04/08/2025

LYFE MONDAY | AUG 4, 2025

25

o Item dates back to 1997 concert in France Michael Jackson’s dirty sock sells for over US$8,000

Jackson still has a massive fan base. – PIC FROM INSTAGRAM @MICHAELJACKSON

SPOTIFY saw paying subscribers rise 12% to 276 million customers in the second quarter of 2025, the world’s top music streaming service said last week, though profits fell below expectations. “People come to Spotify and they stay on Spotify. By constantly evolving, we create more and more value for the almost 700 million people using our platform,” said Daniel Ek, the Swedish company’s founder and CEO. The company saw a greater-than-predicted 11% year-on-year increase in its totally monthly active users to 696 million. Yet operating profit reached €406 million (RM1.98 billion) – up 52.6%, but well short of its €539 million forecast. Spotify blamed the shortfall on increased spending on salaries, changes in its revenue mix and higher-than-expected social charges. “Social charges were €98 million above forecast due to share price appreciation during the quarter,” the streamer explained in its financial results presentation. Total revenue rose by 10.1% to €4.19 billion. The below-expectation profit announcement comes as the streamer has found itself at the centre of the debate over music generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The technology’s rise has led artistes to complain about the prospect of being drowned out by a flood of AI-composed songs. Of the major streaming platforms, only Deezer alerts listeners if a track is entirely conceived thanks to AI, despite the swift explosion in the number of AI-generated songs. When questioned in late May, Ek insisted that AI did not present a threat to the music industry and would instead help develop creativity. – AFP Spotify sees 12% rise in paid subscribers Spotify finds itself at the centre of the debate over AI-generated music. – PEXELSPIC AS a director with no affection for the horror genre, France’s Luc Besson has made a new version of Dracula with American actor Caleb Landry Jones in the principal role as a lovelorn incarnation of the famous vampire. Besson, best known for The Fifth Element and embroiled in sexual assault allegations and financial problems in recent years, has produced what he believes is a“romantic”vision of one of the most notorious Gothic figures. Titled Dracula: A Love Story and based on a relatively minor plotline in the original Bram Stoker book, the 66-year-old director puts Dracula’s search for the reincarnation of his late wife at the heart of his story. “I am not a fan of horror films, nor of Dracula ,” Besson told Le Parisien newspaper about his production, which straddles several centuries in the life of the immortal blood-sucking count. It was sparked by discussions with Landry Jones, the star of X-Men: First Class , whom Besson directed in his last film, 2023’s Dogman . “I would love to do all my films with him. He is a genius,” Besson recently told RMC radio in France of the 35-year-old Texas-born actor. Released first in France last Wednesday and then in other European and South American countries over a month, the film is the biggest-budget French film of the year,

A single glittery sock that late pop superstar Michael Jackson wore during a concert in France in the 1990s sold for more than US$8,000 (RM34,221) last

interencheres.com. Jackson can be seen wearing them in clips of him performing his hit Billie Jean . Decades later, the off-white item of clothing is covered in stains, and the rhinestones adorning it have yellowed with age, in a picture posted on the website. “It really is an exceptional object – even a cult one for Jackson fans,” Illy said. The sock, initially valued at €3,000 to auction house. A Macau gaming resort in 2009 paid US$350,000 for a glittery glove Jackson wore when he performed his first “moonwalk” dance in 1983. A hat he wore just before that performance sold for more than US$80,000 in Paris in 2023. Jackson died of a fatal overdose in 2009 aged 50. He still has a huge fan base, despite child molestation accusations against him during his lifetime and after his death, which he and his estate have denied. – AFP € 4 , 0 0 0 (RM14,669 t o RM19,559), sold for €7,688 at the Nimes

Wednesday, a French auctioneer said.

A technician found the used sock discarded near Jackson’s dressing room after the concert in the southern city of Nimes in July 1997, auctioneer Aurore Illy said.

The self-styled “King of Pop” wore white athletic socks adorned with rhinestones during his “HIStory World Tour” in 1997, according to specialist w e b s i t e

France’s Luc Besson resurrects new ‘romantic’ Dracula

according to media reports. Besson’s career and personal finances took a major blow in 2017 with his hugely expensive flop Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , which cost an estimated US$180 million (RM770 million) and had an A-list cast that included Rihanna. The year after, the man behind the popular thrillers Leon and Nikita faced rape allegations from the Dutch actress Sand van Roy, which he always denied. The case was dropped without charges after a legal battle that went all the way to France’s top court in 2023. Initial reviews for Besson’s Dracula are mixed, with Paris Match magazine calling it the “best horror film of the summer” while Le Figaro newspaper said it “unfortunately failed to bring fresh blood to the vampire myth.” The original 1897 book has been adapted over a hundred times to the silver screen, with the two modern classics considered to be the 1958 version by British director Terence Fisher and a 1992 production by Francis Ford Coppola. Another Gothic literary masterpiece, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is to get another overhaul later this year in a Netflix-funded production by Guillermo del Toro which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival. – AFP

Besson is best known for directing the blockbuster hit The Fifth Element . – AFPPIC