You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song

'One of the best music books of the year' – Neil McCormick, Daily Telegraph

What if the song that would change your life is already out there – buried somewhere in 100 million tracks, one skipped click away?

In You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, former Spotify “Data Alchemist” Glenn McDonald opens the black box of music streaming and shows how it is quietly transforming what we hear, how artists earn a living and what music means in a digital age. Drawing on years spent inside the algorithmic engine of Spotify, McDonald reveals how playlists, recommendation algorithms, listening data and streaming royalties really work – and what they’re doing to artists, fans and culture itself.

Moving from the age of record shops and radio to Napster, iTunes, the iPod and the rise of Spotify, this book is a sharp, witty and surprisingly hopeful tour of the streaming era – from the economics of a fraction-of-a-cent stream to the strange new power of fan armies, bots and “chill” playlists that never end.

Inside this book you’ll discover:

• How music streaming services turned buying records into exploring infinite catalogues – and why that changes what we value and how we listen
• What Spotify algorithms actually do (and don’t do), why they’re less like evil robots and more like very simple math, and how they can still go badly wrong
• Why royalty systems such as pro-rata vs user-centric payments matter for fairness, independence and the future of the music industry
• The hidden world of playlist culture – editorial playlists, algorithmic playlists and the lists your friends make – and how they’ve become the new gatekeepers
• How streaming exposes inequalities in genre, gender and geography – from Nashville country radio to global diasporas – and what more equitable, data-driven music discovery could look like
• The new joys of a connected world: global micro-genres, borrowed nostalgia, weird subcultures and the statistical certainty that you truly haven’t yet heard your favourite song

Written in clear, elegant prose by someone who has handled the listening data of hundreds of millions of people, You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song is part music history, part technology explainer and part cultural manifesto. It will change how you think about Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, algorithmic recommendations, AI in music, streaming royalties and the future of recorded music.

Perfect for:

• Curious music fans who love discovering new artists and genres
• Musicians, producers and industry professionals trying to understand how streaming really works
• Readers of How Music Works, This Is Your Brain on Music or The Song Machine who want a smart, insider’s guide to the digital revolution in music

If you’ve ever wondered whether the next song in your queue could change everything, this book is your invitation to find out.

Scroll up, click “Buy now” and start exploring why you have not yet heard your favourite song.

About the Author

Glenn McDonald is expertly placed to provide a comprehensive picture of the global music industry in the 2020s.

Growing up in 198Os and 1990s America, he was an obsessive collector of physical music – CDs and vinyl albums. But he soon realised the revolutionary power of digital media to make songs more widely accessible.

He started working at the US music intelligence startup The Echo Nest, which was acquired by Spotify – and he became Spotify's 'Data Alchemist.' His website Every Noise at Once is an unprecedented computational map of the world’s music genres.

Reviews

'If you want to know anything about how music surfaces today, how to find it, or how to create it, you will find what you need right here. And you will be highly entertained and amused in the process.' – Joseph Menn, Washington Post staff writer and author of All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster.

'We used to sell CDs by the weight of pallets, thanks to streaming we know how our content is consumed. In this immersive book, Glenn has demonstrated what we can do with this knowledge, so other industries can learn' – Will Page, author of Pivot and former Chief Economist of Spotify

'I'd say that reading this book is the next best thing to having an in-depth, impassioned, hours-long fika with Glenn McDonald about music and culture and all of the most burning topics of our time... but, I'd be lying. It's even better. This book is a true behind-the-scenes examination of our culture and our industry from the perspective of someone who was in the thick of it from the beginning. It's a history of the streaming era, written by someone who made history in the streaming era.' Meg Tarquinio, PhD, Spotify/Twitch/Nettwerk Music Group

'Throughout McDonald's book, personal anecdotes and his own love of music spill out in witty, conversational prose. Even chapters that delve into streaming's complex finances – unsurprisingly, your £15 monthly fee does not go directly to your favourite artist, but is split between that month's "most streamed," meaning that megastars such as Swift and Ed Sheeran stay at the top of the pyramid – are told in layman's terms.' Poppie Platt, The Daily Telegraph

Ideal for anyone who wants to know how Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube Music and other music platforms work, whether as a fan, musician or music business professional.

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