How Apple hopes to win the streaming war

Jackson, who had a quick rise in the music business, has been a force driving the company’s innovative approach. He credits his time with Apple Music boss Jimmy Iovine at Interscope Records for some of the inspiration: Jackson signed Lana Del Rey, and says that because Del Rey was an artist made for and by the Internet, so rather than spending money on radio promotion, he convinced Interscope to channel her budget all into videos. “We were like, fuck it, let’s just make movies. So we made long-form films – that’s why [Del Rey’s] ‘National Anthem’ is eight minutes long. Without any singles in radio rotation, Born to Die debuted at Number Two on Billboard and went platinum, which Jackson saw as a vindication of his vision.

Apple Music has embraced this content-focused approach – but the company is a long way from dominating the music-streaming business, which has grown from $1.4 billion in music revenue in 2013 to nearly $2.4 billion in 2015. According to reports, Spotify has roughly 30 million paid subscribers to Apple Music’s 15 million, and while Tidal has around 3 million, Jay Z’s service has put out high-profile exclusives from Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kanye West. But Apple, worth more than $586 billion, has something neither of those companies can match: cash. The two-week Apple exclusive for Drake’s Views, in late April, was part of a reported multimillion-dollar deal that included funding the huge “Hotline Bling” video. The company also paid for two versions (one never released) of the Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” video last year. Apple had an exclusive for Future’s album EVOL in February, launching it with an appearance by Future on DJ Khaled’s Beats 1 radio show. “It’s a brand that is just undeniable,” says DJ Khaled.”Apple is sexy,” says Monte Lipman, head of Republic Records, home to the Weeknd and Ariana Grande. “They are prepared to do things no one has done before. Lately they’ve been very clever in coming to us with what we consider groundbreaking opportunities.” Jackson says that the goal is to put Apple Music “at the intersection of all things relevant in pop culture.” Jackson says that the model is “MTV in its Eighties and Nineties heyday. You always felt that Michael Jackson or Britney Spears lived there. How do you emotionally conjure up that feeling for people?”

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