
Jimmy Iovine in the studio - P 2012
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“All I’ve wanted to do since I was 18 years old is move the needle of popular culture.” A lofty, and for most people, unattainable goal, but not if you’re Jimmy Iovine — producer, label chairman, American Idol partner and mentor, Beats by Dr. Dre co-founder and many more titles you can easily attach to his name. The most important: game-changer.
Q&A: Jimmy Iovine on Sound, Vision and Why He Signed Madonna and Van Halen
This month, the 59-year-old music executive is the subject of an eight-page profile in Rolling Stone magazine by veteran rock journalist David Fricke. In it, he talks in detail about his early recording days, working on such seminal albums as Bruce Springsteen‘s Born to Run, Stevie Nicks‘ Bella Donna, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers‘ Damn the Torpedoes, U2‘s Rattle and Hum. Iovine also reveals his thoughts on U2’s most recent album, 2009’s No Line on the Horizon, which received mixed reviews (“It wasn’t finished,” he says), and how he saw Springsteen and the Rolling Stones in hip-hop acts like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
VIDEO: ‘American Idol’: Mary J. Blige on Whether Jimmy Iovine is Too Hard on the Finalists
It’s been a big year for the Interscope Geffen A&M chairman, including a celebratory evening in his honor last month hosted by the Recording Academy’s Producers and Engineers Wing at Los Angeles’ famed Village recording studio. During the party, which was attended by Iovine loyalists Nicks, Will.i.am, Mary J. Blige and newcomer Lana Del Rey, a nine-minute video was played that features rare footage of Iovine at work. It includes grainy recording sessions with Nicks, Springsteen, Petty, Patti Smith and others along with a history of his meteoric rise as an industry player.
Marvel at the video below:
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