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

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 Pellyis a contributing editor at The Baffler and her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, The Guardian, and many others. She frequently appears as an expert on music streaming on radio and podcasts such as The New York Times Popcast, NPR’s Morning Edition, and many others. She’s spent the last decade involved in all-ages show booking and helping run community art spaces. Find out more at LizPelly.info and follow her on X @LizPelly.