episodes 1-5 of @criticallistening.bsky.social, the podcast i co-host with @peretsky.bsky.social, are avail everywhere but spotify. we’re starting work on eps 6-10 this week. if you would like to support this work pls subscribe here! www.patreon.com/criticallist... tysm

Last fall I started a newsletter-blog called Jenn's Obsessions. The second post was a short essay adapted from my liner notes for a 2024 Margo Guryan box set. That blog post was just nominated for the Reeperbahn International Music Journalism Award. How cool thank you!

i was the 52nd person to purchase a copy of Hotline TNT's Raspberry Moon today as part of their 24-hour anti-spotify telethon ! they hope to sell 500 records. how cool www.assnup.com

"A library-based service might not fully 'solve' the streaming dilemma, but I think it would help foster intentional listening, which is part of the puzzle." A conversation between @jennpelly.bsky.social and @lizpelly.bsky.social for @pioneerwork.bsky.social:

Great Read | No way did I know that I wanted 12k(!) words about Katie Crutchfield and Waxahatchee, but there’s personal layers to this @jennpelly.bsky.social on-the-bus profile that I’ve not read in a magazine music story in a decade, probably longer. They just don’t write them like this any more.

In this feature, @jennpelly.bsky.social spends six days on tour with Waxahatchee from Alabama until Texas, where Katie Crutchfield recorded 2024’s "Tigers Blood." Read it here: shorturl.at/uiMh1

the ritual of getting the setlist will never die 🌀

turnstile summer

Behold, @dandipiero.bsky.social invoking @jennpelly.bsky.social to think through “the crush” as a queer feminist sonic sensibility #PopCon2025

trailer for a new movie I made screening in: PHILLY - 3/15 NYC - 3/18 DC - 3/24 LANSING, MI 4/3 NYC 3/18 www.eventbrite.com/e/a-night-of... (free with rsvp!) feat. music from Mutual Benefit 7pm DC 3/24 sunscinema.com/movies/a-nig... (tickets here) 7pm (SOLD OUT) + 930pm

forget vocal fry. why are podcast men always screaming

New post on Dada Drummer Almanach - about two fav music writers of mine, @lizpelly.bsky.social and @jennpelly.bsky.social dadadrummer.substack.com/p/active-lis...

I spent 2022 interviewing the likes of Denzel Curry, Adrianne Lenker, Santigold, Courtney Barnett, and Jeff Tweedy for this story that explored the need for record label-funded mental healthcare for musicians pitchfork.com/features/art...

"I think the dream for me is to be unreachable one day." so inspired by Luddite teens & Alex's stories on them www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/s...

📢 i wrote this 📢

The world is still catching up to Annette Peacock

new blog jennpelly.substack.com/p/gone-with-...

On my newsletter-blog-thing I wrote about @lizpelly.bsky.social book Mood Machine and how it brings up the pesky and interesting questions of how and who defines the value of different contexts of music www.mutualbenef.it/18-celebrati...

𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝒶𝓃𝓎 𝒻𝓊𝓇𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 My first piece for @hearingthingsco.bsky.social ❗ A short essay on one of my favorite songs of all time, Annette Peacock's visionary jam "I'm the One" www.hearingthings.co/annette-peac...

next week 1/28 — i helped organize this benefit show for LA fire relief efforts www.ticketweb.com/event/ny4la-...

need to go re-read musicking & deep listening as palette cleansers

this one’s for the bobcats pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

If you haven’t seen A Complete Unknown, the soundtrack might feel like a novelty record, Timothée Chalamet’s Dylan karaoke. In context, it’s a generational actor’s portrayal of a musician who was himself constantly acting

“Ek is interested in music approximately as much as Jeff Bezos is interested in Bernadette Mayer.”

bout to see A Complete Unknown for the third time 🕶️

I love bachfest

xmas cheer www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rME...

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...

2025 theme song 🤝 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re85...

‼️NEW: Liz Pelly reveals Spotify’s secret exploitation model Perfect Fit Content: thousands of songs created by underpaid, anonymous subcontractor musicians through shady production houses, prioritized by Spotify as the royalties improved its margins.

i wrote about one of my favorite records of 2024 for this see/saw zine & honestly felt spiritually renewed doing so, order to find out more see-saw.fun/see-saws-top...

spent many months writing this concert review www.vulture.com/article/tayl...

NY: please join me for the launch of Mood Machine on January 7 at St Joseph's University in Clinton Hill. I'll be in conversation with @peretsky.bsky.social and the event is presented by @thebaffler.com and Greenlight Books. Info/RSVP: thebaffler.com/events/mood-...

on Kim Deal's solo debut 🦩🌴 pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

i left my copy of the Preening album "Gang Laughter" somewhere in the city of Los Angeles in 2019 hope someone cool picked it up from the punk lost and found preening.bandcamp.com/album/gang-l...

if i could go back in time and tell 17 y/o me "getty images will one day sell an image of you wearing a Void T-shirt while staring lovingly into the eyes of thurston moore's dog" i'd be like alright sure lmao

don't move to new york city baabe pitchfork.com/features/lis...

what brave magazine will commission me to interview my twin sister liz pelly abt "mood machine the rise of spotify and the cost of the perfect playlist" out january 7

i'm interviewing thurston at national sawdust tonight! nationalsawdust.org/event/the-gr...

This book is genuinely going to blow the lid off Spotify’s shit internal practices. Explosive exposé you aren’t ready to be this mad.

drake is at least partially right & you can at least partially find out why in chapter 16 of mood machine the rise of spotify and the costs of the perfect playlist out january 7 2025 lizpelly.info/book

national anthem www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVOz...

I wrote about Didion & Babitz — had no idea that Joan Didion was briefly the "editor" of Eve's Hollywood (!) i-d.co/article/didi...

tomorrow night in manhattan 💫 can't overstate how ecstatic i am to be in conversation w rob about his new taylor book !!

i stream music but support this logic - for example, i would def not remember to listen to annette peacock's "I Have No Feelings" at least once a month if not for my personal library

writing about a punk record at 11:43pm shout out to the scene

"Trying to make something that sounds new can be shaky ground, actually" — I had fun talking about Sophie, Sonic Youth, noise and novelty w KASSIE KRUT, industrial pop trio formed from the ashes of Palm i-d.co/article/kass...

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

ps icym elsewhere, i started a new blog: jennpelly dot svbst@ck dot com