Beats Music, the "game-changing music service" Trent Reznor has been working on with Beats Electronics for the past year or two, will launch in the US in January 2014, says CEO Ian Rogers. In a blog post, Rogers wrote that Beats—which was originally, internally called "Daisy"—is currently up and running privately, with testers "who know and love music." Ahead of the January launch, Beats is currently making improvements based on feedback from the artists and "influencers" who've been given early access.
Beats Music has been in development since Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's Beats Electronics purchased streaming service MOG in July 2012. This March, Beats Music received a $60 million investment and spun out from Beats Electronics as its own, standalone company.
Reznor first spoke at length about his involvement in the project with the New Yorker last year. "What's missing is a service that adds a layer of intelligent curation," he said. "As great as it is to have all this information bombarding you, there's a real value in trusted filters. [Daisy is] like having your own guy when you go into the record store, who knows what you like but can also point you down some paths you wouldn't necessarily have encountered."
In an interview for FADER's October Trent Reznor Icon Issue, Nine Inch Nails art director Rob Sheridan explained how Reznor got involved with Beats Music, and why it's worked out:
Trent’s experience with creating Nine Inch Nails, not just as a band but also as a brand, as an experience, as a culture, and his business savvy, makes him very adaptable into other situations that require creativity with an understanding of branding and perception and user experience. Jimmy [Iovine] has a tremendous amount of respect for Trent. But when Jimmy initially brought Trent on board at Beats, he was looking at him just as a producer and an audio guy. Saying, “Trent why don’t you come in and check out what we’re doing in here and take a look at some headphones and see how you would improve the sound.” It was by chance then that Jimmy mentioned this other Beats project, this streaming music service. That was something Trent was really interested in, problem solving as it pertains to the music industry and business models. Trent and I have spent a lot of time talking about that previously, so he brought me along and we ended up going in there and turning the whole project upside down with our ideas. Since then, Trent has continued to hold this very high creative role in Beats Music. It’s been interesting to take everything we’ve learned from our experience bringing Nine Inch Nails out into the world, our thinking about what fans want, and apply that to this new situation.
