We are Beats Music
Beats Music is a new kind of streaming music service that focuses on providing a personalized music experience for each user through a unique blend of digital innovation and musical passion.
Programmed by a trusted team of well-respected music experts with over 300 years of experience across all genres, Beats Music delivers the right music for any situation, any time, and any preference, personalized to your tastes. The result is an artist-friendly digital music service that does more than simply offer access to music, but one that establishes an emotional connection to it as well.
Beats Music was launched in 2014 through a unique collaboration between Interscope/Geffen/A&M; chairman and Co-Founder/CEO of Beats Electronics Jimmy Iovine, legendary artist, producer and Co-Founder of Beats Electronics Dr. Dre and Beats Electronics President Luke Wood, led by CEO Ian Rogers and CCO, award-winning musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The company is privately held with offices in Santa Monica and San Francisco, CA.
Jimmy Iovine
Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board
Iovine is now expanding the Beats Brand and reputation into the digital music space with Beats Music—the first streaming music service delivering contextually and culturally relevant playlists, personalized for each user, by real music experts.
Jimmy Iovine, the Chairman of Universal Music Group’s Interscope Geffen A&M Records unit, is regarded as both a legendary figure in the music industry as well as a forward-thinking visionary.
The Brooklyn-born Iovine’s four-decade career began when he was just out of his teens. As a recording engineer, he found himself in the studio with John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town) before setting his sights on being a producer. Building on what he’d learned from the masters, he helped Patti Smith (Easter), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Damn The Torpedoes), and U2 (Rattle & Hum) -- all current Rock and Roll Hall of Famers -- achieve career breakthroughs. He also produced Stevie Nicks first solo album (Bella Donna) as well as albums for Dire Straits (Making Movies) and The Pretenders (Get Close).
Interscope, the record label that Iovine co-founded in 1990, has come to be widely regarded as the home of music’s most consistently fearless, intriguing, and popular artists, including Dr. Dre, Nine Inch Nails, U2, Mary J. Blige, No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Lady Gaga. Powered by Iovine’s peerless rapport with musicians, new buzzed-about stars like Azealia Banks, Ellie Goulding, Kendrick Lamar, and Lana Del Rey, are ensuring that that reputation endures.
With the rise of hip-hop, alternative culture, and technology, Iovine didn’t rest on his legacy but instead used his credibility and integrity to transform Interscope into a multi-media powerhouse that puts artists and ideas first. “The way I produce records now is I support record producers,” Iovine has said.
Iovine co-produced the hit Eminem movie 8 Mile directed by Curtis Hanson and executive produced the critically acclaimed LeBron James documentary More Than A Game.
In 2006, Iovine and hip-hop pioneer/producer Dr. Dre co-founded Beats By Dr. Dre, a high-performance headphone and sound transmission company intent on recapturing the fidelity of the studio. “Dre’s and my mission for Beats was to introduce premium audio to a generation that had never experienced the emotion of music as intended by the artists because of substandard ear buds and PCs,” says Iovine.
Thanks to the sleekly designed headphones, as well as expansion into smart phones and car audio systems, Beats By Dr. Dre has been widely successful, securing the #1 spot in the billion+ dollar premium headphones industry. Iovine is now expanding the Beats Brand and reputation into the digital music space with Beats Music—the first streaming music service delivering contextually and culturally relevant playlists, personalized for each user, by real music experts. In many ways, Beats Music is Iovine’s latest “supergroup” with former Topspin exec Ian Rogers and Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor will work alongside Beats Electronics President Luke Wood to create the next chapter of the music business and bring streaming music to the masses.
For the last two years, Iovine has found a new outlet for his hard-earned wisdom. Most Americans know him as the outspoken and frank mentor who shares his insight and expertise with contestants on Fox’s ratings blockbuster American Idol. Under Iovine’s watchful eye, Idol’s standout performers now release their music through Interscope, whose A&R and marketing strategies have led to breakout careers for Scotty McCreery and Phillip Phillips.
Read moreDr. Dre
Co-Founder
Dr. Dre is regarded as modern music’s greatest perfectionist.
Dr. Dre is regarded as modern music’s greatest perfectionist. “We go until it happens,” he told the Los Angeles Times of his work ethic in the studio, which has paid off in over a billion dollars in sales of his productions and performances. Critically and commercially acclaimed, Dre has built a signature sound that is instantly recognizable whether he’s working with Eminem or Burt Bacharach.
Born Andre Young in Compton, Calif., Dr. Dre began his career as a member of the World Class Wreckin’ Crew. In 1986, he co-founded N.W.A. (also featuring Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella, and the late Eazy-E), who brought the rage and intensity of life in South Central Los Angeles to a global consciousness with their 1988 landmark album Straight Outta Compton. In 1992, Dre released his solo debut, the G-Funk masterpiece The Chronic, which Rolling Stone hailed as one of the greatest albums ever made. Two decades later, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg performed its classic hits “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” and the Grammy Award-winning “Let Me Ride” as headliners at Coachella 2012. (The set also featured a hologram of the late 2Pac — a technological innovation driven by Dre that thrilled the crowd and made front-page news.) 1993 saw the release of Snoop’s solo debut, the Dre-produced Doggystyle — another rap milestone and commercial blockbuster that gave the world the hip-hop standard “Gin and Juice.”
In 1996, Dr. Dre set his sights on entrepreneurial endeavors, leaving Death Row Records and launching his own company, Aftermath Entertainment. He went on to discover and nurture such next-generation hip hop superstars as 50 Cent, The Game, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem, whose 1999 debut, The Slim Shady LP, has sold nine million copies worldwide, while his next three releases have topped 50 million units. Dr. Dre also crafted career re-defining hits for established artists like Mary J. Blige (the chart-topping “Family Affair”) and Gwen Stefani and Eve (“Let Me Blow Ya Mind”). Dre returned to rapping himself in 1999 with his second solo album, the 6x-platinum Dr. Dre 2001, which sold more than half a million copies in its first week and has been credited with introducing classic West Coast hip-hop to a new generation of listeners.
In the last decade, Dr. Dre, who still works in the recording studio every day, joined forces with Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine to create Beats By Dr. Dre — a high-performance headphone and sound transmission company intent on recapturing the fidelity of the studio in an age of ear buds and tiny laptop speakers. Beats By Dr. Dre launched in 2008 with the revolutionary Studio headphones, which have become culturally iconic — the signature red B now an instantly recognizable and respected symbol. (A new generation of unsuspecting music fans finally know what bass sounds like!) Beats By Dr. Dre has secured the #1 spot in the billion+ dollar premium headphones industry and LeBron James, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, David Guetta and Sean “Diddy” Combs, have all created special editions.
In 2009, Beats by Dr. Dre partnered with HP to produce the HP Envy notebook, integrated with Beats Audio, followed by the Beatbox iPod dock. In 2011, Beats Electronics opened a flagship retail store in New York City’s SoHo district where each of its new products is introduced.
And in early 2014, Beats closed the loop with Beats Music—a streaming music service designed to bring context and culture to digital music for the first time. While a separate company from Beats Electronics, Beats Music will carry the same style, substance, and commitment to quality that define the Beats brand, which Dre closely oversees.
Nearly a quarter century after Straight Outta Compton, Dr. Dre is still unpredictable and exciting; tirelessly following his creative vision and continuing to venture into the uncharted reaches of sound and technology. Whatever’s next, one thing is certain, we won’t see it “until it happens.”
Read moreLuke Wood
Vice Chairman
With the Beats Music streaming music service, Wood is leveraging all of Beats partnerships, relationships, and influence to ensure the newly launched service will command the same reach and cultural impact.
Luke Wood is President of Beats Electronics LLC, parent company of the Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ line of premium headphones, speakers, Beats Audio™ software and Vice Chairman of the Beats Music digital music service.
Wood has been involved with Beats since its infancy phase as part of his tenure at Interscope Records, officially joining the company in February 2011 to build on the brand’s momentum created under co-founders Jimmy Iovine and legendary producer Dr. Dre, and to expand the company’s audio quality expertise into new products and services. Wood oversees all global operations for the brand including manufacturing, product development, marketing and sales.
During his tenure, Beats has become the number one headphone in terms of revenue in North America with a significant market share globally and established presence in the automotive market through a partnership with Chrysler Group, in the computer space with HP, and in the mobile phone space through a strategic partnership and investment from mobile phone manufacturer HTC. Wood also led the Beats acquisition of critically acclaimed digital music service MOG, which has evolved into the Beats Music service and now operates as a standalone company. With the Beats Music streaming music service, Wood is leveraging all of Beats partnerships, relationships, and influence to ensure the newly launched service will command the same reach and cultural impact. Under Wood’s oversight, Beats now has a presence in every link in the digital music delivery chain—headphones, connected devices and service.
Wood brings 20 years of music and marketing executive experience to Beats. Prior to Beats, Wood was Chief Strategy Officer of Interscope Geffen A&M (IGA) and President of the imprint DGC Records. At Interscope, he oversaw the company’s traditional and digital business development, its emerging business and revenue (including 360 degree deals) and its operational strategy. As DGC President, Wood was responsible for all A&R and marketing decisions as well as for developing and guiding the label’s artist roster, which featured some of the biggest names in rock, including Weezer, All American Rejects, Rise Against, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, among many others.
Wood began his career with Geffen Records in 1991 as a Director of Publicity, representing such bands as Nirvana and Sonic Youth. He subsequently served as Geffen’s Director of Marketing, and later as Vice President of A&R at DreamWorks Records. In 2003, Wood joined Interscope Records (as part of its merger with DreamWorks) as Executive Vice President of A&R, having signed such artists as Jimmy Eat World, Elliott Smith and AFI. He also developed label deals with Downtown Records and signed artists such as TV on the Radio, All Time Low and Yelawolf.
A lifelong producer, songwriter and musician, Wood signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Group in 1996 and that same year his band, Sammy, released its third album, Tales of Great Neck Glory, on Geffen/DGC Records. Wood earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University with a major in American Studies.
Read moreTrent Reznor
Chief Creative Officer
While perhaps best known as the founder and sole member of the groundbreaking industrial music project Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor is a multi-talented creative force whose drive and passion has extended to film, videogames, and digital music services.
While perhaps best known as the founder and sole member of the groundbreaking industrial music project Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor is a multi-talented creative force whose drive and passion has extended to film, videogames, and digital music services.
Reznor’s musical roots stems from his childhood in Western Pennsylvania, first taking up the piano at age 5 and quickly adding instruments like tenor sax, tuba, and guitar to his range. After a year studying music and computers at Allegheny College, he dropped out and moved to Cleveland for a job a recording studio as an assistant engineer/janitor, where he began recording his own music during unused studio time.
In 1988, Reznor formed Nine Inch Nails, using much of that early studio work as the foundation of his debut album—1989’s Pretty Hate Machine—for which he played all the instruments himself. Shortly after, he signed with Interscope Records and released the Broken EP in 1992, which earned NIN's first Grammy Award for Best Heavy Metal Performance. In 1994, NIN released the breakthrough album The Downward Spiral, which debuted No. 2 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of such radio hits as “Closer” and “Hurt.” The next two albums—The Fragile and With Teeth—both reached No. 1 on the chart.
Since then, Reznor and NIN released another 10 albums and EPs. Overall, he’s garnered two GRAMMY awards from 12 nominations, appeared on Time magazine's most influential people list in 1997, and was named “the most vital artist in music” by Spin magazine. In addition to his continued work in Nine Inch Nails, Reznor has recorded music as a member of the group How To Destroy Angels.
Over the years, NIN developed a reputation as one of the best live acts in rock. From the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in 1991, to the legendary mud-covered appearance at Woodstock 1994, to the acclaimed Tension 2013 Tour, Reznor has entertained millions with his energy, talent, and eye for spectacle. This same desire to express his music through new formats has also resulted in some of the most creative music videos ever produced. The controversial music video for “Closer” (directed by Mark Romanek) is considered among the best music videos of all time, winning numerous awards and is one of the few music videos included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Throughout his career, Reznor has experimented with different expressions of music, leading to producing and composing scores for both videogames and film. His videogame credits include the scores for Quake and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. His film score production credits include Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994) and Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997). In 2010, Reznor composed his first film score for David Fincher’s The Social Network which won an Academy Award for best score and a Golden Globe for best original score. Additionally, he received a Critics’ Choice Movie Award and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best score. The following year Reznor scored his second film, Fincher’s English adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, earning a second Golden Globe nomination for best original score.
The peak of Reznor’s career came at a time of great disruption for the music industry, with the Internet changing the way music was sold, discovered, and acquired. From the beginning of this transition, Reznor began experimenting with new forms of music distribution and promotion, and few artists have embraced and adapted to this new environment the way he has.
Reznor broke new ground by posting the source tracks for “The Hand That Feeds” as a free download for fans to edit/remix/sample as they pleased, and created an online community for fans to share their work. He released the album The Slip as a free digital download, which in less than a year exceeded 1.8 million downloads. And in support of the 2007’s concept album Year Zero, Reznor developed a groundbreaking alternate reality game (with 42 Entertainment) that spanned no less than 29 websites, hidden messages within NIN merchandise, recordings and barcodes, hotlines, flier and poster campaigns, and even resistance cell “meetings” organized via calls made to pre-paid cell phones distributed to participants. Within two months, the ARG amassed 2.5 million cumulative site visits, 7.5 million cumulative page views, and 2 million phone calls.
He was an early adopter and supporter of the direct-to-fan artist services platform Topspin, and has been one of the most vocal advocates of artists taking control of their careers using the online and digital tools at their disposal.
Most recently, Reznor has taken on the role of product visionary and artist advocate behind the Beats Music service, where he serves as Chief Creative Officer. Working alongside founder Jimmy Iovine and CEO Ian Rogers, Reznor’s vision of a music service that could deliver contextually relevant playlists made by real music experts has become a reality. And he leads the charge to ensure artists will see value in Beats Music by not only paying them fairly, but also by providing ways to both communicate with fans and analyze data through the service.
Read moreIan Rogers
CEO
Rogers has spent his entire career pioneering the intersection of music, artists, and the Internet.
As CEO of Beats Music, Ian Rogers is charged with redefining the digital music experience for consumers and artists alike, a role he is uniquely qualified for.
Rogers has spent his entire career pioneering the intersection of music, artists, and the Internet. He possesses a deep knowledge of technology, combined with music industry savvy, a personal understanding of the music business from the artist's point of view, and a finely tuned ear for music.
Rogers has helped artists embrace technology since the early 90s, when after creating a fan site for the Beastie Boys as a personal project, he found himself recruited while still in college to teach the band the ways of the Internet. From brainstorming fan engagement campaigns, to posting news from the road during Beastie Boy tours, Rogers eventually became webmaster for BeastieBoys.com, and later president of new media for the band’s label, Grand Royale.
After stints as webmaster at Nullsoft, chief technology officer at rVision, and president and chief technology officer of Mediacode, Rogers entered the early subscription music service business as VP & GM of Yahoo! Music, a role he held for nearly five years.
In 2008, Rogers was named CEO of Topspin—the first artist services platform designed to connect artists and fans directly via the Internet and music services. During his tenure, Topspin powered fan engagement campaigns for such industry pioneers as Eminem, Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor, and many others. He also hosted the popular and highly informative Internet talk show This Week in Music, interviewing dozens of music artists and executives. Rogers remains Topspin’s executive chairman and is a member of the company’s board.
Since joining Beats Music in January, 2013, Rogers has successfully guided the company’s spin off as an independent company, helped secure $60 million in private funding, and closed critical marketing and distribution deals with launch partner AT&T… not to mention overseeing development of the service from idea to reality.
His track record for successfully joining product, promotion, and direct-to-consumer marketing sets a compelling stage for Beats Music within the burgeoning and competitive digital music space. And as a passionate lover of music as well as a champion for artist rights, Rogers is the perfect individual to guide the Beats Music vision into the future.
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