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

A seasoned music journalist, Pelly has written a groundbreaking debut that examines the music-streaming giant Spotify (with its 626 million users) and its effect on 21st-century music. Spotify was established by Swedish advertisers Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in 2006 as a streaming platform to attract advertising clients; in 2011, it expanded into the United States. Demonstrating the transformation of the company from a song aggregator to a music gatekeeper, Pelly focuses on the creation of highly edited, mood-related playlists, which personalize and filter content for listeners who want near-continuous background music. She explains how playlists, first human-created and then algorithm-generated, favor major record labels and the companies that own them (like Universal, Sony, and Warner) in a new version of the old music industry model. Pelly contends that the streaming service has a disastrous effect on most musical artists, who barely earn a minimum-wage livelihood due to a punitive royalty system. As an antidote to Spotify, she champions free streaming services at public libraries and public funding for musicians.