Lukas Graham sets pop record in Britain

Also, Keith Emerson dead from self--inflicted gunshot, Steve Martin swaps comedy for art curating, Dhawan keen to keep audiences interested, and Tamil actor Selvakumar dies in road accident.

Danish band Lukas Graham. Chapman Baehler

Four-piece band Lukas Graham has set a new record in Britain by achieving the longest-reigning no 1 single from a Danish act in UK pop chart history, while Adele returned to the top of the album lists with 25. The song 7 Years had been tied with Whigfield's ­Saturday Night and Aqua's Barbie Girl, before scoring a fifth week at the top, according to the Official Charts Company. The 7 Years hit finished more than 20,000 combined chart sales ahead of its nearest rival, and was the week's most streamed track, clocking up 4.52 million listens. It was also the longest consecutive chart topper since Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars logged six straight weeks starting from ­December 2014 through ­January 2015 with Uptown Funk. – Reuters

Keith Emerson dead from self-­inflicted gunshot

British-born keyboardist Keith Emerson of the 1970s progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer died from a self-inflicted single gunshot to his head. He was 71. ­Emerson's body was found by local police at his home in Santa Monica, California, in the early hours of Friday. Police have preliminarily ruled the death a potential suicide, said Santa Monica police spokesman Sergeant Rudy Camarena. Born in 1944 in the Yorkshire village of Todmorden, Emerson was a keyboardist for a number of groups in the 1960s, including The Nice. But he was best known as a founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, a so-called "super group" of well-known rock musicians formed in 1970. The band posted about Emerson's passing on Facebook, asking "that the family's privacy and grief be respected". The band released nine studio albums during the 1970s, including its debut self-titled album and its follow-up Tarkus, released in 1971. The latter reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart, according to Billboard.com. – Reuters

Steve Martin swaps comedy for art curating

Comedian, writer, producer and musician Steve Martin can add another talent to his resume: art museum curator. The 70-year-old actor, made his curatorial debut in Boston with an exhibition of Canadian landscapes by painter Lawren Harris. The collection at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts focuses on stark, slightly abstracted paintings of the Rocky Mountains and the shores of Lake Superior ­completed from 1921 through 1934 by Harris, who is well known in Canada but less ­familiar to US art lovers. Martin, who has won an honorary Academy Award for his long film career as well as several Grammy Awards for his ­bluegrass and Americana albums, says that when he was first asked to curate the ­exhibit, he refused. "My first instinct was, 'Of course not.' And I thought about it overnight and I thought, 'You know, that's an interesting proposition,'" he says. "He's the only artist I could conceive of curating because his masterpieces, all in Canada, are known, they're unknown in America and I happen to have a love of him." While being well known for branching out into new creative fields throughout his career, Martin says the role of a curator was a one-time-only performance. "I'm retired," the actor says. "I'm ­retired from ­curating." – Reuters

Dhawan keen to keep audiences interested

Bollywood actor Varun ­Dhawan has revealed that choosing diverse film roles is the key to his enduring ­popularity. "I just want to try to do things I believe in," he says of his career to date. "I've never taken a decision thinking that a film will make so much money at the box-office. My decisions have always been about what the audience will enjoy, that's why I'm trying to do different roles, films that look a little different from regular films, the music could be different, the background, the way it is shot." The 28-year-old Dhawan will next be seen in Dishoom, scenes of which were recently filmed in Abu Dhabi. – IANS

Tamil actor ­Selvakumar dies in road accident

Popular Tamil character artist Selvakumar was killed in a motorcycle accident in ­Chennai. "On Friday night, Selvakumar was ­returning home from an event with another actor Kovai Senthil on their bike, when the brake wires got entangled in the front wheel, (they fell) on the ground," police said in a statement. ­Selvakumar sustained a head injury and died at the scene, while his companion suffered minor injuries. Having played small roles in nearly 300 films, the 59-year-old star is most popular for his work in the movies Anniyan and Ramanaa. He is survived by his wife and two ­daughters. – IANS