From producing albums by Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks and U2 to co-founding Interscope Records to co-founding Beats By Dre, it can’t be denied that Jimmy Iovine is one of the most successful businessmen not only in music, but overall business. Now one of the heads of Apple Music, Iovine made one of the stupidest remarks that anyone’s said in the past week who isn’t named Donald Trump. He appeared on CBS This Morning, along with Mary J. Blige, to talk about Apple Music, the Spotify competitor launched about four months ago. In talking about an ad in which Blige and actresses Kerry Washington and Taraji P. Henson appear in, Iovine made the following comments:
Women find it very difficult at times — some women — to find music … and this helps make it easier… I just thought of a problem, you know: girls are sitting around, you know, talking about boys. Or complaining about boys, you know, when they’re heartbroken or whatever. And they need music for that, right? So it’s hard to find the right music, you know. Not everybody has the right lists, or knows a DJ or something.”
This isn’t necessarily metal-centric, but WHAT? How misguided, or just plain stupid, is it to think that women don’t know where to go to find new music? Guess what, Jimmy? Some men don’t know where to go to find music, either. But we know plenty of women with amazing music taste. In fact, a friend of ours, who happens to be a woman, programs metal for Apple Music! Of course, throughout the course of the interview, no one took the mogul to task for his comments, and co-host Gayle King even defended him on Twitter. After a day of getting assailed in the press for making a dumb, sexist comment while trying to pimp his latest product, Iovine issued an apology early this morning:
“We created Apple Music to make finding the right music easier for everyone — men and women, young and old. Our new ad focuses on women, which is why I answered the way I did, but of course the same applies equally for men. I could have chosen my words better, and I apologize.”
[via The Verge]
