Random music news for Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss. Music news, however, keeps changing. Here’s what I’ve got for October 22, 2019.

1. This week’s Canadian music sales and streaming stats vs. where things were at this time last year: Total album sales, -23.6%; CDs, -27.2%; digital albums, -22.8%; digital tracks, -27.9%; vinyl LPs, 0.0%; on-demand audio streams, +34% (1.517 billion streams in the country last week.)
2. Canadian Doug Putnam, who runs Sunrise Records in Canada and over a hundred HMV stores in the UK, has sold over 10 million albums in the last year.
3. There was a big podcast conference in Toronto last week. Here’s a summary of what was discussed and learned.
4. Frankie Banali, the drummer for Quiet Riot, announced he has stage four pancreatic cancer.
5. Coldplay will release a double album entitled Everyday Life next month.
6. A good question: Who will own Spotify in five years?
7. If you’re a fan of The Headstones, you’ll want to read this.
8. The rumour is that this musician slept with 3,000 women. He begs to differ.
9. Elton John has a new app for hard-of-hearing fans.
10. The estate of late Walter Becker of Steely Dan auctioned off 600 guitars and 400 amps, netting US$3.3 million.
11. A dude named Tupac Shakur has been arrested for attacking some cops in Tennessee. No, it’s not THAT Tupac.
12. Here’s more analysis on the fan voting for the Class of 2020 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
13. This dude interpreted a Beyonce set for the deaf. He really got into it.
14. Trent Reznor and collaborator Atticus Ross will release three soundtrack albums to go along with the HBO series Watchmen.
15. This could come in handy if you take a lot of cab rides.
16. The radio industry has a problem: headphones.