liz pelly
LightNews LightNews
banner
lizpelly.bsky.social
liz pelly
@lizpelly.bsky.social
10K followers 350 following 370 posts
writer in nyc, author of Mood Machine
co-host of @criticallistening.bsky.social
lizpelly.info/book
Posts Replies Media Videos
lizpelly.bsky.social
been saying this a lot in interviews lately, but i really think convincing ppl to offload putting any thought into what they want to listen to via chatbot-style prompts is as corrosive to culture as the existence of the velvet sundown or whatever
(from spotify blog post)
screenshot from a spotify blog post titled "4 Spotify Tips to Create the Perfect Summer Soundtrack" "Curate your ideal vibe This year, your summer soundtrack is more personalized than ever thanks to recent product updates designed to bring you even closer to the music you love. With our latest enhancement to DJ, you can use your voice to request music and guide the vibe of your listening session in real time. Meanwhile, AI Playlist—now in beta in more than 50 markets—lets you generate custom playlists by entering a unique prompt into the chat. For example, you might prompt AI Playlist to “create a reggaeton playlist for chillin’ by the pool,” or ask DJ to “play hot new releases for a day at the beach.” Whatever your mood, your ideal summer soundtrack is just a request away."
August 8, 2025 at 7:00 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
from phil elverum's newsletter
screenshot from phil elverum's newsletter: "Today “GIANT OPENING MOUTH ON THE GROUND” by Phil Elverum & Arrington de Dionyso is released. Records are in the mail, bandcamp downloads are downloading, and some streaming places probably have it streaming. If you’re an “experimental music” nerd or a drone-poisoned metalhead, this is the record for you. If you’re a fan of regular ass songs, this is the record for you also, but in the way where you’ll be weirded out and grumpy but then maybe come around to it and begin a whole new chapter in your life. That’s the giant hole in the ground opening. You go in and emerge later different."
August 8, 2025 at 5:59 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
july 29 the NYC local of AFM is hosting this virtual conversation on musicians & generative AI, and inviting all independent musicians; union membership not required local802afm.org/july29
www.instagram.com/p/DMN--N0OoG...
MUSICIANS & GENERATIVE AI: HOW THE MUSICIANS UNION IS WORKING TO PROTECT YOUR LIVELIHOOD July 29 at 3pm (eastern) on Zoom Register: local802afm.org/july29 OPEN TO ALL MUSICIANS Local 802 AFM
July 17, 2025 at 7:57 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
found in the archives ... was really on one in 2019
a tweet from 2019 that says "everytime a sp*tify shill utters the words 'leveling the playing field' a session musician hired by an advertising company to make stock music for 'ambient chill' gets its wings"
July 2, 2025 at 1:53 AM
lizpelly.bsky.social
thinking of every person i canvassed and said "eric adams won by 7000 votes and this race will be even CLOSER!" sorry we were wrong lol🫶
ranked choice nyc democratic primary results showing zohran winning by 12%
July 1, 2025 at 4:12 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
heading to australia for the first time at the end of august for a few book events! two of them were announced today. couple more tk.

aug 28 at the wheeler centre in melbourne:
www.wheelercentre.com/events-ticke...

aug 29 at soft centre festival in sydney:
www.softcentre.com.au/program
June 19, 2025 at 11:29 AM
lizpelly.bsky.social
icymi a clip from episode 1 of @criticallistening.bsky.social w/ @deerhoof.bsky.social patreon.com/criticallistening
May 27, 2025 at 7:48 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
some more book events coming up next week in Missouri, Kansas, New Hampshire & Maine ! info/links @ lizpelly.info/events
flyer for Mood Machine May Events with book jacket on the left and event descriptions on the right: 5/13 Kansas City, MO Mid-Continent Public Library Facing the Future series 6pm 5/14 Lawrence, KS Lawrence Public Library with LAAND & Lawrence Music Alliance 6:30pm 5/17 Keene, NH Toadstool Books for The Thing in the Spring festival 11 am 5/18 Portland, ME SPACE 538 with Damon Krukowski 7pm lizpelly.info/events
May 7, 2025 at 2:54 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
The next Mood Machine event is in Nashville with Ann Powers this Saturday 1pm at The Blue Room! Can't wait @annkpowers.bsky.social @thirdmanrecords.bsky.social @thirdmanbooks.bsky.social
Event flyer that says: Saturday April 5 at 1pm Liz Pelly & Ann Powers discuss Mood Machine The Blue Room, 623 7th Ave S, Nashville, TN Flyer also includes photos of Liz, Ann, and the book cover
March 31, 2025 at 4:40 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
Bay Area people of Bluesky: the Mood Machine book tour stops in SF & Oakland this weekend! thank you to everyone who came to the LA events 🙏
flyer with book cover plus this text: Mood Machine on the West Coast 3/21 LA Stories 7pm 3/22 LA 2220 Arts + Archives 1pm 3/28 San Francisco Bound Together Books 7pm 3/29 Oakland Beauty Supply Arts 6pm lizpelly.info/events
March 25, 2025 at 9:00 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
Bay Area people of Bluesky: next Saturday night I will be in Oakland for a book talk presented by Seeing Red, followed by performances from Suver and Newcomer Can't Swim, at Beauty Supply Arts, 6pm. Flyer by Daisy Jaberi.
A comic-style flyer for my event in Oakland! The center of the flyer says "A talk with Liz Pelly Saturday 6pm March 29. Live music after by Suver, Newcomer Can't Swim + Safariii Camp DJs. FREE!" Surrounding that info, comic panels depict a phone call between two people: "Hey Sam! what should I put on the flyer for 3/29?" "Can you say Liz Pelly is speaking at 6pm?" "For sure. I'm so excited to hear Liz talk about her book." "Ya! It's called Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist" "Can you write 'presented by Seeing Red'?" "Anything else I should add?" "Can you add that there's a talk & music? Thanks Daisy" "It's at Beauty Supply, right?" At the bottom of the flyer: "At Beauty Supply Arts. DM for Address. Presented by Seeing Red."
March 19, 2025 at 5:59 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
LA people of Bluesky! I am really looking forward to being in conversation with my friend Katie Alice Greer next Friday at Stories Books & Cafe, 7pm. @katiealicegreer.bsky.social
flyer for Mood Machine LA event "Friday March 21st at 7pm Liz Pelly & Katie Alice Greer discuss Mood Machine. Stories Books & Cafe. 1716 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles,CA" also includes photos of Liz and Katie, and the book cover
March 15, 2025 at 11:48 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
Bluesky posters of Nyack, NY: I'll be at the Nyack Library this evening talking about Mood Machine with library director Eric McCarthy
www.nyacklibrary.org/eventscalend...
flyer for Nyack event "In Conversation with Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist March 4, 2025, 7:00pm - 8:00pm"
March 4, 2025 at 4:09 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
I will also be at First Light Books for a reading, Q&A and signing on Saturday March 1 at 7pm -- the event is free, or you can buy a copy of the book in advance to reserve a seat. thethirdplace.is/event/liz-pe...
Flyer for Austin TX author event Saturday March 1, 7pm at First Light Books. 43rd and Speedway, Hyde Park Image includes the book cover and the text "LIZ PELLY author of MOOD MACHINE The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist"
February 17, 2025 at 8:48 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
flyer for the patchogue NY event "Book Release + Concert Mood Machine by Liz Pelly Panel discussion with Liz Pelly (author) and Arielle Gordon (writer, Pitchfork) Live music by local artists Cal Fish, Warm Wishes, Voicemail & The Mops Feb 1 at 5pm, PAC MoCA LI $10 suggested donation"
January 31, 2025 at 1:57 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
"i'm a philosopher / i wear a scrunchie" greatest lyric of all time
Screencap of this Kathleen Hanna quote "We're doing this song off the first Julie Ruin [1993] record called "V.G.I." which stands for Valley Girl Intelligentsia, because everybody made fun of my Valley Girl accent and treated me like I couldn't be smart. One of the lines is, 'I'm a masterpiece, I'm a philosopher, I wear a scrunchie."
January 24, 2025 at 3:10 AM
lizpelly.bsky.social
here we are. my favorite part is at the end where we talked about the role of music criticism
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEZ1...
January 23, 2025 at 4:26 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
today at 4pm est i will be talking to anthony fantano on twitch about mood machine
screencap of fantano's tweet that says: "my @lizpelly interview happens today at 4:00 on twitch. we are gonna be talking about her new book where she dives into spotify and digs up basically everything that makes the platform so awful for music, fans, and artists. see you there!!! twitch.tv/theneedledrop"
January 22, 2025 at 5:51 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
For years, the public has called them "fake artists." But internally at Spotify, the program has a name: Perfect Fit Content. My investigation, and the first look into my book Mood Machine, is the January cover at @harpers.bsky.social. Online now & on newsstands next week
harpers.org/archive/2025...
Cover of the january 2025 issue of Harper's magazine. A black background with the words GHOST MUSIC written largely in green, tangled with wired headphones. underneath in small text it says "INSIDE SPOTIFY'S FAKE-ARTIST SCHEME"
December 18, 2024 at 7:58 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
Today's the day. This is the cover for my forthcoming book MOOD MACHINE: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, out January 7, 2025. Pre-orders are available via Greenlight Books in Brooklyn. More info here:
lizpelly.info/book
The cover for MOOD MACHINE: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly depicts a series of boxes, some containing colors and shapes and others including stock photos of individuals that reflect the various "moods & activities" of popular playlist categories (sleeping, working, exercising, chilling, etc)
September 23, 2024 at 2:46 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
insightful new phrase the majors use to describe "hobbyists" and "amateurs" just dropped ... "irrelevant long-tail volume"
(via bloomberg)
From Bloomberg newsletter recapping UMG discussion of its new "Streaming 2.0" strategy: "At this week’s presentation, Nash said the company has generally seen 'significant progress' towards Deezer’s 'publicly stated goal of shifting 10% of the royalty pool from irrelevant long-tail volume to qualified artists.'”
September 20, 2024 at 12:21 AM
lizpelly.bsky.social
this quote from larry fitzmaurice's charly bliss interview.. too real too real..
Eva from CB says "I see people I haven't seen since high school who are like, working in finance, and they're like, 'You're famous!' Like, I can't afford to add guacamole to my burrito."
August 29, 2024 at 4:53 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
proof spotify editors have never read a piece of music journalism
A screenshot of a Spotify blog post claiming Grimes coined the term "Ethereal" to describe her sound
August 21, 2024 at 3:19 PM
lizpelly.bsky.social
this popped up and i had to do a search! did you see it got added to "the sound of boston rock" & "the sound of boston indie"? it would be pretty interesting if those everynoiseatonce-adjacent playlists were starting to get erroneously flagged as fraudulent streams
July 2, 2024 at 12:21 AM
lizpelly.bsky.social
me, the major labels are the root of literally every problem in music also me Get them!!
screencap of headline from Billboard: "Major Labels Weighing Lawsuit Against AI Firms Suno and Udio for Alleged Unlicensed Training"
June 21, 2024 at 1:32 AM