Random music news for Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The first regularly-scheduled transatlantic airline flight began on this date in 1951. El Al of Israel began flying a turboprop airliner from New York to Heathrow in London. And when it comes to music news for May 16, 2018…

1. 1. The concept of awarding a “gold record” turns 60 this week.
   2. Remember how that Norwegian newspaper claimed that Tidal was inflating streaming numbers for Beyonce and Kanye West? A bunch of Norwegian artists are now suing over this.
   3. Factoid: the average American listens to 32 hours of music a week. At that rate, it would take 1,600 years to listen to all the songs on Spotify.
   4. Apple Music says it has now passed 50 million subscribers. Spotify is still in the lead, but Apple is catching up.
   5. People are really pissed at Tidal. There are now some investigations into its practices.
   6. Damon Albarn almost did something very silly with the master tape of a Gorillaz album.
   7. There will be an auction of Prince memorabilia. Gotta be some good stuff here.
   8. You know what could be good for your mental health? “Pulling a Kanye.”
   9. On that topic, Princes Harry and William have joined Lady Gaga on a mental health campaign.
   10. But what have the Royals ever done for the arts? Check out this opinion.
   11. Russian trolls attacked American teenage girls’ computers with a botnet called FaceMusic. Here’s what happened.
   12. Meanwhile, Courtney Barnett demonstrated that she knows how to deal with trolls.
   13. New survey: 71% of all UK vinyl sales go to a small number of superfans.
   14. The time when Keith Richards got rid of Donald Trump.
   15. That new Arctic Monkeys album is selling well, innit?
   16. Chris Brown: Once a thug, always a thug (Via Steve)
   17. If you have a smart speaker, you do not want this parrot.
   18. Are you ready to start talking about new iPhone models? No? Too bad.
   19. If you can speak more than one language, you might be able to hear sounds differently than those who don’t.
   20. Want an ultra-rare drum machine? Go here.
   21. Slash’s video game music? Yep.