Mark Cuban: “Music Is About Attitude!”

Everybody’s a Sammy Hagar fan when you’re drinking tequila,” grins billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, explaining the bottle of Hagar-approved Cabo Wabo tequila resting on a shelf behind the wet bar of his office suite. (“My search for the finest tequila is over!” gushes the former Van Halen singer on the tag dangling from the bottle’s neck.)

Cuban adopts a doleful expression. “You know, I lost it for David Lee Roth when I went to New York and saw him totally wasted,” he says.

The 43-year-old Pittsburgh native’s taste for extreme music doesn’t begin and end with late-period Van Halen. “I’ve bought three or four copies of the new DMX CD,” he proudly notes. “One for each house.”

Yes, it turns out that the oldest of three sons of an auto upholsterer and a homemaker now has residences in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, in addition to his $13 million pad in Dallas — all pumping out DMX.

Cuban made his first million when he sold his software company in 1990. He sold his next company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.7 billion. Since he bought the Mavericks two years ago (price tag: $283 million), Cuban has famously been fined a total of about $1 million for criticizing NBA officials.

But the staggering figure doesn’t even make Cuban blink. The best thing about being rich, he says with obvious satisfaction, “is being able to do what I damn well please.”

“Music is about attitude,” he reflects. “Your whole life, your mood, is determined for you at work or wherever — except when you put on music. When you play a CD, you’re in control of the mood you’re setting.”

What better cue to put on a CD and wax a little nostalgic?…

RUN-DMC, Raising Hell
Profile, 1986
“ ‘You Be Illin’ is the basketball classic of all time. Talking about Doctor J. Talking about getting trashed. ‘My Adidas.’ Everyone who was into basketball back then remembers saving up for a pair of Adidas. It was all about Adidas and Pumas. Air Jordans were too expensive.”


Elton John, Madman Across the Water
UNI, 1971
“When I was in eighth-grade English class, we had to pick an example of poetry to read to the class. Everyone read from poetry books, and I read ‘Tiny Dancer.’ It’s poetry. All the songs on the record connect with one another.”


DMX, And Then There was X
Def Jam, 1999
“He’s got a song on this album called ‘Fame.’ I listen to it in the car to get fired up before games. The dude lets out everything inside him and lets out what’s in his mind. Believe it or not, I can relate to a lot of the things that he talks about.”


John Cougar, Nothin’ Matters and What if it Did
RIVA, 1980
“He played in my backyard for my buddy Todd’s birthday party last year. This record was, like, the heyday of college for me. When you get together with your friends, you sing every word! This is one I keep in L.A., because I get stuck in traffic. Then I put it in and sing all the words.”


Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814
A&M, 1989
“That was the ’80s, man. Get your first job. Wear a suit. Go to the clubs. You thought you were cool. You can dance to it. You can do aerobics to it. That was a powerful CD. She played here [the American Airlines Center, home of the Mavericks]. Did I like it? Oh, fuck yeah.”


Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Island, 1971
“Whenever you get a new stereo, this is the CD you test it out with. [Impersonates bass line from the title track] Doot-doot-doot dooo. Perfect. When I moved into my house two years ago, it was the first thing I put on. Fucking badass. It’s got that bass. Amazing.”


L.L. Cool J, Walking With a Panther
Def Jam, 1989
“He had that song ‘I’m That Type of Guy.’ When me and my buddy Doug would go out, that would be our theme song [laughs]. ‘Are you that type of guy?’ ‘Yeah, I’m that type of guy.’ ”


The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
Capitol, 1966
“I went to see them five times in high school. I was into them and Jimmy Buffett. It was like a big party. I even saw them one time with the Who and Peter Frampton, and I was more excited about the Beach Boys than the Who. That shows you how stupid I was.”


Fiddler on the Roof, Original Soundtrack
RCA, 1964
“Growing up, I listened to it every Sunday with my family. Two brothers, me and my parents. Sunday at breakfast, my dad would have all the music playing. That and old 78s of radio mystery theater like Sorry, Wrong Number. That one really scared the shit out of me.”


Elvis Costello and the Attractions, The Best Of
Columbia, 1985
“I dated a girl named Alison, and it was a slam dunk every time I put that song on. It started on an elevator. I tried to time it to get on to look at her, and she ended up picking me up. She was a model. My friends couldn’t believe it…”