IGA CHIEF JIMMY IOVINE SPEAKS ON THE RECORD

On how the record business has failed:
This business has never had a relationship with its customer.

On artist development:
It’s not hard to get a record deal. The heat has to come with it. It has to be really, really good…or someone has to believe it’s really, really good.

On the present-day nature of the record business:
The reason why music is in trouble on the Internet is ‘cause it’s the best app, ‘cause it flows through that thing like water.

On the future of the music industry:
Whatever it is, there’ll be someone to organize it and put it together, and it’ll be called a record company.

On who should take the blame for an album that flops:
The hardest thing for any artist to do is look in the mirror and say the [reason it failed] was me. Everybody wants to be Shaggy and say, “It wasn’t me… My album was great, it wasn’t me, it was that building.”

On why albums flop:
A lot of times, the music’s stupid.

On the sameness of present-day Rock radio:
If you put on Alternative radio, the guitars sound exactly the same… a lot of people blame the record companies for that, but it’s not the record companies. It has to do with the lack of imagination that we’re going through right now in certain areas of music, and kids think they’re supposed to copy things on television, or on the Internet.

On current musicians who Iovine thinks are geniuses:
Pharrell, Timbaland, Dr. Dre, Akon, will.I.am…