58938cf7dd0895cb6e8b47a5 337Apple has hired a former Spotify executive to head up its Apple Music label relations team, according to Business Insider.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed that former Spotify VP of content Steve Savoca has been recruited to oversee the music streaming service's global label relations, which work out of New York.

Savoca is tasked with building relationships with smaller, independent labels, with a focus on the international scene, according to the report.

Savoca is said to have haven been one of Spotify's first U.S. employees and worked for the Swedish streaming company for five years. Prior to that, he held senior digital and marketing roles roles at Domino Records, Zomba Label Group, and London-Sire.

Savoca is a musician himself, and played drums with a band called the Werefrogs during the 1990s, according to Billboard. He serves on the board of directors of the Music Business Association (formerly NARM) and previously sat on the board at Merlin.

In December 2016, Apple's Eddy Cue revealed that Apple Music has over 20 million paid subscribers. In October, Spotify said it had 40 million subscribers. Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine recently spoke of the company's desire to make Apple Music more than just a music streaming service, with "an entire pop cultural experience" planned that takes in original content including TV and audio.

Top Rated Comments

iCloudStrife Avatar
82 months ago
You don't make $7.1B in 3 months by "random guessing" your services.
No. You do it by being the biggest company in the world and entering into a new domain with every bit of weight your multibillion-dollar corpus can offer.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
flyinmac Avatar
82 months ago
Finally, somebody with experience.

Hopefully he'll help Apple understand what the consumers want.

Random guessing hasn't worked too well.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KazKam Avatar
82 months ago
You don't make $7.1B in 3 months by "random guessing" your services.
You're right. You make 7.1billion dollars in three months by spamming unsolicited ads in front of 500 million users and making listening to the music they already own a pain in the a**.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kebabselector Avatar
82 months ago
I tried the service, but have now cancelled - a combination of poor 3/4g & poor wifi in the office hasn't helped matters. I'll stick to buying music for a while.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chr1s60 Avatar
82 months ago
This is a good step. Now if they could redesign the app to not use the red font and the unnecessarily large font for the header of every page.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
djcerla Avatar
82 months ago
Hopefully he'll help Apple understand what the consumers want.

Random guessing hasn't worked too well.
You don't make $7.1B in 3 months by "random guessing" your services.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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