Jimmy Iovine believes music streaming services are “minutes away from being obsolete,” seemingly due to a disconnect regarding the wants and needs of today’s artists.
In an interview with David Senra, Iovine called the relationship between artists and music streaming services “one-dimensional” because the former does not benefit from the current structure.
“It’s one dimensional. It’s an ATM machine. You put your money in, you get your music,” he said. “They don’t do anything for the artist.”
Iovine believes today’s artists are primarily concerned about connecting with their fans and promoting themselves, while those behind the music streaming services continue to push a self-centered agenda.
“The artist wanna communicate with their fans, period. That’s what they want,” he explained. “They wanna communicate, they wanna market themselves, and the streaming services are still saying, ‘We’ll put you on our list, if you’re nice to us, or if you like us.’ That’s bullshit.”
Since platforms like TikTok and Instagram appear to be fulfilling the needs of artists, Iovine suspects streaming services could be on the brink of being phased out.
“Not for philanthropic reasons, but this is what TikTok does. That’s what Instagram does,” he said. “You can somewhat promote yourself. So, the streaming services, to me, are minutes away from being obsolete, because of that. You can’t rub against the artist like that. You just can’t. You gotta give them what they want.”
Iovine also brought up his concerns about the music streaming service pay model in which only a select few artists can actually earn “meaningful” money, but in order to do so, they need to be heavily streamed.
“But there’s a lot wrong with streaming, in my opinion,” he said.