Miguel‘s single “Sure Thing” is making Billboard history more than a decade after its release. The song has been one of Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for 76 weeks, now holding the title as the track to spend the most weeks on the music chart. It replaces Mary J. Blige‘s “Be Without You,” which spent 75 weeks on the list from 2005 to 2007.
“Sure Thing,” released in 2010, now sits at #6 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. A sped-up version of the track went viral on TikTok, soundtracking over 4 million videos on the platform.
“I’m glad that ‘Sure Thing’ still connects and resonates with a new audience, and that they feel what I’ve always felt with this song,” Miguel tells Billboard of his latest accomplishment. “More than anything, this achievement is a wild reminder of how things – all across the board – can cycle back into cultural relevance.”
Chris Janson, and music icons Dolly Parton and Slash have teamed up for a new collaboration, “21 Forever.”
The track, written by Chris, Tom Douglas and Tommy Cecil, offers a powerful perspective on growing up, and leaving one’s carefree and party-heavy younger days.
“There’s a time for young and dumb/ For lovers, lines and songs/ You go to bed in the morning/ After you/ stumble in at dawn Had to get my act together/ Learn to appreciate stormy weather/ You can’t be 21 forever,” Chris and Dolly sing in the chorus, while Slash shreds the electric guitar.
“I’m so thrilled to announce that two global icons have joined me for my absolute biggest collaboration to date,” shares Chris. “Dolly and Slash – it doesn’t get any bigger than that! I’m incredibly humbled and grateful for these two. I hope you all enjoy ’21 Forever.'”
Chris’ current single, “All I Need Is You,” is number 35 and rising on the country charts.
Filter has released a new song called “Face Down.”
“‘Face Down’ speaks to the hate and negativity plaguing the world today,” says frontman Richard Patrick. “I wrote it after being inundated with lies, deceptions, and pure vitriol I saw on social media.”
“Face Down” follows the single “For the Beaten,” which dropped last October. A new Filter album, the follow-up to 2016’s Crazy Eyes, is due out later this year.
In other Filter news, the band has announced a streaming concert taking place June 17. The show will broadcast via the streaming platform HITKOR.
The Daily Mail is reporting that former Aquaman star Amber Heard has “quit Hollywood and quietly relocated” to Spain with her 2-year-old daughter, Oonagh Paige.
Reportedly quoting a friend, the publication said of Heard, “She’s bilingual in Spanish and is happy there, raising her daughter away from all the noise.” Further, the source stated, “I don’t think she is in any hurry to return to work or to Hollywood, but she will probably come back when the time is right for the right project.”
Buttressing the report, the Daily Mail notes Heard sold her home in Yucca Valley, California, in July, after a U.S. jury decided she had defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp.
In December of last year, she dropped an appeal of the verdict and settled the highly publicized case.
Heard hasn’t worked on any major projects since last spring, and there have been rumors her role as Mera in the December sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has been significantly edited down.
More than 4.6 million people have signed a petition calling for her to be cut completely — not that that is any final determination.
Meanwhile, Depp’s first film project following the defamation case, the French-language love story Jeanne du Barry, will debut at the Cannes Film Festival on July 16.
The Hu has released an acoustic version of “Bii Biyelgee,” a track off the Mongolian band’s 2022 album, Rumble of Thunder.
The unplugged recording is available now via digital outlets and is accompanied by a performance video streaming now on YouTube.
You’ll also find the acoustic “Bii Biyelgee” on the upcoming deluxe version of Rumble of Thunder, dropping June 30. The expanded set also includes collaborations with System of a Down‘s Serj Tankian and Alice in Chains‘ William DuVall.
The Hu will be performing in the U.S. this fall at the Louder than Life and Aftershock festivals.
Switchfoot has released a rerecorded edition of the band’s 2003 album, The Beautiful Letdown, in honor of its 20th anniversary.
The collection, dubbed The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version), includes new versions of songs including “Meant to Live” and “Dare You to Move.”
“The journey of The Beautiful Letdown reminded us why we started playing music in the first place,” Switchfoot says. “It united us and gave us a deep appreciation for each other and the people that showed up to sing with us.”
You can listen to The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) now via digital outlets.
Switchfoot will launch a 20th anniversary The Beautiful Letdown tour in August.
(NEW YORK) — A better-than-expected jobs report on Friday defied interest rate hikes that aim to slash inflation by cooling the economy.
Instead, the U.S. added 253,000 jobs in April, marking a slight decline from an average of 290,000 over the previous six months. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, matching a 54-year low, government data showed.
The job gains, however, did not accrue evenly across sectors. Some industries posted blockbuster expansions while others lagged far behind.
“There are good signs and there’s broad growth,” William Spriggs, chief economist for the labor federation AFL-CIO, told ABC News. “But many of the sectors didn’t do very much.”
Here’s what to know about which industries are seeing jobs grow the fastest and why:
Business and professional services: 43,000 jobs added
The sector that featured the most job gains covers a wide-reaching set of positions referred to as business and professional services, which includes highly trained employees such as attorneys, accountants, managers and computer engineers, among others.
The sector added 43,000 jobs last month, nearly doubling an average of 25,000 jobs gained over the previous six months.
The major expansion arrives despite high-profile layoffs last month in the media and tech industries, with some cuts involving management at companies such as Disney, Vice Media and Lyft.
The layoffs elsewhere may have driven some of the job growth in this sector, since companies across the economy depend on tech professionals but often face difficulty attracting them, Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told ABC News.
“Their contraction is a boon to the rest of the economy, which almost had no chance recruiting top software engineers before,” Pollak said. “Finally, it stands a chance.”
Health care: 40,000 jobs added
Health care, an industry that has shown strong job growth in recent months, continued at a blistering pace in April.
The performance in this industry owes in large part to the aging U.S. population, Pollak said.
Roughly 17% of Americans are 65 years of age or older, according to a report released in February by the Administration of Aging, a government agency. That share of the population, which counts 55.7 million people, has grown nearly 40% since 2010, the report said.
Employment at nursing and residential care facilities made up almost a quarter of the jobs added in the sector last month, government data showed.
“This is an industry with tremendous long-term prospects,” Pollak said. “Where labor can’t easily be replaced by ChatGPT.”
Despite a bright future, the sector faced major difficulties during the pandemic when an overwhelming need for care led to staffing shortages and burnout, Spriggs said.
“We know that the sector was hurt deeply by the COVID crisis,” he said. “I think this is a very good sign that it’s on its way to recovery.”
Leisure and hospitality: 31,000 jobs added
Leisure and hospitality, an industry decimated by the pandemic, sustained strong growth in April as it continued to climb back toward pre-pandemic employment levels.
More than 80% of the job gains in the sector took place at food service and drinking establishments, which have benefited from the return of dining out and nightlife as coronavirus cases have waned.
But employment in the industry remains 2.4% below the employment level in February 2020, government data showed.
The shortfall of workers leaves room for growth in the sector, no matter how the wider economy fares, said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at Charlotte-based investment firm LPL Financial.
“We should expect continued job gains in these industries even if the broader economy shrinks,” Roach said.
Matchbox Twenty has released a second taste of their upcoming album, Where the Light Goes, due out May 26.
It’s called “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and also comes with a performance video. The way singer Rob Thomas describes the song makes it sound like it could be about a relationship, or it could be about a band that’s been around for more than two decades — like Matchbox Twenty, for example.
“A lot of times, when people have been together for years, you can have arguments that get really heated and keep you on edge. It’s only natural for someone to sometimes think it may be the end,” Rob explains. “This song was just someone saying, ‘I know I get mad sometimes, but I’m not going anywhere.’”
And speaking of not going anywhere, Where the Light Goes is Matchbox Twenty’s first album in more than 10 years, and Rob and guitarist/drummer Paul Doucette tell People that at first they weren’t sure if they should even make it.
“I had a sense of trepidation about going in [to the studio],” Rob says.
Paul adds, “I … think that the reality of it is when you don’t work with somebody for 10 years, you can have a little bit of reservation about going back in. I personally had gotten to a point where I had never thought we were going to make a record again.”
But the band members all ended up on the same page after they worked on one song — the album’s title track — and Rob realized he didn’t want to “miss the magic … that happens when we get together.”
Matchbox Twenty’s long-awaited Slow Dream Tour kicks off May 16 in Vancouver.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is leaving the agency, President Joe Biden announced.
“She led a complex organization on the frontlines of a once-in-a-generation pandemic with honesty and integrity,” Biden said in a statement. “Dr. Walensky leaves CDC a stronger institution, better positioned to confront health threats and protect Americans.”
“We have all benefited from her service and dedication to public health, and I wish her the best in her next chapter,” Biden added.
Walensky will step down at the end of June.
While Walensky helmed the nation’s public health agency throughout the pandemic, her tenure was not without faults, including those she acknowledged in a review conducted last summer.
“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for COVID-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Walensky said in August.
Fat Joe is independent, and it’s because he thinks the “major label system is a Ponzi scheme.” The rapper, once signed to Atlantic Records, spoke to Wall Street Journal about his decision to leave the label years ago.
“I don’t believe in these people. For one, I feel like the major label system is a Ponzi scheme,” he told WSJ’s Jason Gay, noting artists “never understood” their pay or the label’s accounting methods. “You had to be like the Fugees, who sold 30 million records, to make a dollar. I was talking to [Jennifer Lopez] about it—and you know J.Lo’s a megastar—and she was like, ‘Man, you know these guys, they only give you this [amount] and you never recoup.’ So, it’s a funny math.”
He also noted the executives, lacking knowledge about the artists’ culture, were more concerned about the business than the art.
“Artists, we’re so passionate about our story, we’re so passionate about our music,” Joe said. “I would have to go walk into an office to a guy who didn’t even really understand our art and culture. They just knew how to market, how to promote and make the most profit. I used to beg ’em: ‘Are you gonna push my record? Are you really gonna press the button? Are you really gonna go for it?’”
He says he decided to leave when Atlantic, disappointed by his album sales, switched the poster of him on their wall to T.I.
“I remember I went home … thinking, ‘You know what, if you go independent and you sell an album, you make $7 profits,'” Joe said. “So I go back in [the office], and I go, ‘Man, you’re right, I suck. You ain’t gotta worry about me.'”
