Highly respected music industry analyst and critic Bob Lefsetz has issued his verdict on Apple Music… and it’s not good. Lefsetz, who earlier this year correctly predicted that Jay-Z’s Tidal music service would flop hard, has written an essay on the prospects for Apple’s music streaming service that begins with, “It’s toast.” And it gets worse from there.
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“The heart and soul of Apple Music is its streaming service,” Lefsetz explains. “And it broke the number one rule of technology. That in order to succeed you’ve got to deliver something better, bring in those who were disinterested or scared to participate previously, and there’s nothing in Apple Music that isn’t widely available elsewhere, including its social network and playlists. Is that what we need, a new place to display musicians’ thoughts and wares?”
As for Apple Music’s other features, Lefsetz scoffs at the notion that the world is clamoring for a 24-hour radio station. He also takes Apple exec Jimmy Iovine to task for not grasping how the music industry has changed around him.
“The truth is Iovine is tone-deaf,” he writes. “He’s way out of his league. He comes from a land where relationships and intimidation mean everything. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours and we’ll make it on the image of propped-up stars. But the truth is in the modern era the winners are faceless techies who go their own way, whether they be Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Evan Spiegel of Snapchat or Nick Woodman of GoPro. They’re giant slayers who think different, something Apple used to have a hold on.”
He also praises Spotify founder Daniel Ek for being a true innovator during a time when Iovine was selling “crappy headphones as fashion items.”
The whole essay is worth reading and can be found here.
