Jimmy Iovine, a Master of Beats, Lends Apple a Skilled Ear
By BEN SISARIO

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple’s new music impresario, Jimmy Iovine, didn’t start out writing code or studying computer engineering, the usual path of a Silicon Valley mogul. Instead, his career began sweeping floors at New York City recording studios and fetching tea for John Lennon.

But Apple is betting that Mr. Iovine’s four decades in the trenches of the recording industry, his knack for trend-spotting and his credibility with artists will help the company rejuvenate its music business nearly three years after the death of its co-founder, Steven P. Jobs.

On Wednesday, after weeks of speculation, Apple said it would pay $3 billion for Beats Electronics, the company that Mr. Iovine (pronounced eye-oh-VEEN) founded with the rap star Dr. Dre that includes the Beats by Dr. Dre headphone line and a fledgling streaming music service.

“We looked at the combination with Beats, and what we saw is a company that has incredible, rare talent,” said Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in a joint interview with Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre at the company’s headquarters here.

One of the most powerful figures in the music industry, Mr. Iovine, 61, brings to Apple deep celebrity connections and a devil-may-care attitude that stands in stark contrast to the businesslike manner of Mr. Cook.

Mr. Iovine’s relationship with Apple dates to the beginnings of iTunes, when he became a friend and crucial advocate for Mr. Jobs as he tried to persuade nervous record executives to sell their songs à la carte.

“Jimmy was one of the first people we showed iTunes to,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s content chief.

As part of the deal, Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre — whose real name is Andre Young — will join Apple in senior positions reporting to Mr. Cue, and Mr. Iovine will leave his longtime post as chairman of Universal Music Group’s Interscope Geffen A&M division, where he has guided the careers of U2 and Eminem.

Formerly married to a Playboy centerfold, Mr. Iovine rivals some of his artists in his celebrity profile around Hollywood; in a bland corporate conference room at Apple on Wednesday, he wore a shiny blue blazer and light blue suede high-top sneakers.

Apple’s acquisition of Beats reflects the transformation of the music industry over the last decade, which has gone from selling CDs and downloads to fast-growing streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and YouTube. Many in the recording industry say that Beats Music, the company’s new subscription streaming service, is the real growth engine in Apple’s acquisition.

“To have a kingpin around subscription, and someone who really understands content within Apple, we feel very positive about that,” said Lucian Grainge, the chairman of Universal Music. Universal acquired a 14 percent stake in Beats by allowing Mr. Iovine to pursue the company, a share that will net the label more than $400 million.

Mr. Iovine got his start as a studio gofer in the 1970s, but quickly made his name as an engineer and producer, working with acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks.

“My life changed because Bruce Springsteen got on a mic in front of me,” Mr. Iovine said. “That continued in my life over and over again, so I get the joke now. Artists have to be represented properly, and paid properly.”

Mr. Iovine and Dr. Dre will each earn hundreds of millions of dollars from the Apple deal.

Interscope Records, which Mr. Iovine founded in 1990 with the retail heir Ted Field, became the hottest label of the 1990s by betting on the commercial appeal of gangsta rap acts like Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

“He can see around corners,” said Doug Morris, the chairman of Sony Music, who as the head of Warner Music’s Atlantic Group in the 1990s backed Interscope. “It was Jimmy who really believed that rap was going to go mainstream, and it did exactly what he thought.”

Now part of Universal, Interscope has maintained its success with acts like 50 Cent and Lady Gaga, buoyed by Mr. Iovine’s reputation as a rare corporate executive who understands the creative mind-set of his artists.

Mr. Iovine is also famously relentless in business. To seal a joint-venture deal, he once called an executive at another label every day at 3 p.m. for a year. Gwen Stefani refers to “Jimmy jail” — the purgatory when Mr. Iovine sends his artists back to the studio again and again “to write that last track, that career-changing track,” Ms. Stefani said in an interview. As painful as that jail can be, Mr. Iovine’s nose for hits is usually right. “The good news is, he’s Jimmy,” Ms. Stefani said. “The bad news is, he’s Jimmy.”

Mr. Iovine described his move to Apple as “the second phase of my music career.” But that move began in 2008, when he and Dr. Dre began selling their Beats by Dr. Dre headphones as a response to the cheap white earbuds that Apple gives away with its products. Sold for up to $450, the sleek, bass-heavy earpieces now represent about 60 percent of high-end headphone sales.

Dr. Dre is said to be closely involved with the design of the headphones that bear his name, but Mr. Iovine seems to do most of the talking. In a half-hour joint interview at Apple, Dr. Dre spoke once, saying, “this is the dream.”

“Jimmy figured out that whatever format of music comes along, people are going to need ways to listen to it,” said Jon Landau, the manager of Mr. Springsteen and a longtime friend of Mr. Iovine’s. “He bet into a business in which how the music sells and how much record companies collect is irrelevant.”

But with Beats’s push into streaming, Mr. Iovine — and now Apple — are making a bet on how consumers will listen to music in the future. Thus far, Beats Music has not posed much of a threat so far to established players like Spotify. The service, introduced in January, is estimated to have about 200,000 paying subscribers, while Spotify has 10 million.

“Jimmy has time and again proven his ability to understand the tastes of the mass market, in an extraordinary way,” said David Pakman, a former digital music executive who is now a partner at the venture capital firm Venrock. “But he hasn’t yet proven his ability to get a digital music service off the ground.”

Until now, Apple’s moves toward streaming have been tentative. Its iTunes Radio service, meant to compete against Pandora, has found minimal traction in the market. Yet streaming has become the music industry’s next big hope as download sales are now beginning to plunge after a decade of growth.

Mr. Iovine, Mr. Cook and Mr. Cue all described subscription as a critical part of Apple’s future, although they were careful to say that downloads remain important, too. As part of the deal, the Beats brand and music service will continue on its own, for now.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Iovine was, as ever, the consummate promoter, hyping the deal as a perfect union of technology, style and business know-how.

“You go into any recording studio in the world and you see candles, lights and that Apple light from a Mac,” Mr. Iovine said. “Apple is a company that understands music. They are culturally adept; most technology companies are culturally inept.”

艾歐文 蘋果「數位音樂」新戰將

蘋果日前砸30億美元買下耳機與串流音樂業者Beats，更特意延攬Beats共同創辦人艾歐文（Jimmy Iovine）擔任顧問。但有別於其他矽谷金童，艾歐文的職業生涯不是以寫程式碼作為開端，而是從在紐約打掃錄音室和替約翰‧藍儂端茶開始。

61歲的艾歐文是美國音樂產業最具影響力的人物之一，且與蘋果間的關係久遠。打從iTunes問世之初，蘋果前執行長賈伯斯企圖說服唱片業者透過iTunes販售樂曲時，他就是賈伯斯的朋友與重要的諮詢者。

如今蘋果期盼靠艾歐文在音樂圈打滾40多年的資歷，和他對流行文化獨特的敏感度以及在音樂人中的聲望，在賈伯斯離世近三年後協助蘋果重振音樂事業。

艾歐文1970年代開始在唱片公司的錄音室打雜，但很快就爬上了錄音師和製作人的位置，為布魯斯‧史普林斯汀、湯姆‧佩蒂、史蒂薇‧妮克絲等搖滾明星或大牌歌手工作。

他說：「從史普林斯汀在我面前拿起麥克風的那刻起，我的人生徹底改變了。但這樣的時刻在我的生命中不斷重演，以致於後來我會開玩笑說，藝術家必須有好作品，也必須拿到好報酬。」

艾歐文在1990年與零售大亨菲爾德合夥創辦Interscope唱片公司，捧紅了德瑞博士（Dr. Dre）、Snoop Doggy Dogg等饒舌歌手，迅速成為當時最熱門的唱片公司。索尼音樂（Sony Music）董事長莫里斯說：「他有洞燭先機的觀察力。他相信饒舌音樂會成為主流，事情也確如他設想的那樣發展。」

在經營事業方面，艾歐文以堅持不懈的執著態度聞名。他曾為了談成一樁合資交易，連續一整年每天下午3點打電話給某家唱片公司的主管。此外，關‧史蒂芬妮把請他當製作人比喻為「坐牢」，因為艾歐文會為了「寫出能大紅大紫的最新歌曲」，不斷將歌手請回錄音室。

艾歐文說，加入蘋果是「我的音樂生涯的第二階段」。但這個階段其實早從2008年就開始了，當時他與德瑞博士合力打造風格新穎的頭戴式耳機品牌Beats，與蘋果選擇的低價輕巧耳機路線截然不同，儘管售價上看450美元，現在卻占有60%的高階耳機市場。

Beats今年1月推出串流音樂服務Beats Music，至今付費訂戶估計約有20萬人，雖然遠不及訂戶高達1,000萬人的Spotify，卻代表了艾歐文大膽向未來音樂消費形式前進的舉動。

艾歐文的老友、同時也是史普林斯汀經紀人的蘭道說：「艾歐文明白，無論音樂以什麼樣的形式存在，人們都會需要聆聽音樂的管道。他押注的這個事業，樂曲銷量如何與唱片公司能賺多少並無關聯。」

截至目前為止，蘋果在音樂串流市場的行動都只是試驗性質的。蘋果原本期待iTunes Radio服務能與Pandora競爭，卻沒在市場引起多大回響。但在網路下載營收逐日減少的情況下，串流服務現已成為音樂產業最大的寄望所在。

艾歐文與蘋果簽約時聲稱，蘋果與Beats的交易將是科技、潮流與商業經營的完美結合。他說：「你走進全世界任何一間錄音室，都會看到蠟燭、燈光和麥金塔上發光的蘋果標誌。蘋果是家懂音樂的企業，熟悉文化。大部分科技公司都對文化束手無策。」

蘋果執行長庫克也表示：「在與Beats的結合上，我們所看到的是Beats擁有不可思議的稀有人才。」不過，艾歐文雖已一次又一次證明他對大眾市場品味的深刻瞭解，但他能否為蘋果的數位音樂服務開啟新頁，仍有待時間證明。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/world/asia/for-the-taliban-modest-success-in-battle-but-opium-trade-and-illicit-businesses-boom.html

Video：How Beats Helps Apple
Apple makes the largest acquisition in its history. What buying Beats means for the company and for you.
http://nyti.ms/REB9Bw

2014-06-23．經濟日報．A11．國際人物．編譯 劉利貞