Recently, Google issued an update for Google Play Music.
Now, I frequently see the Google Play Music icon briefly appearing in the Android notification bar (aka status bar).
It will appear for about a tenth of second, then disappear, then do the same a second later. This happens on and off throughout the day.
I think it is also flashing up a brief notification in the notification tray, but it's hard to tell, because it just flashes there for less than a second.
This happens when Google Play Music is not even running (although it presumably has some background tasks).
This never happened before the recent update to Google Play Music.
It's distracting to have this icon sporadically appear. Also it can cause all the left-side notification bar icons to shift due to this "fluttering" of the Google Play Music icon.
What's going on, and is there a way to fix it?
(Oh, I should mention: I don't want to turn off all notifications for Google Play Music, because they are useful on days it is actually used.)
Update: This symptom has been confirmed by two other Android SE users.