MOOD MACHINE

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly, 288 pgs. © 2025

This was a great book, lots of in-depth reporting and reminiscent of Naomi Kline's writing style--Mood Machine dives headfirst into the the machinations of Spotify to disrupt the music industry--and to extract wealth from it. We've all heard that Spotify doesn't pay artists enough, and in some cases they don't bother paying them at all. But that's only the start of it--for the last decade Spotify has struggled and connived it's way to the top of the music streaming food chain by encouraging artists to create similar music that is popular or tending on the app--resulting in a "flattening" of the culture. While Pelly doesn't explicitly uncover any actual criminality, she does call for government agencies to shine lights into this organization and asks the reader what kind of streaming service would be better for everyone involved. She paints a damning portrait of yet another tech-bro company run-amok that cares little about how it affects creatives, artists and even paying subscribers. The wealthy have turned streaming music into an asset class to be used to generate even more income, leaving actual songwriters with even less. Other music streaming companies are just as complicit but Spotify stands out because it's essentially an advertising company masquerading as a music streaming company. I really wasn't using Spotify before and I definitely won't now.