Send as gift Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

Mood Machine

The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

Narrator Liz Pelly

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more

Length 11 hours 50 minutes

Language English

Send as gift Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

Bookseller recommendation

“The horrors of streaming music platforms like Spotify extend beyond the appalling payouts to artists. It has also distorted the music lovers idea of what music is in the modern age. The lie of music discovery and mood playlists as curated by "taste makers" has led many artists to chase sounds and composition styles just to be heard but at the expense of their art. This is nothing new in the music industry but the rapid rate and scale at which Spotify has upended the music industry and the lives of music makers should be cause for concern for anyone who appreciates music and those artists that make it. In Mood Machine Liz Pelly paints a clear picture of the tactics and lies of Spotify that should make all of us reconsider how we consume music today. You'll also have a better understanding why that musician friend of yours is always ranting about the dreaded .003 cent payout per listen!”
— Keith • Page 1 Books

Summary
About the author
About the narrator

#5 in Bestselling Music Audiobooks

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

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.

Business History Music Nonfiction Social Science

Liz Pelly is a journalist living in New York. Her essays and reporting have appeared in The Baffler, where she is a contributing editor, as well as in The Guardian, NPR, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and many other outlets. She frequently speaks about music streaming on radio shows and podcasts, including appearances with The New York Times Popcast, NPR’s Morning Edition, and others. Pelly teaches in the recorded music program at New York University, and has spent over a decade involved in all-ages show booking. Learn more at LizPelly.info and follow her on social media @LizPelly.