The Music Book Podcast

On this episode, Marc talks with Liz Pelly, author of “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist,” published on January 7, 2025. by One Signal. It’s a deeply reported expose of the streaming service Spotify and how their decisions and manipulations have changed music both for artists and for listeners. Liz has been reporting on Spotify for almost a decade and her many published articles on the subject led her to this fascinating book, which will hopefully change the way people think about streaming and what it’s done to music.As she writes, “In my writing and reporting, I’ve been driven toward a deep impulse toward demystification–toward shedding light on the inner workings of streaming companies and debunking the myths they perpetuate. Sometimes it feels more complicated and convoluted than I could ever have imagined. Other times it just all feels like music industry business as usual. The truth is somewhere in the middle: the story of streaming is as much about what’s changed as what’s stayed the same.”We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Liz Pelly!

On this episode, Marc talks with Brendan Greaves, author of “Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen,” published in March of 2024. It’s a thorough and compelling biography of artist, musician, and performer Terry Allen, whose art has crossed lines from museum-hosted visual art to outlaw country to work that no genre can contain. Greaves, who runs the record label Paradise of Bachelors, met Allen many years ago and reissued many of his classic albums, forging a relationship in which really only he could tell such an intimate and honest story of Allen and his many colleagues and friends.As Greaves writes, “Terry Allen occupies an utterly unique position straddling the disparate, and usually distant, worlds of conceptual art and country music. I’m not sure you could say the same about anyone else, ever, and certainly no one with the same aplomb, acclaim, and prestige in each discipline–not to mention the same lacerating, self-effacing sense of humor about it all.”We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Brendan Greaves!

On this episode, Marc talks with Jim Saah, author and illustrator of “In My Eyes: Photographs 1982-1987,” originally published in 2021 and out in a second edition now. It’s a huge, beautiful book of black and white photographs taken by Saah of an astounding array of punk and post-punk groups, from the Ramones to Black Flag to Fugazi to Pavement. It also includes Saah’s interviews with artists who work at the cross sections of music and imagery, including J. Robbins, Jon Langford, Shepard Fairey, and Ian MacKaye.As Jim writes, “I went through thousands of negatives to choose the hundreds of photos in this book. It was a joy to revisit all these images and remember how I felt and why I took them in the first place. I took these photos because I had to.”We hope you enjoy Marc’s conversation with Jim Saah!

On this episode, Marc talks with Marcus J. Moore, author of “High and Rising: A Book about De La Soul,” published today, November 19. It’s a biography of the legendary rap trio that also weaves in Moore’s own story as well as the evolution of rap from the 80s, when De La Soul started, to today. It's a follow up to Moore's first book, “The Butterfly Effect,” about Kendrick Lamar, which came out in 2020.As Marcus writes, “High and Rising doesn’t just tell the story of De La Soul; it unpacks the birth of hip-hop and the evolution of alternative rap. It’s also a memoir about my own travels through life and the environment, and how their music helped me grow as a person and creator in a landscape that doesn’t always understand differing viewpoints of artistry.”We hope you enjoy Marc's conversation with Marcus J. Moore!