Former eMusic CEO Adam Klein discusses the online music business and why Apple wants to buy Beats Electronics on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
[Apple] has got to be at the party and it’s late and this is the quickest way to get there.
They have to have a forceful streaming presence… It’s the only format that’s growing…
For [Apple] to build it would take too long. — Former eMusic CEO Adam Klein
Direct link to video here.
Related articles:
Apple’s deep ties with Jimmy Iovine key driver of Beats deal – May 12, 2014
Removal of Dr. Dre video about Apple-Beats deal likely means acquisition is real and imminent – May 10, 2014
Game changer: Apple buying Beats could radically transform the digital music business – May 9, 2014
If Beats deal happens, Apple is acquiring a fad, not quality, and that is troubling – May 9, 2014
If Apple’s really buying Beats, here’s hoping it’s brilliant in a way which isn’t immediately obvious – May 9, 2014
The reason for Apple’s $3.2 billion interest in Beats? Spotify – May 9, 2014
Apple buying Beats Electronics: Its best idea since the iPad? – May 9, 2014
Why would Apple want to blow $3.2 billion on Beats Electronics? – May 8, 2014
Apple in talks to buy Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion – May 8, 2014
Now that makes sense. You don’t always have to start from scratch.
That’s right. Apple can never take over an existing market with a new product. They don’t stand a chance of making a dent.
I take it Legend is dripping with sarcasm?
Fact is Apple was told or expected by so many to eventually introduce a streaming service and do it right, and now we know that under Jobs and it seems since little or no effort to do so happened. Sometimes Apple is so pig headed and refuses to see opportunities that so often it sees before anyone else. However like MDN’s mantra it there was nothing but everyone wants to buy music while dismissing any concept of streaming. Just because it looks sensible for a while doesn’t mean it always will be as present events go to prove.
I guess you missed the memo. Steve isn’t here to make these connections. Do you think cook will get the music deals done?….. I thought so
maybe Iovine (and to a certain degree Dr. Dre’s) role to get and keep content coming to Apple might be just as important…
Like I said Friday…
Apple should have used this same idea, build on an existing platform, when they wanted to enter the smartphone market. It would have been a lot easier to simply buy Palm or Nokia. They had “acceptable” products and it was really “too late” for Apple to come out with a product from scratch. Why not just buy an existing solution, albeit not a perfect one, and go from there. It is far better to offer a streaming solution that already exists even if it is part of a dirtbag, rap culture, rape promoting, pimp celebrating outfit, than to build a streaming solution based on old style no longer relevant ideas like art should not promote rape and hate and most particularly, talentless thugs as artists.
Apple should buy Beats, just like Apple should have bought Nokia.
Maybe they will buy Beat only to shut them down and put them out of business. Consider it their contribution to society. 😉
You had me at “talentless thugs as artists.” Ain’t it the truth. Most of okay’s generation seem to have the wool pulled over their eyes falling for and buying most of today’s so-called music with it’s cookie cutter and soulless tired production techniques and sounds. I swear to God they’re all using the same rinky-dink sounding Casio drum machine, Auto-Tune box and rappy crappy cadence anyone-could-do-that-without-hardly-trying “vocal stylings” (it sure ain’t singing). Boooooring!
Other people in the music biz have to pretend to like it too so they won’t look out of touch.
With so much genuine talent out there why do far too many of these faux “music” talentless jokers get the morning Top 40 airtime? (I hear this crap every morning taking my granddaughter to school – volume down low.)
I know I sound like my parents but I think I’m fairly open minded and have far more eclectic music tastes than they ever did.
Which is the same rant each generation has about the music that follows their generation. Congratulations on being old.
I think I came up with an excuse why it wasn’t but how bad does music have to get before this isn’t a generational thing? Is there no valid objective consensus of quality? Would running the sound of a fart through a vocoder and singing through it still be considered good music for whatever generation was in charge? Is there no such thing as good or bad music? Musicality just in the ears of the beholder?
Doesn’t mean he’s not right.
Wish I could give this more than 5 stars. You are so right, and reading this is so timely as I happen to be listening to a CD by “Seventh Wonder”, called “The Great Escape.”
I have a collection of over 1200 CDs, and this is arguably the best one. Off the charts musicianship, amazing songwriting, great lyrics (title track based in the 1954 Pulitzer Prize-winning poem “Ariana”), and a singer that’s just unbelievably good. Check the disc out on iTunes or Amazon, especially if you like rock.
They’re from Sweden (English lyrics, no accent), and yes, they’re really that good….but I’d be shocked if even any Swedish readers have ever heard of them.
And yet Nikki Minaj, Dr Dre, and Miley Cyrus are all multi-millionaires.
The “music industry” is dead to me.
Just checked out Seventh Wonder… and no shit…! Thanks for the heads up. Great stuff.
Seventh Wonder/The Great Escape – iTunes – $9.99
Seventh Wonder/The Great Escape – eMusic – $5.99 (member price)
Except at the time all of the existing smartphones out on the market were CRAP! Apple had a better vision that was nothing like what was on the market at the time so buying Palm or Nokia was not an option that would have made sense.
But Beats is crap too. Their headphones are renowned for being bad, but being cool because gangsters use them. That seems to be the compelling virtue. And the music service from what I have read is glitchy and does not make money.
Teenagers and young adults believe Beats gives them the best sound, particularly with lots of bass. Perception equals reality.
I agree with every drop of sarcasm in your post. I think that buying Beats would be a horrific move for Apple:
1 – WAY too much money if $3 billion is correct
2 – inheriting whatever flaws there are in the design
3 – buying into the “rap culture” image, as you said, which clashes completely with Apple’s “clean cut” image (though for those into that image, it might be a plus)
4 – integration with existing Apple devices and products will undoubtedly NOT be seamless, as it clearly wasn’t a consideration in the design
I could go on, but those are the main ones.
Honestly, I’d rather see them buy Blackberry….which I also think would be a waste of money, but that would at least get them some patents.
Apple’s “clean cut image” is the phone of choice for celebrities, including rappers, and has been for years. How “clean” is that?
So Apple does not need to buy Beats to get “street creed” with the rapist gangsta druggie drive by drug crowd. Save the $3 billion and don’t put these criminals on the payroll.
Your argument is idiotic. The iPhone is also the “phone of choice” for almost anyone with a good income, but you don’t have to be rich to buy one.
It’s not like cocaine, or a Maybach, a house in Malibu, etc, where a larger-than-normal percentage of owners/customers may be engaged in questionable activities.
Sure, lots of rappers/celebrities own iPhones…so do lots of housewives, IT managers, and Little League coaches.
Isn’t iRadio streaming?
Why would aka Dr. Dre be stupid enough to post a video
before anything is in stone, pre-staging any WWDC announcement and up-staging the company who is giving him billions of dollars for bass-heavy fad very expensive headphones. If I was Tim Cook, I would make the deal ONLY excluding aka Dr. Dre. His immaturity and ignorance has already shown itself. Steve wouldn’t put up with that mess.
This is the big leagues, and posting that video was T-ball mentality.
It may well be completed with just a few details to iron out. Just because Apple hasn’t made a public announcement doesn’t mean the deal isn’t done. Apple frequently does not announce acquisitions immediately upon them happening.
And how does this guy know anything that Apple wants to do with Beats? He doesn’t, just another opinion which will probably be wrong. Let’s just see what comes of it rather than try and read between the lines that we know nothing about.
If all the experts geeks, tech writers, pundits, Leo Laporte say it’s wrong do the opposite Apple.
First of all, for the most part, the music died in the mid to late 70s.
Second, why pay for music or streaming music if you can get it free.
Third, for the most part, the music died in the mid to late 70s.
Former eMusic CEO Adam Klein, former advisor to MTV Networks.
That alone should tell you he has no taste at all.
Second, if it makes sense to Wall Street it is bound to be a scam.
$3.2 billion is a big double FU to Google and Facebook to say, see what we do with $3.2 bil…not Nest Labs for $3.2 billion, not Motorola bought for $12.5 billion, sold for $3.2 billion to Lenovo… not spend $19 billion on Whatsapp like Facebook.