Iceland Roundup: Spotify, Blown Trailers, Heat Record, Falling Boulders & Thunder

The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin editor Aðalsteinn Kjartansson, and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to roundup the stories making headlines in recent weeks.

In this episode, we cover how three trailers were blown over by strong winds on Holtavörðuheiði, a mountain road between the north and west of Iceland. Nobody was hurt, but SAR also had to assist a group of motorcyclists off the mountain due to the heavy winds. The weather on Friday also brought a thunderstorm to the west of Iceland — a rarity; In Egilsstaðir, a town in east Iceland, the temperature reached 29.8°C on Saturday. This is the highest temperature recorded in Iceland this century, though it still falls short of the all-time record of just over 30°C, set, also in the east, in 1939; A boulder fell on the Ring Road south of Eyjafjallajökull on Sunday. Earlier this spring, in the same area, a boulder struck a car, killing a woman. Locals have long complained about the safety of this stretch of road, but so far no action has been taken to improve it; A third of Icelanders pay for Spotify, which accounts for almost 100% of streaming in Iceland. The Chairman of STEF (the Composers’ Rights Society of Iceland), Páll Ragnar Pálsson, says STEF is not planning to withdraw the catalogue of Icelandic music from the platform, noting that individual artists can choose to do so. He explained that STEF is working with other composers’ rights societies abroad to put pressure on Spotify. The reasons are threefold: first, the extremely low revenues artists receive from streaming; second, the numerous fake artists skimming revenue from Spotify, in some cases seemingly with the platform’s consent; and third, Spotify’s CEO, who has recently moved into weapons development and manufacturing.

Watch the video below or listen on your favourite podcast platforms: