Beats by Dre launch streaming service for “music connoisseurs”

Dr Dre’s Beats by Dre headphones brand are set to enter the music streaming market, unveiling a new project that will blend algorithms with professional expertise.

The service, simply entitled Beats, will rival the likes of Spotify and Deezer but a key difference from their peers will be their use of human curation as well as statistical recommendation.

Beats will launch in Summer 2013, with the software said to be “using mathematics to offer suggestions to the listener… would present choices based partly on suggestions made by connoisseurs”.

Beats Electronics co-founder Jimmy Iovine said that the service will “marry math with emotion”, continuing: “Right now, there are only mathematical solutions.We are making tons and tons of curated lists. If you go the gym, we’ll know where you are. So when you wake up in the morning, there will be a list waiting for you.”

Trent Reznor is also said to be involved in the project.

“There’s a real value in trusted filters,” Reznor previously told the New Yorker. “It’s like having your own guy when you go into the record store, who knows what you like but can also point you down some paths you wouldn’t necessarily have encountered.”