It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre’s Beats Music, but our music industry spies say Iovine is having fresh talks with artists about doing exclusives.
Beats executives — now Apple employees — are looking to replicate the kind of success Beyoncé had with her iTunes album, “Beyoncé by Beyoncé,” back in December 2013.*
Beats already has a bunch of connections with artists including Nicki Minaj, who frequently stars with Beats products in her music videos. Iovine is also good friends with Will.i.am, Pharrell, Kanye West and Gwen Stefani.
In February, it was reported that Apple's iTunes chief Robert Kondrk met with record label executives during Grammy Week in January about the potential of more exclusive album releases similar to Beyoncé's. Kondrk emphasized sales through digital storefronts like iTunes in those meetings, and asked executives if they could lock down individual track sales after a certain window of time to create greater attention for artists and their music.
*Beyoncé's self-titled album broke a number of records after its exclusive release on iTunes last December, selling over 828,000 copies in just three days to become the fasting selling collection of music in the service's history. The album was backed by significant promotion on the iTunes Store and across various social media networks.
What Beyoncé did was a bold move!
She's a smart businesswoman with her eye on the prize!
She's money hungry, for sure, and could be described as materialistic, but she's earned every penny she's ever made.
The thing with Beyonce was that it was a quality album, no hype or promotion to distract from it. Literally just an album. People had to decide for themselves whether it was any good. And general consensus was that it was. If this type of release forces pop girls to really focus in on the quality of their work, then I'm all for it. It was just such a strong album with a running narrative.
