Prince’s music removed from all streaming services except Tidal

Prince is pulling a Taylor Swift, asking for his popular catalog of music to be removed from a few streaming-music services. Few musicians have as much control over their work as the big-name holdouts – Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift – who’ve recently made a decision to pick among services.

The band’s hit the major services yesterday, and their streaming catalog includes all their albums plus a number of tracks seen in movies as well as live ones. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. You can also sync your library to keep your own music and fill in the songs you may not have with Apple Music.

In 2011, he apparently reiterated his position in another interview.

I think offline listening is one of Apple Music’s best features since it can help save significant amounts of money on data charges. Pharrell even told me go with the safest bet. It’s like the gold rush out there. It’s a column now – I can’t hold back.

Perhaps you could have some more respect for the stance if Prince was consistent in how he applies it….actually no, Prince is still a whiny, greedy prick either way.

Cross this with technology fetishism so strong it has almost seeped into our collective bloodstream, it’s likely that Prince will be denounced as a Luddite – the curse shallow Silicon Valley dupes drag out when someone disagrees with the digital world conquest.

The Connect tab will be replaced with a list of your playlists, which is nice to have front and center instead of hidden inside the My Music tab.

Artist segregation on the various platforms isn’t great news for consumers, who have become used to streaming everything they want by subscribing to one platform, but it could lead to more uniform payments for artists in the long run.

The singer’s legal team have tried to remove Prince’s music from YouTube for some time, with only “Breakfast Can Wait” remaining on his official Vevo page.