Speaking at AllThingsD’s conference in Laguna Beach, the chairman of Interscope-Geffen-A&M sought to explain why his service will be better than the ones currently available. One reason? It’s being designed by creative people instead of geeks.

“Most technology companies are culturally inept,” Iovine said. “The way content companies never get tech right, never get culture right. They can hire anyone they want to sing in front of advertisements, but they never get curation right.”

Iovine then said that everyone offers the same service except for Apple, for which he reserved high praise. Steve Jobs was able to create a great service because he mirrored the current generation, boasting a background in both culture and technology. Read more

Like plenty of music fans, Sam Broe jumped at the chance to join Spotify two summers ago, and he hasn’t looked back.

Spotify, which began streaming music in Sweden in 2008, lets users choose from millions of songs over the Internet free or by subscription, and is increasingly seen as representing the future of music consumption. Mr. Broe, a 26-year-old from Brooklyn, said that having all that music at his fingertips helped him trim his monthly music budget from $30 to the $10 fee he pays for Spotify’s premium service. Read more

He went on: “The interesting thing is, about five or six minutes prior to I guess the breaker going, where our radio booth was up on the seventh floor, we were almost at the ceiling of the dome, and Kevin says to me, ‘Man, do you hear that buzzing?’ And I took my headset off and there was this like electrical buzz sound coming from the ceiling. This was after halftime, it was after Beyonce.

“And by the way, Beyonce blew the electric in the Superdome twice, I’m told, during her rehearsals during the week.”

Esiason clarified that he wasn’t positive the outage was caused by Beyonce’s act, which featured impressive lighting and video effects.“So they should have known that this might happen?” asked co-host Craig Carton. “I mean, it was embarrassing.” Read more

With a scarf loosely covering a fancy television hairstyle, Latifa Azizi raised her arms in victory after surviving another elimination round on the hit talent show, “Afghan Star”.

But the victory pales into insignificance when compared with the larger battle 17-year-old Azizi is fighting – to pursue her dream of becoming a famous singer despite the censure of ultra-conservative Afghan society.

“Whether I win or lose, my family can’t go back home, it’s too dangerous,” Azizi, from the relatively liberal northern capital of Mazar-e-Sharif, told Reuters in the show’s dressing room.

Azizi and her family fled Mazar for the Afghan capital, Kabul, soon after she appeared on the show in November. Her community was angry with her appearance, saying it was un-Islamic for a woman to sing and appear on television. The family began to receive death threats. Read more

The long awaited new single Suit & Tie by Justin Timberlake is already fading off the charts. After 10 days it’s almost off the top 10 on iTunes and down to number 13 on amazon.com.

Showbiz 411 reports:

What does this say for “20/20?? A couple of things. First of all, “Suit and Tie” is just about ruined by Jay Z’s rap plopped into the middle of the song for no reason. Jay Z is fine if you like him, but Timberlake fans don’t want him popping up on records willy-nilly. I hope there’s a version of “Suit and Tie” without him, much like Alicia Keys released her own “Empire State of Mind” sans the entrepreneur rapper.
Second, six years may have been too long to stay away. “Suit and Tie” is behaving like a single from a ‘legacy artist’ like the Rolling Stones– and not like a contemporary artist. Timberlake is 31 years old, which is ancient in the world set up by record labels in 2013. The other Justin, who is frightful, is 18. Pop music has become the domain of prepubescents. “Suit and Tie” is already too sophisticated for the dumbed down audience of today. I hope someone’s thought about that. You think of JT as a kid, but Lady Gaga and Adele are six years younger than him.