World Scene

Thriller video 'most influential'

Michael Jackson's video for his hit single Thriller has been voted the most influential in pop music history, according to the results of a poll released on Monday.

The survey, commissioned by MySpace, interviewed more than 1,000 music fans.

Thriller, credited with breaking down the boundaries between music and film-making, garnered 15.2 percent of the votes, ahead of Here It Goes Again, the 2006 internet hit featuring OK Go dancing on treadmills. Britney Spears' song Baby One More Time came in third, followed by A-Ha's part-animated Take On Me.

The top 10:

1. Thriller

Michael Jackson, 1983

2. Here It Goes Again

OK Go, 2006

3. Baby One More Time

Britney Spears, 1998

4. Take On Me

A-Ha, 1985

5. Hurt

Johnny Cash, 2003

6. Bohemian Rhapsody

Queen, 1975

7. Around the World

Daft Punk, 1997

8. Weapon of Choice

Fatboy Slim, 1999

9. Sledgehammer

Peter Gabriel, 1986

10. Sabotage

Beastie Boys, 1994

Lingerie sales see 'Cougar effect'

Sales of sultry lingerie among older women are booming in Britain thanks to the glamorous 40-somethings of Sex and the City 2 and Cougar Town, retail chain Debenhams reported last week. The hit TV show, and forthcoming movie, featuring the bedroom antics of women in their 40s and 50s, is being credited with a rise in demand for lingerie from women of the same age.

Stalin museum owner fatally beaten

A Russian businessman who set up a museum dedicated to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was electrocuted and bludgeoned to death on Friday.

Vasily Bukhtiyenko set up the Stalin museum in 2005 in Volgograd, previously called Stalingrad. The motive behind the attack was unknown.

The 1942-43 battle of Stalingrad between Nazi and Soviet troops during World War Two was considered a major turning point in the war, and Russians still mark the German defeat with enormous pride and sentimentality today.

As Moscow prepares for its enormous 65th anniversary of May 9, known as Victory Day, an intra-government dispute over some efforts to rehabilitate Stalin has been brewing.

Reuters

(China Daily 05/04/2010 page10)