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A review by mmccombs
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly
informative
reflective
4.25
I am UPSET (time to listen to my “rage mix”)! This helpfully outlined why Spotify was born (and it was NOT for love of music), how the app has evolved, and why the state of the music industry is so dire.
I knew that Spotify kind of sucked, but it was so abstract it was hard to take it seriously, but this book has fully solidified the multifaceted ways in which Spotify sucks. Pelly clearly shows connections between the original advertising goals of music streaming, our obsession with “vibes” and consuming music in the background (which has flattened out music styles, leading to the proliferation of AI generated music), and how we are generating endless data to help venture capitalists and private equity groups sell us back to ourselves.
My only complaint is that the narration was absolutely atrocious to my ears, each statement sounded like a question due to the narrator’s style of speaking and almost made me dnf immediately (though the compelling content was enough to help me pretend it wasn’t bothering me).
So I’d recommend reading this physically (or trying out the audio just in case the narrator doesn’t bug you), this book has made me totally reevaluate my relationship to music and might be the reason to finally get off of the app.
I knew that Spotify kind of sucked, but it was so abstract it was hard to take it seriously, but this book has fully solidified the multifaceted ways in which Spotify sucks. Pelly clearly shows connections between the original advertising goals of music streaming, our obsession with “vibes” and consuming music in the background (which has flattened out music styles, leading to the proliferation of AI generated music), and how we are generating endless data to help venture capitalists and private equity groups sell us back to ourselves.
My only complaint is that the narration was absolutely atrocious to my ears, each statement sounded like a question due to the narrator’s style of speaking and almost made me dnf immediately (though the compelling content was enough to help me pretend it wasn’t bothering me).
So I’d recommend reading this physically (or trying out the audio just in case the narrator doesn’t bug you), this book has made me totally reevaluate my relationship to music and might be the reason to finally get off of the app.