The estate of legendary rocker Prince, in accordance with his wishes, has uploaded only a limited amount of his music videos, concert footage, and other performances onto YouTube. As a side effect of that decision, any new releases from the departed Minnesotan musician arrive to much fanfare, and on April 19, Prince’s fans celebrated the arrival of a previously-unreleased video. In the video, Prince rehearses his 1985 song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which would later be famously covered by Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor.
Prince first wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U” as a track for one of his side projects, The Family. The song appeared on the group’s sole album, which came out in 1985, but received little fanfare until 1990, when O’Connor’s cover emerged as a global hit. Now, fans of the song can rediscover the original version of it thanks to the new video, which features Prince and his band. In its first day on YouTube, the footage received more than one million views, thus restating Prince’s status as a beloved musical icon.
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Before his 2016 death, Prince was a critic of YouTube’s royalty rates and OKed the takedowns of fan footage shot at his concerts. He was once asked why he chose this policy. “Since YouTube doesn’t pay equitable licensing fees,” he replied, “isn’t that a nonsensical question?” Multiple lawsuits have resulted from Prince’s policy, including a landmark decision involving a dancing baby and a more recent case related to concert clips.
Recently, however, the Prince estate seems to have relaxed its stance on web videos. A VEVO channel for the artist launching in 2017, and now more goodies from his career are arriving online. Perhaps the warm response the “Nothing Compares To U” footage has received will convince the Prince estate to share even more content on the internet.
