Dr. Dre & Jimmy Iovine Launch New Beats By Dre Products For Holiday 2011
Jimmy Iovine doesn’t mince words. When speaking on Beats By Dre at the company’s Holiday 2011 product launch yesterday, the Chairman of Interscope/Geffen/A&M was very clear on his thoughts about the instantly iconic brand’s new competitors. “Dr. Dre was the first hip-hop producer to transcend sound and take sound to another place. Other brands are now taking a rapper and just slapping them on a box. Dre is a sound pioneer that happens to be a rapper. These guys are all going down the wrong lane. As long as we have Dre and his name is on the box, we’re lucky.”
Accompanied on stage by the always cool Dre (“To be completely honest, Dre didn’t give a s*it if the headphones ever came out,” Iovine said at one point), Monster Cable CEO Noel Lee and President/COO of Beats Electronics Luke Wood, Iovine used the intimate media event to introduce the exciting new range of products for the Beats line this holiday season. Speaking on their original vision (“We always hoped there would be headphones made so you could hear music the way it was meant to be heard”) and current success (“Everywhere you go, you see these headphones”), Iovine and the group debuted the new items, including:
- The new partnership with HTC cellphones (“In order for the record industry to survive, music has got to get to the phone.”)
- Limited edition colorways for the headphones this season including purple, pink, white and orange (“Headphones up until now have looked like medical equipment. We want to bring fashion and style and inspiration to them.”)
- “Beat Mixer” headphones, designed with DJs in mind (with ear cups that can rotate 180 degrees) and branded in association with David Guetta.
- Wireless headphones that work like a bluetooth headset and use rechargeable batteries (“We’ve been trying to come out with a wireless headphone from day one.”)
- “Beatbox” docking station, in white and black.
- First branded store in downtown Manhattan (“We’re coming at 21 Mercer, The Hundreds; all those stores where you get things you can’t get anywhere else.”)
[...] Dr. Dre & Jimmy Iovine Launch New Beats By Dre Products For Holiday 2011 Wireless headphones that work like a bluetooth headset and use rechargeable batteries (“We've been trying to come out with a w anded store in downtown Manhattan (“We're coming at 21 Mercer, The Hundreds; … Read more on DrJays.com Live [...]
Not sure why people buy into this hype. I see these headphones EVERYWHERE, but when I actually tried them out in a store I discovered that they suck. That’s the consensus too among audiophiles. Dre’s just banking on his brand and all the little trendy followers out there are funding this nonsense. “It’s like those hip musicians, with their complicated shoes!” -George Costanza