'The Playlist' - A Netflix Series

The Playlist is a Netflix series directed by Hallgrim Haug and Per-Olav Sørensen . Its stars Gizem Erdogan, Christian Hillborg and Edvin Endre, amongst others.

It tells the story of the creation of Spotify.

Premise

It follows Daniel Ek y Martin Lorentzon, who revolutionized the music industry with the application Spotify, sort of what happened to Napster, though this time around legally.

About the Series

In six parts this Swedish series stands out for its realistic tone, both in photography, performances and dialogue. As far as the story is concerned, it is a faithful portrayal of the real life events, and lives up to what we would expect of a show that intends to recount, or chronicle what happened to this programmer, whom after being rejected by Google, hacked into their system. He the proceeds to “invent” the legal successor of Naptser, for free.

There are loads of handheld single camera takes, quite different from the spectacular style that could have been applied. It is far from The Social Network (2010) by David Fincher, and it seems to have no pretensions of being like that movie. ‘The Playlist’ is more ”down to earth” and as said, realistic.

It is a good series that tells an interesting story, and it is in the story that its strength lies, as there are no grand cinematic “hooplas”.

Our Opinion

We are more interested in the story told than in the production quality of the series. There is nothing extraordinary about the photography, nor does it seem to seek to be, as it is simply a chronicle of the creation of the music application phenomenon. This will probably delight some, not for its artistic merits, but for the narrative content.