Jimmy Iovine is a cultural powerhouse. He engineered albums by John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. He produced Stevie Nicks and U2.
He teamed up with Dr. Dre to introduce the world to Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Beats. Now, with a new school at USC, the head of Apple Music wants to create a new breed of leader-and make the future safe for creativity.
WIRED’s Jason Tanz catches up with Iovine (and those whove worked closely with him, including his partner Dr. Dre) for the September issue to discuss the success of Beats and the state of music.
LIFE’S AMBITION:
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is move the needle on popular culture,” Iovine says
“He finds one great idea, gets rid of everything else, and chases it to the end of the earth until it’s everywhere,” says Luke Wood, president of Beats Electronics.
By his count, Iovine has pulled this off four times over the past couple of decades by (1) introducing the world to Snoop Dogg, Tupac, and Chronic-era Dr. Dre, (2) shepherding the careers of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, (3) giving Eminem his start, and (4) creating Beats, the hardware company that turned headphones into a fashion accessory and today accounts for 34 percent of US stereo headphone sales.
STATE OF MUSIC:
“If you tell a kid, ‘You’ve got to pick music or Instagram,’ they’re not picking music,” Iovine says. “There was a time when, for anybody between the ages of 15 and 25, music was one, two, and three. It’s not anymore.”
It’s this divide, Iovine says, that accounts for the sorry state of the music industry. He describes tech companies as “culturally inept”, skilled at collecting and distributing data but unable to appreciate the less quantifiable properties of emotion and taste.
Iovine fears things will only get worse. “The last 15 years of the record industry allowing itself to get pounded and not moving the ball forward, I think it’s going to affect popular music,” he says. “The next Prince might just get really good at something else.”
“I don’t feel like there’s exciting stuff happening now,” Dr. Dre says. “A lot of the real artists are not motivated to go into the studio. They have real jobs.”
BEATS:
One day in 2006, Iovine was hanging out at David Geffen’s house in Malibu when he ran into Dre on the beach. Dre’s lawyer had been encouraging him to design a line of sneakers. Iovine, in a flash of inspiration, suggested they make headphones instead. (Will.i.am had been encouraging Iovine to get into the hardware business.) Dre and Iovine had long complained that the younger generation didn’t care about audio quality, thanks in part to the iPod’s cheap earbuds. “It was crazy to see my kids listening to my music on these headphones,” Dre says. “I was like, ‘This is not how it’s supposed to sound. This is not what I spent all this time in the studio for.’ We decided we had to do something about it.”
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