Prince Fans Party Like it’s 1999

From the Desk of Lauran L. Stevenson

Prince fans worldwide are partying like it’s 1999, now that his music catalog is available on all major streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.

A settlement has been reached regarding Prince’s estate and Tidal or so it seems. The Friday before Grammy Awards, the Universal Music Group announced a multiyear agreement to license all his recordings that are not already committed to Warner Bros. Records. Trade publications confirmed rumors that Prince’s best-known albums and songs finally will become widely available on streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and Napster. Previously, they could only be streamed through Tidal, Jay Z’s service.

With “Purple Rain” and “Let’s Go Crazy” being the top songs, there was over 3.7 million streams on last Monday alone. This is nearly a 10,000 percent from the prior week, when his music was only available Tidal.