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For over two years, alongside a small group of awesome, passionate, brilliant music fans, I’ve been deeply involved in the creation of Beats Music, a new curated music streaming service. We’ve had so many ups and downs as the project has evolved, so many setbacks and frustrations, there were times I wasn’t sure it would ever see the light of day.
But our scrappy room of enthusiastic creators back in 2011 (Trent Reznor, Fredric Vinna, Brian Frank, Jens Jonason, Scott Plagenhoef, and myself, with the corporate guidance of Jimmy Iovine and Luke Wood) eventually gained the power of MOG’s team, the masterful design input of R/GA, followed by many new recruits and the leadership of CEO Ian Rogers, and we were finally able to start executing and expanding some of the many ideas we were once merely scribbling on a whiteboard.
Now, Beats Music is finally launching in January. It’s only the beginning of what we have in store, but I’m beyond excited to finally get it in peoples’ hands and show the world what we think a music subscription service can be. Claim your username now and stay tuned.
Here’s a quote from me about Trent’s role in the product, from today’s FADER post about the January launch:
Trent’s experience with creating Nine Inch Nails, not just as a band but also as a brand, as an experience, as a culture, and his business savvy, makes him very adaptable into other situations that require creativity with an understanding of branding and perception and user experience. Jimmy [Iovine] has a tremendous amount of respect for Trent. But when Jimmy initially brought Trent on board at Beats, he was looking at him just as a producer and an audio guy. Saying, “Trent why don’t you come in and check out what we’re doing in here and take a look at some headphones and see how you would improve the sound.” It was by chance then that Jimmy mentioned this other Beats project, this streaming music service. That was something Trent was really interested in, problem solving as it pertains to the music industry and business models. Trent and I have spent a lot of time talking about that previously, so he brought me along and we ended up going in there and turning the whole project upside down with our ideas. Since then, Trent has continued to hold this very high creative role in Beats Music. It’s been interesting to take everything we’ve learned from our experience bringing Nine Inch Nails out into the world, our thinking about what fans want, and apply that to this new situation.
Gonna be awesome.
