A few weeks ago, the notoriously fickle but undeniably brilliant Prince decided to pull all of his music from most of the major streaming music services, including the industry leader Spotify (something that devastated my colleague Russell Brandom's playlists, as well as the playlists of countless other users). Today, there's a glimmer of hope that this sad situation could be reversed — Prince just dropped a new song called "Stare," and it appears to be exclusively available on Spotify, at least for now. A quick perusal of competing services shows no sign of the new tune; it's not even available for sale on iTunes just yet.
We've got something special for your Thursday. Prince dropped a single just for Spotify fans! http://t.co/mrOtWeiww0 pic.twitter.com/dlVNZBoAG9
— Spotify (@Spotify) July 30, 2015
Of course, this doesn't mean that Prince is bringing his back catalog to Spotify again just yet — there's still only a few random odds and ends available from Prince on the service. That said, Spotify has been actively tweeting at people asking about Prince's older songs, saying that they only have the one track but "let's listen hard and hope he brings the rest back soon." Whether that's a hint of things to come or just a desperate plea remains to be seen.
Either way, the new song is pretty good and super funky. Take a listen below; hopefully Prince won't decide to pull this one down any time soon.