'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.
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.' – Joseph Menn, Washington Post staff writer and author of All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster.
'Throughout McDonald's book, personal anecdotes and his own love of music spill out in witty, conversational prose.' Poppie Platt, The Daily Telegraph
Ideal for anyone who wants to know how Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube Music work, whether as a fan, musician or music business professional.
Scroll up, click “Buy now” and start exploring why you have not yet heard your favourite song.
Glenn McDonald is a software engineer, algorithm designer, music evangelist and long-time Data Alchemist at Spotify, the world's biggest music streaming service. From the 1990s, he was one of the earliest and most prolific explorers of how to use data to understand and amplify our collective and individual experiences of music.His work at the US music-intelligence startup The Echo Nest helped bring about its 2014 acquisition by Spotify, which put him at the algorithmic heart of streaming music and the listening habits of 500 million people.His website Every Noise at Once (everynoise.com) has an unprecedented computational map of the world's music genres, and a large and growing variety of other tools for exploring music and joy. His personal blog (furia.com) offers occasional commentary on this, and various other digressions. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
