40: All the things Spotify didn't want you to know but Liz Pelly found out

No journalist has contributed more to our understanding
of the streaming era than Liz Pelly.


A contributing editor at The Baffler and a lifelong DIY scene
participant, she’s been investigating the inner workings of
Spotify since 2016, writing a series of increasingly alarming
stories that exposed the streaming giant’s black box of
profit-seeking operations: mood-based playlists filled with
mysterious fake artists, lean-back listening, algorithmic
curation and ‘streambait pop’.


Her journalism has provided us with an arsenal of terms to better
understand Daniel Ek’s dismal vision of context-free listening.
And now she’s expanded her work into a new book, Mood Machine:
The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.


It’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we
came to live in a world where ‘coastal grandma’ is a genre and
where ambient electronica playlists are filled with cheap stock
music by unknown artists.


We asked Liz to explain the pivotal moments in this decade-long
transition, whether Spotify has changed the sound of the
underground too, and what Daniel Ek’s endgame might be. Get your
hard hat on.


Elsewhere in this week’s episode, Chal runs down the best music
she saw on a trip to Ljubljana’s MENT festival (3:49), we talk
the films that could potentially tank a new relationship (9:47),
Tom highlights a new release on CDR’s Pathways programme (13:00)
and we even briefly discuss get-rich-quick schemes. Niche music
recs and iffy financial advice? It could only be No Tags.


As ever, if you’re enjoying No Tags, please do rate, review and
subscribe on your podcast app of choice. We’d also ask you to
consider subscribing to our paid tier, which costs £5 a month and
offers you nothing but the warm glow of philanthropy and a
discount on our book – the second pressing of which is finally
out now! 


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