured Artist" spotlight card appears. In this section, subscribers can also pre-add the upcoming Prince album "Piano & a Microphone 1983," which will be a compilation of previously unreleased home recordings for tracks like "Purple Rain," "17 Days," and "International Lover." The album launches September 21.
Before today, many of Prince's classic albums were already available to stream on Apple Music, so now that his later work is on streaming services, fans have the chance to listen to most of the albums from the late singer's lifelong career.
There are still numerous Prince albums missing from streaming services, but a deal struck between Sony Legacy and The Prince Estate should see these missing albums appear to stream in the future. Unfortunately, it won't be until 2021 at the earliest, at which time Sony Legacy's distribution rights will expand to include 12 of Prince's non-soundtrack albums from 1978-1996.
Prince passed away in April 2016, and prior to that time he had pulled all of his music from every streaming service except Tidal in the summer of 2015.
Top Rated Comments
So is it morally okay to pirate music or works from an artist after they've passed away? I guess you're still taking money from the other artists, writers, producers of the album but from what I can tell, Prince did it all himself so you're only stealing from his heirs / named beneficiaries, right?
I'd actually be pretty pissed if someone I hated won all of my assets after I died in a legal battle and kept making money off my name long after I died.
In cases like this, I do wish all digital
Albums came with a PDF of the original booklet and complete front/back album art.
If you've got a problem with it then you need to contact your congressperson about the ridiculous length of copyright in the U.S. Until then you have a legal and moral obligation to pay for songs, books, movies, etc. that are not in the public domain.