Kane Brown finds solace in “Whiskey Sour,” a new song he’s releasing on January 14.
Kane shared a sample of the track on Instagram, featuring traditional country elements of fiddle and tear-in-your-beer lyrics. It tells the story a couple preparing to get married, only to break up a month before the wedding. The chorus follows the heartbroken groom to a bar where he drinks his whiskey sour alone.
“So now I take my whiskey sour/Sittin’ bar side after hours/Thinkin’ how can I get over/If the love was never ours/And I know you got my message/All my x’s and my o’s/And it kills me by the hour/Now I take my whiskey sours alone,” Kane sings over the mournful, fiddle-led melody.
“I love getting to sing other people’s stories!” Kane writes alongside the video, which shows him singing along to the tune at his kitchen counter.
“Whiskey Sour” is set to arrive as Kane’s current single, “One Mississippi,” continues climbing inside the top 10 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.
KISS‘ Paul Stanley has contracted COVID-19 for a second time.
In an Instagram post, the Starchild shared a photo of his “Omicron face,” referring to the latest COVID variant driving a new surge of cases.
“My entire family has it,” Stanley wrote in the caption. “I’m tired and have sniffles. Most of my family have absolutely no symptoms.”
“Do as you choose,” he added. “I’m so glad I’m vaccinated.”
Stanley previously tested positive for COVID-19 this past August, as did his band mate, Gene Simmons. As a result, KISS postponed a number of dates on their ongoing End of the World farewell tour.
Bridgerton fans got the ultimate Christmas gift over the weekend: a season-two premiere date.
In a video featuring both returning and new cast members, Netflix announced that the period piece will debut its sophomore season on March 25. The announcement was made on the one-year anniversary of season one’s premiere.
Season two will focus on Jonathan Bailey’s Anthony Bridgerton and his new romance with Simone Ashley’s Kate Sharma.
Bridgerton also stars Phoebe Dynevor, Nicola Coughlan, Adjoa Andoh, Claudia Jessie, Luke Newton and Luke Thompson, and Julie Andrews as the voice of Lady Whistledown.
The Strokes have postponed their upcoming New Year’s Eve concert at the Barclays Center in New York City due to surging COVID-19 case numbers driven by the Omicron variant.
“We were so excited to be performing for everyone in Brooklyn this New Year’s Eve, but the Omicron variant has thwarted our plans,” Julian Casablancas and company write in a statement. “We’ve made the decision to postpone our show at Barclays Center.”
The band adds, “We want everyone to stay safe and healthy and we look forward to celebrating the new year with all of you…just a bit later than originally planned.”
All previously purchased tickets will be valid at the rescheduled show, the exact date for which has yet to be announced. Refund information will also be available when the rescheduled date is announced.
How can we put this….
We’re postponing the show.
We were so excited to be performing for everyone in Brooklyn this New Year’s Eve, but the Omicron variant has thwarted our plans. We’ve made the decision to postpone our show at Barclays Center.
The Marvelettes: Wanda Young, center; James Kriegsmann/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Wanda Young, co-lead singer of Motown’s The Marvelettes, died December 15 at age 78, according to the New York Times.Her daughter, Meta Ventress, told the paper that she died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Young replaced original member Georgia Dobbins ahead of the group signing with Motown in 1961. Their debut single, “Please Mr. Postman,” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in December of that year. It was Motown’s first number-one record on the Hot 100.
Years later, “Please Mr. Postman” was famously covered by both The Beatles and The Carpenters.
While Young sang backing vocals on that song, she sang lead on many other Marvelettes hits, including “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,” “Too Many Fish in the Sea” and “Don’t Mess with Bill.“
Young left Motown in 1972 and later recorded for Motorcity Records. She and fellow Marvelettes member Gladys Horton also reunited for an album called The Marvelettes: Now! for that label in 1990.
Claudette Robinson, the first female artist signed to Motown, paid tribute to Young on Twitter, writing, “Wanda was a star on Earth and now she is a star in Heaven. Put on some #Marvelettes and turn it up.“
Young was married to The Miracles‘ Bobby Rogers for 12 years, until 1975. In addition to Ventress, Young’s two children with Rogers survive her; she’s also survived by seven grandchildren, a great-grandson, four sisters and four brothers. Her daughter, Miracle Rogers, was murdered in 2015.
Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée has died at age 58, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
His longtime producing partner Nathan Ross confirmed his passing to THR. Vallée reportedly passed away suddenly at his cabin outside Quebec City. A cause of death is not yet known.
The filmmaker was known for directing the Matthew McConaughey film Dallas Buyers Club, for which McConaughey won the Best Actor Oscar, as well as HBO’s critically acclaimed series Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects.
Vallée, who also executive produced Big Little Lies, won two Emmys for the series in 2017: Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series.
“Jean-Marc Vallée was a brilliant, fiercely dedicated filmmaker, a truly phenomenal talent who infused every scene with a deeply visceral, emotional truth,” HBO said in a statement to THR. “He was also a hugely caring man who invested his whole self alongside every actor he directed.”
(WASHINGTON) — As the “extraordinarily contagious” omicron variant surges across the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that COVID-19 cases will likely continue to climb.
“Every day it goes up and up. The last weekly average was about 150,000 and it likely will go much higher,” Fauci told ABC This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
While Fauci said studies show omicron is less severe in terms of hospitalizations, he stressed, “we don’t want to get complacent” because “when you have such a high volume of new infections, it might override a real diminution in severity.”
“If you have many, many, many more people with a less level of severity, that might kind of neutralize the positive effect of having less severity when you have so many more people,” he explained. “And we’re particularly worried about those who are in that unvaccinated class … those are the most vulnerable ones when you have a virus that is extraordinarily effective in getting to people.”
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced a plan to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans beginning in January. The tests will be delivered by mail to Americans who request them. A website to request the tests will launch in January, according to the administration.
But the omicron surge created a massive rush for tests as Americans prepared to see relatives for the holidays, and they instead faced empty pharmacy shelves and massive test lines.
On Wednesday, ABC News’ World News Tonight anchor David Muir, asked Biden if that was a failure.
“I don’t think it’s a failure,” Biden replied in the exclusive interview. “I think it’s — you could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago.”
“I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million at-home tests “two months ago,” he told Muir.
Biden added “nothing’s been good enough” when it comes to the availability of at-home tests.
When Karl asked about the comments, Fauci admitted to This Week he is frustrated with at-home test availability and said “we’ve obviously got to do better.”
“The beginning of the year, there were essentially no rapid point of care home tests available. Now, there are over nine of them and more coming,” Fauci said. “The production of them has been rapidly upscaled, and yet because of the demand that we have, which in some respects, Jon, is good, that we have a high demand because we should be using testing much more extensively than we have.”
“But the situation where you have such a high demand, a conflation of events, omicron stirring people to get appropriately concerned and wanting to get tested as well as the fact of the run on tests during the holiday season — we’ve obviously got to do better,” he continued. “I think things will improve greatly as we get into January. But that doesn’t help us today and tomorrow.”
Karl also asked about the FDA last week granting emergency authorization to both Pfizer and Merck’s antiviral pills to treat COVID-19.
“Is this really the breakthrough that you’ve been waiting for?” Karl questioned.
“That’s part of the comprehensive approach to this outbreak. Vaccines and boosters, masks and now very importantly, a highly effective therapy is really going to make a major, major difference,” Fauci replied. “We’ve just got to make sure that there’s the production of enough of that product that we can get it widely used for those who need it as quickly as possible.”
“I assume that will be a top priority going forward, right? I mean, possibly including Defense [Production] Act … and the like?” Karl pressed.
“Absolutely, Jon, absolutely,” Fauci said. “We’ve got to get that product into the mouths of those who need it.”
Only 61.7% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to CDC data. Many Americans remain against COVID-19 vaccines over one year into their use.
The omicron surge doesn’t appear to sway unvaccinated Americans. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll this week, just 12% percent of unvaccinated Americans polled said the variant makes them more likely to get a vaccine.
Former President Donald Trump showed his support for vaccinations, who has spread conspiracy theories about vaccines and didn’t get vaccinated publicly, showed his support for COVID-19 vaccines in a Wednesday interview with The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens, saying, “The results of the vaccine are very good. … People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”
Karl asked Fauci whether Trump’s supporters might listen to that message.
“I think that his continuing to say that people should get vaccinated and articulating that to them, in my mind is a good thing. I hope he keeps it up,” Fauci responded.
Fauci also said he was surprised when Trump was booed by some of his supporters in Texas last weekend after the former president revealed he’d gotten his booster shot.
“I was stunned by that,” Fauci said. “I mean, given the fact of how popular he is with that group, that they would boo him, which tells me how recalcitrant they are about being told what they should do.”
The COVID-19 pandemic eased its grip on theaters all over the world for much of the year, allowing box office returns to be much more generous than in 2020 — though still light-years from the Avengers: Endgame heights of 2019.
However, with the Omicron variant in the air, literally, it appears Spider-Man may be the first superhero truly immune from COVID-19. Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s debut spun a staggering web at the box office, scoring the biggest opening weekend ever for Sony and earning an estimated 587.2 million dollars worldwide — the third-biggest global opening of all time. An estimated $253 million of that global tally came from domestic ticket sales, making Spider-Man: No Way Home also the third-biggest domestic opening in history and the biggest-ever December debut. It was also the first pandemic-era film to bow with more than $100 million.
As of December 26, Spider-Man: No Way Home also topped the worldwide box office list, earning 1.05 billion dollars worldwide after a little more than a week in theaters, making it the biggest box office smash of the year and the first film to earn more than a billion dollars globally since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Elsewhere on the yearly chart, some other films that were theater-only releases in the U.S. performed better than expected, like Sony’s Spider-verse adjacent Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Ryan Reynolds‘ pandemic-delayed Free Guy. The flicks earned the #3 and #9 slots on 2021’s top ten highest-grossing films list domestically
Movies like Black Widow, Disney’s Jungle Cruise and A Quiet Place Part II performed decently, but likely saw their movie ticket take trimmed by the films’ being available simultaneously on streaming services. Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson sued Disney, claiming her movie’s box office — and her bottom line as a producer — was affected by Disney+’s streaming strategy. The suit was eventually settled, apparently amicably, and ScarJo mentioned she’d stay in the Marvel Studios family by producing future content, even though her Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow perished in Avengers: Endgame. Disney is the parent company of Marvel and ABC News.
Overseas, some weaker domestic performers like the pandemic-delayed James Bond adventure No Time to Die performed well; foreign theater-goers were more comfortable getting back to the theaters throughout the summer and fall, prior to the emergence of Omicron. Daniel Craig‘s last outing as 007 made more than $612 million from overseas audiences. Likewise, Marvel Studios’ Eternals added more than $236 million to its total take from overseas audiences; F9 made more than $553 million overseas; and Black Widow earned an additional $183 million from the foreign box office.
China, meanwhile, minted its own blockbuster with The Battle at Lake Changjin, a nationalistic war film about China’s defeat of U.S. soldiers in a battle of the Korean War. The film earned more than $902 million on China and Asia, second only to Spider-Man: No Way Home for the year.
2021’s top ten movies in the U.S. (as of 12/26/2021)
1. Spider-Man: No Way Home — $467,331,855 U.S. gross earnings
2. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — $224,543,292
3. Venom: Let There Be Carnage — $212,527,511
4. Black Widow — $183,651,655
5. F9: The Fast Saga — $173,005,945
6. Eternals — $164,508,664
7. No Time to Die — $160,772,007
8. A Quiet Place Part II — $160,072,261
9. Free Guy — $121,626,598
10. Ghostbusters: Afterlife — $120,460,060
2021’s top ten movies internationally (as of 12/26/2021)
1. Spider-Man: No Way Home — $587,100,000 overseas gross earnings
2. The Battle at Lake Changjin — $902,196,534
3. Hi, Mom — $822,009,764
4. No Time to Die — $613,262,000
5. F9: The Fast Saga — $553,223,556
6. Detective Chinatown 3 — $686,257,563
7. Venom: Let There Be Carnage — $288,500,000
8. Godzilla vs. Kong — $367,300,000
9. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings — $207,686,762
10. Eternals — $236,181,075
As promised, Eric Clapton debuted a brand-new song titled “Heart of a Child” over the holiday weekend.
The melodic acoustic ballad, which was released on Friday, Christmas Eve Day, is available now as a digital download and via streaming services. In addition, and an animated music video for the tune has premiered at Clapton’s official YouTube channel.
Clapton co-wrote “Heart of a Child” with Robin Monotti, an Italian film producer and architect who identifies as a pro-vaccine-safety advocate, and with whom Eric apparently shares similar anti-lockdown views.
The song’s lyrics seem to be directed toward a man who is feeling dejected because he’s being criticized by others, and has recently lost a close friend for some unclear reason.
“We lost of the love of a man, I was proud to know/ They locked you down, boy, made you grieve alone,” Clapton sings. “Turn off the TV, throw your phone away/ Don’t you remember what your daddy used to say?/ Don’t break the heart of your child/ Don’t let your fear drive you wild.”
The clip features a series of enigmatic images appearing as spray-painted graffiti on walls, billboards and other public places. The images include a pair of hands reaching toward each other, musical notes, a rock band, a bride and groom, a boy with a heart with a crack in it, ominous giant hands reaching to grab a man from behind, a man chained to a TV set and a mobile phone, a young man with a gun in one hand and sadly holding his head with his other hand, and an eye with a tear dripping from it.
For more information about “Heart of a Child,” visit WheresEric.com.
(NEW YORK) — With the number of COVID-19 cases surging in New York, workers in the entertainment industry, many of whom are freelancers, are worried about the prospect of another shutdown.
At least 12 Broadway shows have canceled performances due to performers and staff testing positive. Three Broadway shows, “Jagged Little Pill,” “Waitress” and “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” announced they will close their doors permanently, after detecting multiple positive COVID-19 cases.
While understanding of the precautions, entertainment workers — many of whom have been in a precarious position for nearly two years as the live performance industry has been heavily impacted by the pandemic — are left worried this holiday season about their financial futures, especially without the safety net of benefits that had been provided in 2020.
“Eliminating the ushering salary would take a huge hit on anyone’s finances. I don’t think anyone’s really doing this just for fun, they’re doing it because they really need the money,” Rachel, an usher for a Broadway show who did not want her last name or the name of her employer used, told ABC News.
The production Rachel works for has not yet canceled a performance during this surge, and she said she feels confident in the safety protocols in place, including regular testing and indoor mask mandates, especially given the number of people she interacts with at work. But, given the rapid spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, Rachel is still worried about the prospect of shows getting canceled.
“It’s just inevitable. It’s just a matter of time at this point. With how things are spreading, to me, it seems almost impossible to avoid,” said Rachel.
When the pandemic first hit, Rachel said she was put on furlough and was able to take advantage of unemployment benefits until the industry reopened. These pandemic-era unemployment benefits — a federal supplement on top of states benefits — are no longer available.
The prospect of shows closing again scares Rachel, who said she, like many of her colleagues, needs to work another part-time job along with ushering to cover her costs.
“It would be probably devastating because it would be a matter of going back on to unemployment in order to get paid. But at this point, there are no pandemic-like increases for the unemployment, so [it] would definitely not be enough for me to cover my expenses,” Rachel said.
Though she needs the money she gets from ushering, she said she would feel more comfortable if workers would be able to take a temporary break through the holidays.
“Would it have prevented any spread? I don’t know. Would it make me feel better? Yes. Would I lose lots of money? Yes,” Rachel said.
Elizabeth, who asked that her last name be withheld, is a freelance opera singer and has had several performances at Carnegie Hall canceled this week due to people testing positive for COVID-19, many despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. She said one of her colleagues will be missing all her Christmas shows. Christmas season is usually a high-volume time for musicians with many holiday shows going on.
Elizabeth and her wife, Sara, who both currently work in the entertainment industry, were able to stay afloat during the pandemic because of an accounting job Sara had.
Sara, who also asked that her last name be withheld, took the accounting job just before the pandemic hit and stayed there for a year. Due to her fibromyalgia, the job left her feeling burned out and sick. She left that position and took a six-month break when Elizabeth’s work started to pick up.
Elizabeth, who still had a part-time teaching job throughout most of the pandemic, lost a large portion of her income because of shutdowns. That left her only qualifying for six weeks of unemployment benefits.
During the six months Sara had taken off work, the two burned through savings they had.
“We weren’t expecting it to be bad again. We’ve just started rebuilding, financially,” Sara said. “I took this job, and she’s finally getting work again. And now we’re starting to see her first cancellation was this week.”
Three of Elizabeth’s shows this week were canceled, in addition to two more shows in January.
“It’s definitely scary. Because this time if things shut down again, we don’t have a safety net,” Sara said.
The couple said they would not be able to afford losing any of their pay.
Even now, their finances are very tight and they are having to cut costs on essential things, like health care. Sara should be going to the doctor every month for checkups but she hasn’t been since September.
“I’m getting medication still, but I’m not seeing the doctor as much as I should. I just haven’t been going,” she said. “We’re crossing our fingers and hoping nothing bad happens.”
