UPDATE: Hours after Aaliyah's greatest-hits collection became available digitally, it was pulled from iTunes and Apple Music.
After years of waiting, Aaliyah fans can finally purchase the biggest hits on her Ultimate Aaliyah collection on iTunes and stream it on Apple Music. The 25-track posthumous album appeared unexpectedly on Wednesday night (Jan. 11), featuring such beloved tunes as "One in a Million," "Try Again," "Are You That Somebody" and "Rock the Boat."
Previously, the only music available from the singer who tragically died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22 was her 1994 debut, Age Ain't Nothing But a Number, leaving such important works as her One in a Million and Aaliyah albums and "Are You That Somebody?" single missing from iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other online services. (At press time it did not appear that the album had been added to other digital retailers.) The unexpected appearance of the hits collection came a month after Complex magazine ran a feature explaining the complicated legal struggles that have kept the singer's music off online retailers. The rights to most of Aaliyah's music is owned by her uncle, Blackground Records chief and longtime R. Kelly associate Barry Hankerson.