Pharrell's Single 'Freedom' Will Be Exclusive to Apple Music

Wednesday June 24, 2015 8:11 AM PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple Music Black BannerApple plans to attract users to sign up for Apple Music by offering a free three-month trial period, but another way it will attempt to lure subscribers is by offering exclusive content through the incoming streaming music service. In late April, it was reported that the company was in talks with multiple artists, including Florence and the Machine and Taylor Swift, about exclusive content deals.

Just a few months later, hip-hop artist Pharrell Williams appears to be one of the first artists to reach a deal with Apple. Pharrell recently tweeted a teaser video for his upcoming single "Freedom," and the ending credits reveal that the song will be exclusive to Apple Music, which launches June 30 on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC for $9.99 per month after the free trial period.


"Freedom" was also the soundtrack of the Apple Music ad "Worldwide," featuring DJ Zane Lowe, that was shown at WWDC.


It remains unknown what Apple is offering artists in return for making their music available exclusively through Apple Music, as the terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it likely involves additional payment beyond Apple Music's standard 71.5% to 73% revenue sharing model. Apple already pays a few percentage points more than market leader Spotify and other competitors, which share approximately 70% of revenue with artists and music rights holders.

Tags: Pharrell Williams, Apple Music Guide, Freedom
74 comments


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BruiserB
50 months ago
A bit ironic that "Freedom" will be "restricted" to Apple Music only.
Rating: 33 Votes
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oneMadRssn
50 months ago
Exclusives are one of the things that ruin the desirability of streaming services.
Rating: 18 Votes
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oneMadRssn
50 months ago
Right, exclusives are good for the companies that sell video game consoles, but not for the gamers. Just like this music exclusive will be good for Apple but not for people who listen to music.

What do you do if your favorite artist has an exclusive on Apple Music and your second favorite artist has an exclusive on Tidal? Are you going to pay for two streaming services?
Rating: 10 Votes
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iBlazed
50 months ago

I'm not familiar with this singer, but I heard many people hate him..I don't understand why Apple puts themselves in this type of position, do u remember back in the day when Apple launched iTunes and the Black Eyed Peace was poster boys for the service? They were not to popular but atleast nobody hate it them..I think Apple should just repeat the same tecnique

So many things wrong with this comment. You don't know who he is, but "you heard" that many people hate him. Hate is such a strong word. He's a musician, some people like his music and other don't like it. But he's huge in the industry and has quite the fan base. As for the Black Eyes Peas, nobody "hated" them? What world do you live in? Some very lazy thinking going on here.
Rating: 7 Votes
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arian19
50 months ago
Competition with exclusive music for streaming services, is going to be bad for consumers.

If you want to listen to many artists, you're going to need a tidal subscription, and an apple music subscription, and a spotify subscription.

An ideal streaming services has all the music you want to listen to.

A streaming services can artificially have more songs than another services with exclusive content.

Apple + 1
Spotify - 1
Tidal - 1

But then if all of them start to do this, you'll get chaos:

Apple +6 -3
Spotify +3 -7
Tidal +4 -3

Which will make choosing the right services hard for consumers
Rating: 6 Votes
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Razeus
50 months ago
These people really don't understand how the internet works do they?
Rating: 6 Votes
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Rogifan
50 months ago

They should limit it to current generation devices for added exclusivity.

And for even more exclusivity limit it to Apple Watch Edition owners.
Rating: 6 Votes
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yaboyac29
50 months ago
More reason for people to pirate your music you fool.
Rating: 5 Votes
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neuropsychguy
50 months ago

I'm not familiar with this singer, but I heard many people hate him.


The same could be said of Apple or just about anyone or anything else. He's huge in the music industry. While I'm not a fan of his work, this will be a big draw to Apple Music for a lot of people.
Rating: 4 Votes
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cmChimera
50 months ago
Everyone understands that Pharrell is much bigger than his individual songs right? He's been one of the biggest creative forces in music for about two decades.
Rating: 4 Votes
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