Random music news for Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Twenty-one years ago today, Google was founded. How long did it take before “google” became a verb? Moving on to music news for September 4, 2019…

1. Canadian music sales and streaming stats vs. this time last year: Total album sales, -24.6%; CD sales, -29.8%; digital albums, -21.2%; digital tracks, -27.6%; vinyl LPs, -1.5%; on-demand audio streams, +34.8% (1.487 billion streams last week).
2. Liam Gallagher is going to try marriage again. He’s now engaged to his music manager, Debbie Gwynther. This will be Our Kid’s third marriage.
3. Meanwhile, Debbie had an issue with some other women in a pub toilet.
4. More HORRIBLE album covers.
5. Is the music industry ready for everything that’s going to happen with 5G technology?
6. And should streaming worry about any upcoming global recession? Maybe.
7. Jay-Z is starting to roll out his plans for music for this year’s NFL season as part of his new partnership for the league. Will rock figure into anything at all?
8. Singing toilets are on the rise in North America. You read that correctly.
9. If you’re into photography, you might want to look into a new Andy Summers camera (yes, the drummer from The Police) coming from Leica.
10. Chronic pain? Maybe you need a gong bath.
11. Here’s an explanation of rock’s enduring fascination with clowns. Yes, clowns.
12. It appears that R Kelly has at least one woman on his side. She’s working to raise money for a defense fund.
13. An entire satellite radio channel of nothing but cycle fitness instructors? It exists.
14. This radio company has launched a new sports network without using any terrestrial transmitters. Is this the future?
15. Related: Up to one-third of American radio personalities are doing podcasts.
16. Amazon really wants to get Alexa into your car. Here’s what they envision her doing.
17. AI is now designing t-shirts. How could this be adapted for musical purposes?