Great news for music history buffs: an audio preservation company in Philadelphia has published free online streams of 25,000 historic 78 RPM records from the early 20th century — and that's just a fraction of what's on the way. With funding from the Internet Archive, preservationist George Blood is spearheading an effort to publish streams of early American recordings ranging from jazz to opera to gospel to novelty songs.

In addition to what Blood has uploaded, there are 75,000 more preserved recordings that are ready to be shared from other archivists. Ultimately, "the Great 78 Project" hopes to have hundreds of thousands of recordings made available to the public. (Newsworks)

A Swift result

Taylor Swift has prevailed in her legal battle with former country radio host David Mueller. A Denver jury have agreed that Mueller did indeed grope the superstar during a backstage visit in 2013, ordering him to pay the symbolic one dollar she requested.

Swift says she will make a donation to organizations helping victims of sexual assault. "I acknowledge" she said in a statement, "the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this. My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard." (New York Times)

Musicians plea for peace in Korea

On Saturday night, 25,000 young South Koreans gathered near the demilitarized zone separating their country from North Korea. The occasion was a peace concert featuring some of K-pop's biggest stars — including Girls' Generation, BTOB, and Cosmic Girls. "Let's shout 'no' to missiles and 'no' to nuclear weapons development and 'we want peace,'" said local politician Jung Ki-youl, to a roar of approval, at the seventh annual DMZ Peace Concert. (New York Times)

"This is a song about not murdering people," says Will Toledo about the new Car Seat Headrest single "War Is Coming (If You Want It)." The song is now officially released, after previously being released in an alternate mix to benefit the Transgender Law Center. (Pitchfork)

"Weird Al" Yankovic is being a little more direct. On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the parody star played a new song called "Please Don't Nuke Us, North Korea." Accordion, it turns out, is actually wildly popular in the country the song is addressed to. "Why in the world would you kill Tom Hanks?" goes one lyric. "'Cause nobody doesn't like Tom Hanks." (Billboard)

The song starts at 24:30 in the video below:

A near-record — but no VMAs — for "Despacito"

How huge is "Despacito," the summer smash by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee? It's just tied the record for second-longest run atop the Billboard Hot 100, matching "Uptown Funk" with 14 weeks atop the chart. Still the reigning champ: "One Sweet Day," the Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men collaboration that spent 16 weeks at number one from the end of 1995 through the beginning of 1996. (Billboard)

The song's video now holds the record for most-viewed music video of all time on YouTube — but it won't be winning any MTV Video Music Awards. Why? It wasn't submitted for consideration. Explaining the decision not to submit the video, Universal Music Latin Entertainment noted that the video only gets played on MTV's Latin channel, not on the main network. "We would welcome MTV's decision to recognize Spanish-language videos on its main channel and the Music Video Awards program," said the label in a statement. (Spin)

Lorde sings Simon

On Sunday at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, Lorde was joined by her producer Jack Antonoff for a cover of Paul Simon’s "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." Antonoff changed the final chorus to reflect the occasion: "Me and Ella [Yelich-O'Connor, Lorde's real name] in Golden Gate Park." (Rolling Stone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG61yp1oazM