Music sensation Katy Perry has just released “Rise” her first new single in over two years, exclusively on Apple Music and iTunes, reports Entertainment Weekly. The new single, released for the 2016 Rio Olympics, came as a surprise to music fans, and is described as an “uplifting track with a dash of electronic influence” written by the pop star herself. Perry described the track as something she was eager to finish sooner than expected as an encouraged for “our world to unite” and “rise above the fear” and that the Rio Olympics were a great symbolic example of the message she’s trying to convey in the song.
This is a song that’s been brewing inside me for years, that has finally come to the surface. I was inspired to finish it now, rather than save it for my next album, because now more than ever, there is a need for our world to unite,” the Grammy nominee said in a statement. “I know that together we can rise above the fear – in our country, and around the world. I can’t think of a better example than the Olympic athletes, as they gather in Rio with their strength and fearlessness, to remind us how we ALL can come together, with the resolve to be the best we can be. I hope this song can inspire us to heal, unite, and rise together. I am honored that NBC Olympics has chosen to use it as an anthem before and during the Rio Games.
Perry also tweeted the exclusive release of the album to her more than 90 million followers on Twitter, complete with a link to the album on Apple Music, representing a significant new promotion opportunity for Apple’s streaming music service. Apple has been making efforts to build Apple Music into something unique from other streaming services, “akin to “MTV in its Eighties and Nineties heyday,” as Apple’s original content head Larry Jackson told Rolling Stone last month, so this latest exclusive release represents another huge coup for Apple toward that goal.