Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

With the new pressures of TikTok, artists didn’t only need to make songs that would avoid skips and “do numbers on” lean-back playlists. They also had to answer to the harsh demands of short-form video and TikTok’s fast-moving feeds. The line between the musician and the meme-maker blurred. Everyone had to commodify their personalities now by becoming a comedian, or making some other sort of clickbait emotional appeal. Artists needed to be dancers and models and lifestyle influencers; they needed to open up about their innermost struggles. An extreme sense of literalism in lyrics triumphed, with songwriters angling to position themselves as easily legible TikTok personalities, as relatable underdogs hustling for streams. It was all so tightly controlled, and somehow often also could feel so random and meaningless. One moment sea shanties were a thing, the next moment there was an unexpected revival of the nineties slowcore band Duster.