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E275: Unwrapping Spotify w/ Liz Pelly
🕑 Added 2024-12-30 11:00:04 +0000 UTCMusic journalist Liz Pelly joins us to talk about her new book The Mood Machine the Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist. How did the DIY culture of mixtapes and file sharing move towards massive streaming platforms? And with nearly every song freely accessible why are so many listening to elevator music instead?
Links to Liz's work:
https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/
https://thebaffler.com/downstream/big-mood-machine-pelly
https://thebaffler.com/downstream/streambait-pop-pelly
https://thebaffler.com/downstream/wrapped-and-sold-pelly
https://thebaffler.com/latest/podcast-overlords-pelly
Check out the Art and Labor Podcast
Music/image: Lo-Fi Girl
Comments
RiotingPacifist
As a Nerd I've unplugged from spotify because of their abuse of artists and Instead I always buy merch at shows. But while I appreciate the style of curation & listening mentioned in this episode, for me at least it has mostly replaced listening to the radio (or in the DIY scene I think the Internet Radio/ICEcast? servers that came by default on any open source media player) or office jukebox, where the music was a poorly curated & almost as corrupt as spotify, so now at least the generated playlists are pretty good for the passive listening at work that makes up most of my music listening. I'm going to think more about how I consume music going forward, but I do think there is a shift in consumption, not just production, that was sort of missed in the retelling of music history in this episode. Best alternatives I've found for Spotify itself: https://antennapod.org https://spotube.krtirtho.dev/ (Uses Spotify playlists but Youtube apis to play it ad free & less tracked)
Nik
Thank you for dropping these creepy AI beats in here lol
Stephen CM
The digital availability of music from around the works is one thing about globalization I love
Stephen CM
NTS radio is great for DJ curated listening. NTS.live
Alex Hennessey
Soulseek for music by dead artists, Bandcamp/tapes/t-shirts to support current artists. Blindfold and headphones for intentional listening (shoutout Koss for making $30 headphones that sound better than many $300 headphones)
π π₯π¨π«π ππ¨π¬π
I second checking out the Art & Labor podcast! OK Fox has all the good culture takes and is an entertaining show host.
M
I enjoyed this episode. Sharingβ¦I got an old walkman recently . I need more cassettes though. My friend has me on her family plan for Spotify. I dont pay for it. I still feel guilt . I do use it. But I prefer radio stations like WFMU, they have a great archive list that I enjoy playing instead of the Spotify. I use spotify to keep track of some songs from books Im reading- for example MPB movement in Brazil. Spotify helps me keep a list. I eventually would like to make MP3 files from people who post their old cassettes on their YouTube. I love Mixcloud. I have found some djs playing their rare vinyl collection on there. I dont like vinyl because my housing situation is constantly changing. I gave all of my records away a while back because of this.
enter_krzysz
I've been using bandcamp some more lately. Every Bandcamp Friday I spent a hundred bucks over there
I'm a Sentient Lichen - and so can YOU!!
Y'all are in NYC and talking about Ska and don't even mention Moon Ska?
Gray
Walter Benjamin enters the chat! Maybe he was already here. I'm also thinking about Adorno's "On the Fetish Character of Music and the Regression of Listening" https://yaleunion.org/secret/Adorno-On-the-Fetish-Character-in-Music-and-the-Regression-of-Listening.pdf
