Yesterday, Prince generously released a new song, “HARDROCKLOVER,” on SoundCloud. But less than 24 hours later, he’s playing hard to get: the singer pulled his music from all the major streaming services except Tidal. If you go to his artist page on Spotify, you see the following message: “Prince’s publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog. We have cooperated with the request and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible.” (It’s worth noting that Prince has an insanely large catalog, and Spotify didn’t have that much of it.)
This is not surprising: though his ‘80s music sounded like the future, Prince hasn’t been happy since that future arrived. His relationship with modern technology has been uneasy at best, and often leans towards antagonism—if, for example, you happen to take your cell phone out at a Prince show.
