Jay Z pulls Blueprint albums from streaming services
Jay Z has pulled several of his albums from streaming and download services. Last April, his 1996 debut album Reasonable Doubt was removed from Spotify. Now, Pitchfork reports, all three of his Blueprint series albums—2001’s The Blueprint, 2002’s The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse and 2009’s The Blueprint 3—have been removed from Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and iTunes. All of them, however, are all readily available on TIDAL. Jay Z owns TIDAL’s parent company, Aspiro.
“Jay Z’s Blueprint albums have not been available on any streaming service except Tidal for a few months now,” a representative from Spotify told Pitchfork. “We hope he brings them back soon so that his millions of fans on Spotify can enjoy them again.”
The rest of his catalog, including 2003’s The Black Album and 2011’s Watch the Throne, are still available on those services, as well as The Hits Collection Vol. 1, which contains a number of songs from the albums pulled from streaming services.
Several pop artists have recently released TIDAL exclusive albums, including Rihanna’s ANTI, Prince’s HITNRUN Phase One and Two, and Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo.