Music News for Thursday

ED SHEERAN NOW ONLY SOLO STAR WITH THREE YEAR-LONG CHART HITS: Ed Sheeran is now the only solo artist ever to have three songs that have each spent at least one year on the Billboard Hot 100. Ed reaches that milestone thanks to “Perfect,” which just notched its 52nd week on the chart. The song spent six weeks at No. 1 from December of 2017 to January of 2018. It’s currently at No. 20. Before that, Ed spent 59 weeks on the chart with “Shape of You,” and before that, 58 weeks with “Thinking Out Loud.” The group Imagine Dragons have had four songs that have spent a year or more on the chart, led by “Radioactive,” which hung around for 87 weeks. The Chainsmokers, Train and Lifehouse have all had two songs that have each spent a year or more on the chart. In the entire history of the Hot 100, there have only been 61 songs that have crossed the year-long mark on the chart – out of more than 27,000 charted songs.

NORMANI AND ELLA MAI TO ANNOUNCE AMERICAN MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS: Normani and Ella Mai will announce the American Music Awardnominees on September 12th at YouTube Space LA. Also participating will be country star Kane Brown. The event will stream live at 9 a.m. [PST] on the AMA’s YouTube channel. Both the British solo star and the Fifth Harmony member have had breakout years – Ella thanks to her smash hit “Boo’d Up” and Normani with her “Love Lies” duet with Khalid. The American Music Awards will air October 9th live on ABC.

FIFTH HARMONY’S ALLY BROOKE LANDS SOLO DEAL: Since Fifth Harmony announced in March that they were going on hiatus to work on solo projects, each member has scored a solo deal. Now, the fourth one has landed hers. Ally Brooke Hernandez has signed to Latinum, a division of Atlantic Records. On Instagram, she posted a photo of herself at the label’s offices, and posted a lengthy caption. Fifth Harmony’s Dinah Jane is signed to L.A. Reid’s Hitco label. Normani has a deal with Keep Cool/RCA Records and Lauren Jauregui is reportedly signed to Columbia.

NICK JONAS JOINS THE CAST OF ANIMATED ‘UGLYDOLLS’ MOVIE: Nick Jonas is the latest pop star to lend his pretty voice to the animated film, UglyDolls. Joining Kelly Clarkson and Pitbull in the cast, Nick will voice one of the characters in the film as well as perform an original song for the movie’s soundtrack. UglyDolls, set for a May 10, 2019, release, is based on the popular stuffed toy line of the same name. It will revolve around the UglyDolls confronting what it means to be different and discovering that you don’t have to be perfect to be awesome.