Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist (Liz Pelly)
An interesting and scary overview of how streaming and playlistification have gone too far. I’ve been feeling for a while like these streaming services aren’t worth my time or energy as an artist, but I sort of tried to dismiss it as myself overthinking it or being too skeptical. I now feel extremely justified, and this book was an important reminder that to Spotify and other tech companies disguised as music companies, artists are as much a product as listeners are.
What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory (Brian Eno and Bette A)
A pleasant and thoughtful little book about why we need art. Easy to read in one sitting or to dip in and out of. I like that it describes itself as “an unfinished theory”, because it reminds me how art never really has an endpoint but instead is an ongoing process, an experience of play and imagination as opposed to something that necessarily starts and ends.