Skip to Record Skip to Record Actions
Switch to Advanced Search
Cover Image of Mood machine
  • Non-fiction
  • 2025

Mood machine

the rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect playlist

Liz Pelly

Rate this:
Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, 'Mood Machine' takes readers 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 and commentator 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 music powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories such as 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.

Find More Like This

Subject

Availability

Availability Label Location Shelfmark Availability Reservations
On loan until: 01/May/25 Central Branch Non 780.285 Pel
On loan until: 01/May/25
 2

Comments and Reviews

Patron Comments and Reviews

Tell us what you thought about Mood machine

Add a Comment or Review

Summary & Details

Full Record Details Table

Title Statement Mood machine: the rise of Spotify and the costs of the perfect playlist / Liz Pelly.
Author Pelly, Liz
Publication New York: One Signal Publishers/Atria,2025.
Extent of Item xii, 274 pages ;
ISBN 9781668083505 (hardcover)
Other Number pr07776125
Contents Introduction --The bureau of piracy --"Saving" the music industry --Selling lean-back listening --The conquest of chill --Ghost artists for hire --The background music makers --Streambait pop --Listen to yourself --Self-driving music --Fandom as data --Sounds for self-optimization --Streaming as surveillance --The first .0035 is the hardest --An app for a boss --Indie vibes --This is ... payola? --The lobbyists --The new music labor movement --Conclusion.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, 'Mood Machine' takes readers 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 and commentator 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 music powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories such as 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.
Subjects & Genres
By Topic Music and the Internet
Music trade
Sound recording industry
Sound--Recording and reproducing--Digital techniques
Streaming audio
By Title Spotify
  • No Copies on the Shelf No Copies on the Shelf
Loading