Every artist and every song has an idea, and the producer's job is to capture it.
Jimmy Iovine
You try to do the best with what you've got and ignore everything else. That's why horses get blinders in horse racing: You look at the horse next to you, and you lose a step.
Everyone's frightened. It's how you deal with that fear. It's very, very powerful. And what you've got to do is get it as a tailwind instead of a headwind. And that's a little bit of a judo trick in your mind. And once you learn that, fear starts to excite you. Because you know that you are going to enter into something and try it and risk.
I consider the recording studio where I was born.
I am blessed with the energy of a chimpanzee. There is nothing I can't get up for and give it a hundred percent.
You go into any recording studio in the world, and you see candles, lights, and that Apple light from a Mac.
All I've ever wanted to do is move the needle on popular culture.
When there's something I need to focus on, I'm like a dog with a bone.
Most technology companies are culturally inept. They're never going to get curation right.
Apple Music is trying to create an entire pop culture experience that includes audio and video. If South Park walks into my office, I'm not going to say, 'You're not musicians.' We're going to do whatever hits pop culture smack on the nose.
Life is a balance of fear and overcoming it.
I love doing third albums. A group makes its first album, and then the record company rushes them into the studio to make their second album. After that, they go, 'Whoa, wait a second.' They get a little more confident. They step back and say, 'Okay, now we're gonna do it.'
Over four or five years, I did six albums with three people: John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Patti Smith. I felt that if I could care as much about their music as they did, I could be useful to them. I really cared about their music and their lives.
I'm not going to be the guy who sold the last CD.
We want PC makers to have better audio because these things are used as home stereos by a lot of people, and that makes it suck.
Bob Dylan enabled rock & roll to grow up and survive. He injected the power of language and ideas into the music.
What we feel, especially in the streaming area, especially in the services area, is that you need curation.
When we did Beats, we had to begin again. Nobody at Best Buy knew who we were.
People need service - great service where music is concerned.
I didn't have any sophistication. I didn't really have any great taste or anything like that. I was just a kid from Brooklyn. But what I learnt is the why, the how. The work ethic.
A chart that weighs some ad-supported streams the same as a pay stream... encourages artists to promote free tiers to have a No. 1 record. That's great for the tech companies, but not for artists.
I have a gift: I'm very lucky to be able to spot when a person is special.
Music industry's a fragmented mess.
I wanted a label that reflects the times... a center for artists who want to express themselves. That's what makes Interscope unique. It's about freedom.
Dre's from Compton, I'm from Brooklyn, and we both wanted to make a better life for ourselves, right? And we both - somehow, we're both recording engineers, that's how we got our break.
That's how I grew up - it wasn't cool to not have a good system.
I'm happy with studio infiltration, but I'm thrilled when I see 12- to 20-year olds walking down the street with Beats and not two-dollar earbuds.
If you're looking for a quick hit, that means you're looking for something disposable.
Digital sound is damaging music; it's damaging the artists. It's so degrading.
Algorithms are great, but they're very limited in what they can do as far as playing songs and playing a mood.
It's one thing for the industry to lose half its revenue to piracy; it's another to destroy it emotionally.
I can't learn in school, but I can learn from somebody who I think is cool and great.
There are thousands of Eminems. Just listen to a song. There are thousands of them. It's just that he had the talent. It's like someone with a talent to hit a baseball. He had the talent to write lyrics.
When you're making music, you don't look at what's going on in the studio next to you.
I always try to go where the excitement is, where the best music is. I don't care what kind of music it is. I go with the best artist we can find.
What's happened to the music industry, from my perspective, is a lot of great music is behind the wall that can't get through, and therefore, a lot of artists are getting discouraged.
There's a sea of music out there, but there's no curation for it.
I always knew that women, some women, at times find it very difficult to find music.
I came from Brooklyn. My nickname was Moochie.
Nobody wanted to be in business with Death Row because, unfortunately, they felt there was an element there that could be dangerous. But I just knew they had great music and that they were a bunch of guys who wanted to make it out of the ghetto. That's something I can understand.
I always wanted to be where the cool was because I didn't think I was cool. But music was cool.
You're only as good as your weakest link in the ecosystem of sound, of audio.
I knew in my heart that I wasn't cool, but I figured I could at least be cool by association.
If I were going to teach a course, it would be called Don't Breathe Your Own Exhaust.
We created Apple Music to make finding the right music easier for everyone - men and women, young and old.
I follow cool. When I went up to see Steve Jobs, I said, 'The party's at this guy's house.'
Just because you like something, that doesn't mean that you have a feel for it.
Dylan captured what was on a million minds and turned it into poetry. With 'Blowin' in the Wind' or 'The Times They Are A-Changin',' he set a whole new standard.
Talent is talent.
My life changed because Bruce Springsteen got on a mic in front of me.
