THE SPOTIFY PLAY

Two Swedish business reporters’ tale of the tenacious rise of the streaming-music giant that has fended off assaults from Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Taylor Swift.

When Spotify launched in Sweden in 2006, it had a brash agenda in a chaotic time for online music. Apple’s iTunes store had established a viable and legal marketplace for the post-Napster era, but Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek wanted to pursue a more open, stream-friendly, and cheaper alternative. The first chapters of the book, previously published in Sweden and translated and updated by the authors, detail the Spotify team’s dogged efforts to build their technology, though its greater challenge was convincing the music industry that a “freemium model” could work in its favor. In that regard, Ek had help from Sean Parker, who co-founded Napster and later introduced Ek to Mark Zuckerberg, a critical connection when Spotify began making inroads in the U.S. Headwinds were strong: Apple slow-walked approving Spotify to the app store, deals with major labels required sizable concessions from the company, and artists protested Spotify’s often skimpy payments to artists. (Swift withheld her 2014 album 1989 from Spotify for a time.) Carlsson and Leijonhufvud are seasoned business reporters who’ve garnered informative scoops about the company—e.g., a failed streaming-video venture, the terms of a deal with Sony Music, and abandoned efforts to buy Tidal or be bought by Google. Though the authors have a seemingly bottomless repository of song titles that serve as apt section headings, little elevates the narrative above sober, fairly dry business journalism. But it’s not all their fault: Ek isn’t an especially charismatic executive, and the authors characterize his leadership for the most part as blandly aloof. Ek is no Jobs, but he’s clearly held his own on the playing field Jobs created.

An informative report from the streaming wars, though better suited for startup geeks than music nerds.