The Playlist review – stick with it for the brain-breakingly weird ending
Netflix tells the origin story of Spotify, but Daniel Ek - the most powerful man in music - is no Steve Jobs. Still, it's worth watching for the jolting discomfort you'll feel after the finale
Thanks to The Social Network, tech biopics now tend to work from the same blueprint. There is a startup, founded in a fog of resentment by a single obsessive, charismatic visionary. There is a battle to succeed, to show a world resistant to change what the future looks like. And then there is wild victory that comes at a price. For the most part, though, The Playlist (Netflix) avoids this blueprint.
A drama about the creation of Spotify, The Playlist has a perfectly willing visionary in Daniel Ek, the programmer who created the app and quickly became the most powerful man in the global music industry. But Spotify is a Swedish company, and The Playlist is a Swedish show, and that means a little light socialism is in order.
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