Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 288
Rating:

Synopsis:

An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices.

For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems. A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.

Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist is quite the antidote to the optimism of Glenn McDonald’s You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song. Of the two, McDonald’s is based on personal experience but necessarily also very close association with Spotify (and most likely some NDAs). Liz Pelly’s book is based on a lot of varied sources, both official and unofficial, and from artists affected by Spotify as well (something which McDonald doesn’t touch on at all).

In the end, because it’s thorough, Mood Machine is also repetitive. The problems with Spotify at each turn are essentially the same: it was never about music, only about something that could be used to deliver ads packaged acceptably; privacy concerns; issues about artist remuneration; the seeding of playlists with throwaway tracks commissioned by Spotify (something which Glenn McDonald specifically denies, by the way) in order to pay fewer royalties… etc, etc. You can get the gist by reading any good reporting on Spotify.

All in all, it mostly solidifies my intent to continue doing what I already do: supporting artists directly wherever possible, even if I discover their music via sources like Spotify or YouTube where I can listen free/supported by ads/for a small subscription. Which is to say, despite the dramatic blurb, it didn’t change the way I think about and listen to music; it isn’t that revelatory, if you’ve had your eyes and ears open.

…Now if anyone can tell where to buy Rabbitology’s “Bog Bodies (dorm demo)” track without paying for it on Amazon, that’d be great.

Rating: 4/5