"I started this curation conversation six years ago, and everyone thought I was talking about The Force, like it was an ancient religion," says Jimmy Iovine, 62, a legendary producer, Interscope and Beats co-founder and latterly, since Beats Electronics' $3.2 billion (£2 billion) Apple buyout in 2014, a creative force behind Apple Music, the company's new streaming service. "But now that's all people talk about. Of course [music] needs curation. Curation was supposedly not hip -- that's bullshit. Curation is a big thing to us, and no one is going to be able to catch us or do it better."

Apple has had curation tools before; the Shuffle button, the Genius algorithm and the iTunes Store itself were all efforts in helping users navigate content, with varying degrees of randomness and intelligence. But now, with Apple Music, curation is pretty much Apple's entire music product. Made up of three big elements, the service is intended -- as Iovine stated at WWDC -- to be "one complete thought around music": a straightforward but streamlined library of 30 million on-demand tracks and playlists, a social-media stream of exclusive artist updates ('Connect'), and curated radio stations, including the Zane Lowe-helmed global flagship Beats 1. "What we built is a little more complicated than a basic utility," Iovine tells WIRED. "But it's meant to work together. It's meant to entertain people, it's meant to help them find music, discover music. When they want to do it on their own they can, and when they want help they can as well. To do that properly takes a lot of real creative people."

Though it was launched in late June of this year, Apple Music was built on the foundations of Beats Music, the lesser-known digital element of co-founders Dr Dre and Iovine's headphones empire. That service was relatively light in users compared to Spotify, Google Play and other competitors, but was noted for its commitment to customised, edited playlists with genuine heart and specificity. In Apple Music that DNA of curation was combined with Cupertino's design expertise, its vast number of iTunes and iPhone customers, and the company's deep knowledge of their music preferences, to create a service with greater nuance that you might expect.


The result is a growing sense that Apple Music is more than the sum of its parts. While the service's universal three-month free trial means no one has actually paid the £9.99 monthly subscription fee (or £14.99 for families), more than 11 million people signed up for the trial in the first month. Apple -- and the record industry -- is now waiting for the critical transition of free trialists to paid subscribers. Happily, thanks to Taylor Swift, artists are being paid, both before and after.

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For Jimmy Iovine, the question of success is more interesting, and difficult, than subscriber stats. Neither does he think about Apple Music as a utility, or as a dumb store of music with access sold at a standardised cost, even though the industry seems increasingly willing to think about all media that way. Instead he thinks of Apple Music as a tool to put meaning back into musical culture.


When you're in something like this you're not really taking victory laps. But I think we're finding our voice quicker than I thought we would. Jimmy Iovine

"I'm very happy with the content that's forming, and what it is, and the image of it, and the vibe of what we're trying to do is getting out there. So it's easy for me to say I like it -- but there's a lot of work to do," he tells WIRED, sitting back on a couch in an upscale London hotel, dressed in his consistent attire of T-shirt, hoodie and jeans and assessing the service's first month. "When you're in something like this you're not really taking victory laps. But I think we're finding our voice quicker than I thought we would."

'Voice' is another word for curation, the process by which millions of units of media (whether music, movies, TV or social-media updates) are packaged, re-presented, suggested or promoted in order to get users engaged. It's a trendy word for an old idea; there isn't a broadcaster, publisher or medieval chronicler that hasn't also faced the same puzzle of sorting vast amounts of information into manageable, interesting chunks. And while the tech world has occasionally heralded the death of human editors, to be replaced by content-shifting algorithms or self-organising complexity, the truth is that curation has never been an either/or choice between machine learning or human taste. Virtually everyone involved in curation of any kind -- from Amazon to, well, WIRED.co.uk -- uses both humans and technology to improve their product.

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Apple Music is positioned towards the human end of that scale, but not entirely, Iovine says. The suggested albums and playlists you see when you open the Music app might be initially sorted based on traditional genre preferences you put into the service when you sign up ("our radio station is genre-free, it's research-free... genres are just names..."), and your past listening trends ("we also have your iTunes library so we know what's in there. And that's put into the formula..."). But much of the actual content -- for this author an 'Intro To Jimi Hendrix' playlist, a collection of 'Dark Disco' and an 'Indie Day At The Beach' collection featuring the Apples In Stereo, Toots & The Maytals and Blondie -- might be put together by one of "hundreds" of human editors. "When I met a lot of our competitors in the field the first thing they said to me was, 'Look we don't have anything to do with music, we're a utility'" Iovine says. "[But] no matter how you shake it, when you listen to a radio station that was programmed purely by an algorithm you will go comfortably numb."


Apple's advantage, Iovine says, is one of scale: the scale of the resources it can put into human curation, and the scale of its ambition to do curation properly. "Algorithms are great but they're very limited in what they can do as far as playing songs and playing a mood... And a lot of these companies they just go and hire somebody who used to work in the record business 25 years ago. Well, great. You have one person. We have hundreds... We have one of the great tech companies of all time building what we need."

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You have tech companies building utilities that just push all the music out like it's this ocean of music. There's nothing elegant or helpful because the labels need help, the artists need help, everybody needs help. Jimmy Iovine

For early adopters, streaming music services are not exactly news. In the real world, however, at least in the UK, the revolution is just beginning; the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) says that there are now 500 million weekly music streams in the UK, with a total of 25 billion expected for 2015 as a whole. That's up 80 percent on 2014 for the year so far.

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Even so, discovering music you love doesn't happen by brute force: you don't find a song so perfect and resonant that it totally reframes a sunny Thursday morning -- as happened to WIRED thanks to Titus Andronicus's punk joy anthem 'Dimed Out' on the way to our interview with Jimmy -- by just streaming more and more tracks. Finding new music is a question of moments, inspiration and chance. Iovine can pinpoint two moments recently where he had the same experience ("One was an old thing, I watched Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. And it stunned me, I watched the thing from beginning to end. And the latest thing is a girl named Andra Day and a song called 'Rise Up'. And it stopped me in my tracks...") and he knows that for Apple Music to capture loyal subscribers purely on its ability to curate music better than anyone else, those are the moments it has to engineer.

At least Iovine has form; in the first third of his life he was a successful engineer and producer, working with John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and U2. In the second he co-founded Interscope Records with Ted Field in 1990, and went on to effectively redefine hip-hop, rap and alternative rock by launching and supporting acts from Eminem to Marilyn Manson. "[When] I was working in making records, creating those moments meant enabling people like Dr Dre and Timbaland and Gwen Stefani and Eminem, giving the environment, and maybe the counsel, or the help -- whatever they needed -- to push that out," Iovine says. "Now I feel that music's being made but it's being squashed and pushed back."

Much of that "pushing back" -- Iovine likes to talk about a "wall" between music and fans -- is a result of a record industry which in the last 15 years has proven largely hesitant to take big chances on innovative tech, or ground-breaking artists. "The labels are having financial problems. They want music to be great too, but they don't have the wherewithal to be able to stay with artists and nurture them. On top of that you have tech companies building utilities that just push all the music out like it's this ocean of music. There's nothing elegant or helpful, because the labels need help, the artists need help, everybody needs help." "So that's what I do now. That's what my team does now. We try to build the distribution and delivery of music and make it elegant and exciting. The distribution in music needs to get exciting again, it needs to have a pulse, a heart. It doesn't right now, so that's what we're trying to do with Apple Music."

In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences. yo @zanelowe are you kidding?!!?!? you just spun our tune! you're an absolute legend!! — Spring King (@springkingband) June 30, 2015

It's not just rhetoric. The first band ever played on Beats 1 was an unsigned, unknown act from Manchester, Spring King; their track 'City' went on to be one of the most-played on the network in July, and launched the band on to a world stage. Supporting those acts is something Beats 1 can do in a way no other service can, Iovine says, because of the focus and attention a live radio station brings on moments in music, rather than just the existence of content on a server.

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That was the aim behind Beats Electronics, which he co-founded in 2008, and its famous plastic headphones, Iovine says -- to refocus attention of the act of listening, and appreciating the emotion of music. Audiophiles might scoff, but he's bullish about their impact on the culture of music listening.

Whether you like [Beats\c headphones, you don't like our headphones, they sound better than a $1 headphone, okay? Jimmy Iovine

as dangerous as their headphones."

Iovine is very clear when he says that the goal of Apple Music is to return emotion to music as a whole, not just to increase access to a digital commodity. "Everyone says to me that 'music is as popular as it ever was'. But is it as impactful as it ever was? I don't know. Certain music is, certain musicians are, but the way it's been dealt with isn't the music's fault. The way it's being delivered is very mechanical, very cold, without emotion. And that's what we're trying to change."

Apple

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We're building Connect out a lot more, it needs a lot of technical work as well. But we believe we'll get there and it'll be a great place for artists to communicate and with a lot of independence and freedom to do what they want to do. But we're still building it. Jimmy Iovine

Even this early in its life, the core of Apple Music -- the 30 million tracks-strong library -- is obviously on solid ground, with varied and interesting playlists and obviously deep integration with iOS. Technically it's had its problems, focused largely on a confusing interaction between Apple Music, iTunes Match and users' existing music libraries. "We're aware that some users have experienced some issues, and we hate letting them down, but we're releasing updates as fast as we can to address those issues," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior VP of internet software and services recently. But you sense a reckoning with iTunes must be on the way, and the service will continue to improve.

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It's the other two elements of Apple Music -- radio, specifically Beats 1, and Connect -- that are the unknown quantities. Of these, Connect is the least confident. Reminiscent of Ping, Apple's last push to create a "social network for music", Connect is a place for artists to post exclusive behind the scenes videos and tracks, reach out to fans and generally promote themselves. When it works -- as with Spring King, who briefly followed up on their surprise Beats 1 hit with messages introducing themselves to fans -- it's diverting.

But as Iovine recognises, it has more to do. "We have to prove [Connect's value to artists], and we will slowly prove that. That will be the piece of the service that comes along last, or later, and we have some real plans," he tells WIRED. "We're building it out a lot more, it needs a lot of technical work as well. But we believe we'll get there and it'll be a great place for artists to communicate and with a lot of independence and freedom to do what they want to do. But we're still building it."

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Beats 1 is by some distance the most traditional element of Apple Music -- let's face it, it's a radio station, no more or less -- but surprisingly it already feels like a hit. No listener figures have been released to date, but creatively the radio station is (subjectively) flying, propelled by the sheer charisma of Zane Lowe and its other presenters. On one recent afternoon, Lowe opened his 5PM BST show with one-hit-wonder Len's 'Steal My Sunshine', then transitioned to 'Supersonic' by Oasis, via Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side', which merged seamlessly into A Tribe Called Quest's 'Can I Kick It?'. It was intense, but in the moment pretty much perfect radio. "I love it when a plan comes together," Lowe shouted at one point, in between sounds of pre-recorded explosions.

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Listening in the UK, it is hard not to recognise the DNA of the BBC in Beats 1 ("they're great" says Iovine, of the Beeb), particularly because its most influential DJ left the Corporation to head up the station and its key 5PM BST slot. Of Zane Lowe, Iovine is full to bursting with praise. "He's amazing. I mean you find people like that three or four times in your life that are going to work for you. He is an incredible guy. Just look at what he did. He did that in 19 weeks. Do you know how hard that is?" WIRED did not. "It is impossible that he did it in 19 weeks. I'm so proud of him, I'm so happy to have him on our team and he deserves a lot of credit, he's really good."

Lowe is not the only DJ on the station, of course. London-based Julie Adenuga has also carved out a voice on Beats 1, and is growing alongside her listeners. "This year has just been unreal for me," Adenuga tells WIRED, via email. "When Zane told me about it I said you just described my next job. This job can't end. There's always going to be new music. There's nothing else for me to do other than find new music and play it to millions of people." Josh Homme's shows are riotous and dark listening -- a recent episode with Arctic Monkey's Alex Turner was a surreal highlight. Q-Tip, St. Vincent, Dr Dre and Pharrell have also hosted hours on the network, allof which are available on-demand through Connect.

At its best, Beats 1 isn't just entertaining, it's actually charming. To what extent that station will be able to convince listeners to pay for Apple Music is unknown, particularly in the UK where it faces stiff established competition in the form of BBC Radio 6 Music and Radio 1, its closest license fee analogues. But what matters is that the Beats 1 -- and its probable spin-offs -- breathes humanity into the world's biggest company. What could be regarded as a campaign to control a medium, in the context of Beats 1 looks more like a genuinely exciting project to bring it back to life.

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That [TV\c box helps you none -- it doesn't help. You're on your own. And eventually that will catch them unless somebody digs in and really helps the customer. And entertainment needs that, it needs to live and breathe. Jimmy Iovine

it. That is all changing. What we've built are tools for that change. And again if I was a label I would be all over this because I'd want an advantage because artists don't want to do all this stuff themselves. They need a label, they want labels, but the labels have to evolve and be of service."

For the service itself, the future is clear, Iovine says: curate more and learn more. He also raises the prospect -- unprompted by WIRED -- that the same curation strategy could be applied to other media. Such as TV. "We all know one thing, we all have different television delivery systems, don't we all wish that the delivery systems were better, as far as curation and service?" he says. "They're all technically good. And Netflix is starting to cross the code because they're starting to make some original content. It is really good, but still I mean none of us make movies here right, so we're all punters, or what do you call them in the music business, fans right? We want to watch movies. Sit down with your girlfriend or a bunch of friends and try to find a movie online. That box helps you none -- it doesn't help. You're on your own. And eventually that will catch them unless somebody digs in and really helps the customer. And entertainment needs that, it needs to live and breathe."

Eddie Cue and Tim Cook were the right guys. So I think that what they planted here is going to be a model for the future. Jimmy Iovine


is so daunting that I can't even think about anything else.") He's also investing in the future in another way, by co-funding with Dre the $70m Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy at the University of Southern California.

Apple's implicit promise that it made in 2001 with the launch of the first iPod, was to make music human again. Its adverts did a good job portraying that, but in reality the combination of DRM, bad headphones and cratering music-industry revenues in some ways put up as many barriers as they broke down. Apple Music can be different, Iovine says. "I think Tim's bet and Eddie's bet, which goes back to the original bet, when I met Eddie and Steve [in 2002], I met a lot of tech companies at that time because we were getting blasted in the music business... and I said, 'Oh man we don't have a chance with any of these guys.' And when I met Eddie and Steve I said, 'Wow these guys get it, they get technology and they get media, they are right on the corner. This is where cool is, this is what the next thing's going to look like.'" "Eddie and Tim were the right guys. So I think that what they planted here is going to be a model for the future. And this is about content and the delivery of it, and the elegance of it, and discovery of it. Discovery is the most important word, to make that cool. You could go find things on your own or with your friends, it's all in here as well. And we have some things to build out yet, social things we build out more, we have a bunch of things to build out... but that's the dream."

Will it ever be more than that? "I think it's never perfect. But I think you have a better chance of being perfect at Apple than anywhere else."