Among the countless TV thrillers on Netflix, one tech-themed miniseries based on a true story deserves far more attention than it gets. This show is essentially the equivalent of David Fincher’s movie *The Social Network *for the music industry, as it tells the story of a tech company’s growth from groundbreaking disruptor to multinational monopoly.
Because Swedish is the original language of the series, Netflix’s The Playlist hasn’t garnered the global exposure it might have if it were a release made primarily for English-speaking viewers. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling true-story thriller which more than backs up its decision to depict the events on which it’s based in the country where they actually happened.
The Playlist tells the story of how and why Spotify was created, and charts its rise to the top of the music industry from humble beginnings as a seemingly impractical tech startup in Stockholm. In doing so, it turns the company’s founder Daniel Ek into a tragic antihero akin to Mark Zuckerberg at the end of The Social Network.
One of the best shows about a tech company on television, The Playlist is smart, slick, and cleverly constructed. This six-part miniseries covers the creation of Spotify from several different angles, starting with Daniel Ek’s initial desire to circumvent the legal restrictions of pirate media torrenting sites, and ending with the perspective of a fictional independent musician.
As the show winds its way through Spotify’s development from the pipedream of libertarian techies into the music establishment’s best way to protect their intellectual property, we see Ek transform from brilliant but implacably subversive computer programmer into everything he supposedly railed against. At the same time, he’s just one of six protagonists in the company’s unlikely story.
Alongside its original founder, we meet Spotify’s first legal representative Petra Hansson, who’s charged with somehow persuading music’s “Big Three” record companies to share licensing rights with a lowly Swedish startup intent on blowing up their business models. Then there’s local Sony music executive Per Sundin, who even surprises himself when he becomes a key supporter of the company.
These three figures are the most important in the story, but there are also episodes which focus on Spotify’s first investor, co-founder Martin Lorentzon, software developer Andreas Ehn, who’s obstinately against the streaming platform introducing a paywall on principle, and Daniel Ek’s fictional high-school friend, singer-songwriter Bobbi Thomasson.
Polished and authentic, The Playlist manages to make tech innovation and corporate licensing deals the basis for a gripping high-stakes drama that’s laced with jeopardy. It also poses profound philosophical questions about the value of art, and what intellectual property rights mean in practice when mass accessibility is an accomplished fact.
If The Social Network is one of the most important movies of our time, then The Playlist is a pretty significant TV show, too. The Netflix miniseries clearly draws on David Fincher’s movie in stylistic terms, applying the same tonal approach and a similarly non-linear narrative to a subject matter that’s almost identical.
Anyone who rates The Social Network as a hyperrealistic corporate thriller will unquestionably appreciate how this series ties the various pieces of its story together. The Playlist arguably goes even further than the 2010 movie in its commentary on the contentious issues in its plot.
The final episode of the Netflix show takes Spotify’s journey from startup to tech behemoth in an intriguing and unexpected direction. The Playlist remains the best kept secret among TV’s corporate thrillers, and its perspectives on the music industry are even more relevant now than when it was first released in 2022.