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Mood Machine

The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

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Mood Machine

Written by: Liz Pelly
Narrated by: Liz Pelly
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Summary

 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Winner of a Certificate of Merit from the 2025 ARSC Awards for Excellence
A New Yorker, GQ, The Daily Telegraph (London), and Library Journal Best Book of 2025
A 2025 Washington Post Notable Nonfiction
An NPR Books We Love Most pick

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. History & Criticism Music Business
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Most Relevant
I’m interested in the topic and the author’s analysis, but if you are sensitive to vocal fry, I strongly recommend that you avoid this audiobook.

Vocal fry/vocal affectation is very grating

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The deadpan, almost bored narration by the author made me drop this listen a bunch of times. It’s a compelling story, but the delivery could be way better.

Good content but terrible delivery

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Pelly gives an in depth analysis of Spotify, including a deep dive into its rise as a go to music streaming platform and the trends in music and technology it build upon. She makes a strong case for reassessing our relationship with music, art, and culture, given the inequality resulting from current consumption habits. very good listen

Insightful and Well Researched

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The story of how Spotify came to be is interesting of course, and the book is reasonably well written so far. I’m not able to finish the audio book though. I’m going to get a physical copy to finish. Recommend the book, and normally prefer when the author reads their own work, but not every author should narrate.

Worth the read, not the listen

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