Billboard: let's move from a record that is coming out this year to some that aren't, like U2 and Eminem.
I met with the guys in U2, and they say to me, 'You know what? This album needs two more songs, and it will be exactly what we have in mind.' I go there and I listen, and I agreed with them. It's a great record, but it deserves the time. Labels need to work with artists to help them achieve their best work, not to jam records out that are half-baked or three-quarters baked.
I'll tell you about Eminem. We only tried to put him out this year to replace Dr. Dre, but we got into a quagmire. Eminem was always coming next year. But what happened was, I lost Dr. Dre to Eminem. Dre had to stop making his album to finish Eminem's album. Eminem hit a streak, and when a guy like Eminem gets on fire, you stop everything. That's how we lost Dre.
So what's the status of Dre's record?
Dre's going back in in January. He'll be finished with Eminem by then, and he'll finish his album.
There's a rumor in the retail world that Eminem might be an exclusive as well.
No. There's no truth to that.
What parts of your business are growing?
Well, our Pussycat Dolls tour has sold 150,000 of 160,000 tickets, with eight weeks to go until the tour. That's big. Other than Miley Cyrus, I don't know a label that has something like that. We're doing really, really well with licensing. Our 360 deals are working. We have that with Lady GaGa. Dr. Dre's headphones are doing really, really, really well. It's a fabulous product. We're building a lot there. We're building out some of our management stuff.
I've always felt, and this is just in general, that there's an oil well for the record industry in their music videos, and so does Doug Morris. Universal Music Group had 3 billion views on YouTube and we are so underpaid for those videos. Now, we'll set up an infrastructure, and Doug's in charge of this. We'll make a deal where we really see the value. We have the most perfect content for the Internet. People love to watch them and they watch them over and over again. If "Saturday Night Live" gets 100,000 views on the Internet, they throw a party. Soulja Boy, on his site alone, got 500 million! It's nuts. The Lady GaGa video has 25 million views.
This is all going to be turned back toward the labels. That value has to be achieved.
Read full interview of Jimmy Iovine on Billboard:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/exc ... 6147.story
