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!