Image Credit: D Dipasupil/FilmMagic.comDr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are busy men. One is a legendary recording artist and producer, the other runs one of the biggest labels in the music industry. So why are these guys, who surely have cooler places to be, spending their Wednesday afternoon at a Manhattan theater hawking headphones?
“Because this is our life right now,” Dr. Dre tells the Music Mix backstage shortly after he, Iovine, and Monster Cable founder Noel Lee have finished a press conference introducing the latest additions to their Beats by Dr. Dre audio products line. “This is something that we’re really into. We’re really proud of it.” Iovine gets more personal with his answer: “I was a recording engineer when I was 19 years old,” says the Interscope-Geffen-A&M chief. “Sound has been my way into a better life. So sound is as important to me as music…. Without sound and music, I’m still in Brooklyn, working, you know, down on the docks. So it’s very easy for me to show up for this.”
Iovine and Dre have developed the Beats line to combat what they see as an epidemic of low-quality sound. Tinny laptop speakers and cheap earbuds drive them absolutely nuts. “Headphones became a commodity,” says Iovine. “And when that happened, it was a very, very dangerous thing for us. Then you add the bad files and the bad sounding computers, and you’ve got a chain of events that are cataclysmic to music.” Most Beats products are expensive — the new Beats Pro headphones and Beatbox speaker dock, for example, will each retail for $399 — but they hope to persuade consumers that a professional-quality listening experience is worth the price tag. They’ve even partnered with Justin Bieber for Just Beats headphones that they hope will help appeal to a younger audience. And a new line of iBeats earbuds, also aimed at kids, will sell for $99.
Earlier at the press conference, Dre mentioned that his most important non-headphone project, the extremely delayed Detox album, might possibly be released by this Christmas, “in a perfect world.” He didn’t sound too definite about that release date. Isn’t he tired of answering those questions about when to expect Detox? “You have no idea,” he sighs backstage, then laughs.
So why has he kept working on Detox when he could have retired comfortably years ago? “I have a genuine passion for making music, and that’s all it is,” Dre replies without hesitating. “I mean, I love being in the studio. I love creating and coming up with new things. And making records is such a high for me, because you wake up and you have to go into the studio and just pull something out of thin air, and you have to do it well enough for people to get up and go to their computer or do whatever they do to buy it. It’s a perfect job for me.”
Earlier: Dr. Dre says he’d be open to working with American Idol contestants
(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)
More on The Music Mix:
What song is most likely to make men cry?
America’s Got Talent winner Michael Grimm signs with Epic Records
President Barack Obama says he listens to the Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, and… Lil Wayne in Rolling Stone interview
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees: Who got left out?
Ridiculous. These headphones will never go very far with prices like that. I feel bad for the people who have let themselves be talked into buying a $300 pair of headphones.
There no need for these headphones. Simply go to music like never before and you will discover it for your self.
Yeah, I mean I love me some Dre, but I had the headphones and I really didnt feel like I was getting that much of a difference from $80.00 sony’s
yup pretty much anything with the words “monster cable” on them should be written off as fast as possible. this makes me think dre is a hack working with scam artists like monster.
I’m really getting sick of hearing about the Detox album. I mean , it’s been, what? 7 years that he’s been hinting at it and saying “it’s coming soon.” Come on now. Just stop hinting at it, and don’t give bulls*** possible release dates like this Christmas when we all know that’s not going to happen. I’ll be surprised if it comes out before 2012. I’m not trying to sound like an a**, it’s just annoying to be teased about something for 7 years. It is so redundant.
I’ve listened to Detox & it’s not that good.
Hear and feel the music that you’ve been missing. Transformational Music Technology was created to redefine what digital music should be. Meaning that now we can have music with greater dynamic emotional power, crystal clear vocals, instruments, tighter bass, dimensionality, depth, space, punch and different musical textures.
Ammo arsenal!
ammo for my arsenal! Eminem should have been signed him!
Thank you, I have recently been searching for info approximately this subject for a while and yours is the best I have discovered till now. However, what concerning the conclusion? Are you positive concerning the source?|What i don’t realize is in truth how you are now not actually much more well-preferred than you may be now. You’re so intelligent.
I have been browsing online more than three hours as of late, but I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s lovely value enough for me. In my opinion, if all web owners and bloggers made just right content material as you did, the net can be much more helpful than ever before.