An interesting look into the history of Spotify and how it started and how/why it’s evolved into what it is now. It’s a lot of information I already knew but there were some interesting tidbits in here I didn’t know.

This also dives into the future of music/streaming and the organizations, structures and policies other countries have found successful or that people have started but haven’t caught wind yet that could be a possible way forward for artists to make living wages and continue making the art we so desperately need in the world.

Some of the information felt redundant and I wished there was more of a narrative string carrying the book along, but altogether enjoyed learning more about Spotify and streaming!

Mood Machine is the story behind the rise of Spotify and criticism of its relationship with the artists within the platform. There was a lot of information and history about the developers of Spotify, how their playlists came to be, and the music they chose to populate the playlists.

This book was too info heavy for me alongside a lot of technicalities behind developing an app. If you are into app development, technology, building a company, you might have more interest in what this book has to offer. This was a little dry and shy on the drama that I had anticipated.

Thank you to Atria for the review copy.

A fun fact about me: I don’t stream music. I don’t use any music streaming service - mostly I buy albums through iTunes. This is a holdover from when data plans in Canada were exorbitant, and I worked in a place that had no wifi for personal devices. And I just…kept doing this. Only recently did I bother to off load some music files to the cloud. I liked having everything with me.

So why was I interested in a critical look at Spotify? Spotify is one of those things I had a leery feeling about and wasn’t sure why. Pelly’s extensive research and interviews with those in the music industry and former employees peels back the fun layer of Spotify to explore the ways that it has damaged the music industry, and how it works as a prime piece of surveillance capitalism. This was fascinating, even though I don’t use streaming, and gave voice to some of my concerns. Pelly also offers examples of ways pushback is and can happen, such as local music collections in libraries. We love to see it. Ultimately, Spotify is an example of the collapse of our society and the grasping by tech oligarchs.

Liz Pelly has gone into such detail to fully discuss and expose the hidden agendas of one of the biggest music streaming companies in the world. As a Spotify user and a lover of music myself, I was so intrigued by all the information she presented and I am definitely more conscious about how I stream my music and contribute to a system that has for years allegedly brought detriment to the livelihoods of so many artistes and musicians.

Over the years, I've read a lot of reporting on Spotify business practices so not much in this book is new to me. Still, it's a well-researched book going into the history of the company, its pivot into playlists and personalized user experience, along with its impact on the average person's listening habits as well as the music industry. The book is often repetitive, especially in regards to the chapters on playlists: Pelly has a tendency of regurgitating things she has previously mentioned without adding new research or insight. There are some chapters that honestly could've been cut. Another complaint is that the section on artist advocacy and Spotify alternatives feel half-baked and could've been more thought out.

This book just wasn't for me. I don't even like Spotify so don't know why the publishing company sent me a link to download this book since I didn't request it. If you enjoy Spotify, then you will enjoy reading this. It added nothing of value and the writing was poor and uninteresting.

great book and I loved the action and the romance . I loved seeing the friends and family. I loved that they were able to figure things out. Overall a great book .

Thank you to Atria / One Signal Publishers for the finished copy to review.

I wanted to read this one given I had heard a little about the drama between artists, streaming, and Spotify but did not know all of the details about what was behind it, and certainly did not know half of what was in here and am glad I do now. This was an interesting and horrifying read, very thorough and detailed in explaining the origin, rise, and current state of Spotify and how it has changed everything. (The AI musicians…) I did the audio for this book and recommend it if you can read it this way.

Mood Machine is a fascinating and well researched look at Spotify and the music streaming landscape as a whole: for better and worse. Liz Pelly delivers a great book reminiscent of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls but for the music industry.

This book was so, so informative and is so, so important. It absolutely blew the lid off all the shady stuff Spotify does to keep you listening and pay artists close to nothing. Ever wonder why “Espresso” auto-played after every playlist you ever had in summer 2024? Pelly addresses it. Ever wonder why Spotify makes up weird names for genres they put in your Wrapped or Daylist? It’s actually strategy to manipulate musicians into making Spotify more money.

While this didn’t put me off using Spotify entirely, I don’t think it was meant to. Instead, it’s made me a more careful consumer of this ubiquitous service. For instance, using music discovery tools outside of Spotify or the other streaming platforms. And also not using the AI DJ or other enhanced recommendation tools in Spotify.

I believe this book is incredibly important to read for the average Spotify listener, or those who care about what we can do to support artists in the music industry. This is the ultimate book to answer your questions.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

as a psychology researcher (who isn't in tech), i just wanted more about how fields such as neuroscience and the study of emotions are influencing big tech as well as how social factors like generational wealth or race play into the success (or lack there of) of musicians. mood machine is very well researched i will say, but as someone who has kept up with the practices of spotify for years due to my own curiosity (mainly because ai scares me a little) as well as when i was a teenager and found out about spotify's shady practices towards artists through that taylor swift wsj op ed, it took me a long time to get through because i just wasn't that interested as the commentary took a backseat to the facts (which is good though). i just wish the policy piece that was tacked onto the end was fleshed out a bit more but talking about ubi in depth in what it means to artists might be a bit too radical for a spotify non-fiction.

First of all, Mood Machine was incredibly well researched. While not an artist myself, I have been following the way Spotify mistreats their artists for years through smaller artists I support. This book provides excellent insights into how that happens, and how the company was built on the foundations of doing so. Additionally, as someone who got my Spotify Wrapped back with "pink metropolitan pilates princess strut" (or something to that effect) and thought "WTF does that even mean?", it was nice to have some of the elements the consumers are confused about as well. Great nonfiction read for those with an interest in arts/pop culture!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for granting me an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. It is available now.

3.5 stars, rounded up. Mood Machine by Liz Pelly is a deep dive into Spotify, its history, how it has impacted the music industry, and how it impacts artists. Liz Pelly interviewed over one hundred people for this very thoroughly researched book, including former Spotify employees and musicians directly impacted by our current culture of streaming.

I think the best part of this book is how obvious it is that Pelly deeply cares about the subject that she is writing about. This book felt so thoroughly researched and I definitely learned a lot about the music industry, how Spotify came to be the powerhouse it is today, and why it does artists such a disservice. This is a very fact heavy book and as such, can be very dense at times. While I love non-fiction, I think I struggle with books like this one, that feel a lot like a textbook. I had a hard time connecting with the book, which is not necessarily the books fault. The author achieved what I believed she set out to do but that didn't make for an entirely enjoyable read. Finally, I found the conclusion to be kind of lacking. Throughout the whole book, I was eagerly anticipating what her alternatives would be. But really, all I came away with was changing all of society and how capitalism works. Which obviously is not feasible as an immediate replacement to streaming services like Spotify, Apple, and Amazon.

While this was not a new favorite, I think if you are really interested in the music industry (and specifically how streaming has changed the industry) you might be interested in picking this up!

3 stars! This was a very interesting read as someone who doesn't know much about the music industry, especially the streaming side of things. This is not my typical genre of book, but I am glad that I expanded my horizons a bit! I do find investigations into companies or scandals quite interesting, and this definitely had a lot of information that I piqued my curiosity. Really the only thing that was difficult for me with this book is at times it felt that the same chunk of information about a certain subtopic was repeated multiple times. It had me confused a bit, but I honestly think it was just that there was so much information under each larger umbrella, that there was just enormous amounts of detail to be unpacked! I think that the author has a fantastic investigative voice, and did make a lot of the information easy to understand and digest. I had truly no idea how shady some of Spotify's practices were, and I enjoyed gaining such a different perspective on the streaming business. The only reason I didn't rate this higher is because it's just not my favorite type of book, but I still found it very intriguing and well written. I would highly recommend this to lovers of nonfiction and investigative journalism!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC of this title.

This is a fantastic deep dive into the rise of Spotify and how it's commodified (and warped) ambient listening to put things into its favor. I wish I expected this to lead to actual change, but this should at least serve as a wake-up call for how we use these services and consume music.

I requested this book because I wanted to understand the "hype" of Spotify. I am not a playlist kind of person cause I listen to the same music I listen to from childhood to 2015. I didn't even have a free Spotify account.

I thought overall this was very informative and it kind of validated why I stopped listening to the radio because a lot of music sounds the same or is very repetitive. I'll stick to the playlist made by me with over 2,ooo songs.

I got an e-arc of this book on NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This one was interesting and complicated much like the subject itself. I really appreciated the look at how much data Spotify is collecting on us and how it is really impacting artists. I also liked that she acknowledges how complicated “fixing” this would be. However, for an author with such a strong POV, the book kind of peters out as it moves away from its original thesis. Instead of feeling energized and emboldened with this new information, the final chapters of the book left me feeling like, “Whelp there is nothing I can do about this.” I still think it is worth the read if you use Spotify or are interested in how algorithms are shaping our music culture, but definitely don’t go into it looking for solutions or next steps. It comes out tomorrow. Thank you to Netgalley and Atria for the advance copy!

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

This is an in depth analysis of the streaming app Spotify. Pelly takes the reader on a deep dive into the history of how Spotify became one of the more popular music streaming apps and exactly how they are using artists, record labels and consumers to profit.

In a world where we talk about how our data is used this book gives a new insight into how that is used in terms of selling the users music. This is a very interesting read if you are looking for an informational non-fiction story to dig deep into the world of streaming. I learned a lot about what and how data is collected from everything I do on Spotify and how that data just from what songs I like can dictate so many ways things are sold to me. It isn’t a new idea of how our data is sold and used but the different lens was eye opening.

The different ways that this like royalties are manipulated for smaller artists, bigger name artists and even the record labels was really interesting as well. If you are someone who likes to gain additional knowledge into technology and how it is now being shaped this is a great one for you to pick up. Also if you are one who never wants to read non-fiction this might be one that would draw you attention enough to want to read more in this genre.

I love a pop culture nonfiction book. I love how data and social media completely shaped our lives. This was a fantastic breakdown of the financial complexities behind the music industry and our need to have everything at our fingertips. The way the technology is controlling everything in our lives, including the music we listen to is fascinating. my two sisters are Spotify maniacs. I’m going to be sure to make them read this book. Very well researched!

Thank you #netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

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If anyone knows me, it's that I have a playlist created for everything. Dentist office? Check. Shower songs I'm not embarrassed to sing in my college communal bathroom. Check. 3 different playlists for Christmas? Check.

That being said, Liz Pelly's Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist considerably influenced how I view Spotify and its self-serving, capitalistic practices. Pelly does a phenomenal deep dive into how Spotify got its start and how its focus has shifted since its beginning.

One of my favorite chapters focuses on the rise of lofi music on Spotify and how ghostwriters occupy a large portion of the space on Spotify's created playlists. Ironically, I was reading this chapter while listening to lofi music (however, I was on a plane and was unable to check the legitimacy of the songs' artists).

At times, the narrative and flow of the book was bogged down by just the sheer amount of facts; however, this just serves as a testament to how well-researched this book is. I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who listens to music (as you all should!).

Thank you to Atria Books for an E-Arc of this book! All thoughts and opinions are my own.