New Roxette banners are now shown on Swedish web sites. The banners are linked to www.haveaniceday.nu. For those who don’t know Swedish, “ny singel” means “new single” and “ny singel på väg” means “new single is on the way”. “Förbeställ hos Boxman” means “Pre-order at Boxman”.

Swedish radio station RIX will be the first station to play “Wish I Could Fly”. The song will be broadcasted on January 4, 12.00 CET. On the radio station’s web site (check out the first page for a new picture of Roxette) Per tells about the song: “The first single is a rather classical Roxette song with delightfully young strings and with Gun-Marie Fredriksson at her best.”

• RIX

EMI and Boxman’s advertising campaign for new Roxette releases is starting to work. “Wish I Could Fly” single (4.18 USD version) has already climbed to #3 on their single chart - even though it hasn’t even been released yet! $4.56 “Wish I Could Fly” is #13. Boxman takes pre-orders from all over the world.

• Boxman

I have somehow missed this in March, but here it is now :-)

A man was found guilty of importing and spreading 22000 copies of “Favorites From Crash! Boom! Bang!” album from the USA into Sweden without Per, Marie or EMI Svenska’s permission. The album was a special promotional compilation for the American market. The imported copies were sold all over Scandinavia. The man himself didn’t think he had done anything wrong. “I thought it was OK to sell the album in Europe”, said he. When the man was arrested, 18000 unsold copies was still found.

• Aftobladet’s Swedish article

EMI Electrola has recently registed roxette.de domain. There are no further details available yet, so I don’t know why they have registered the domain. At the moment the web address forwards the browser to EMI Electrola’s own site. Thanks to Elias for this piece of news!

• www.roxette.de

Keep an eye on the www.haveaniceday.nu site. There seems to be something new every once in a while. This time there’s a link to Roxette message board, provided by Passagen. The message board is in Swedish, and when I last checked it, it didn’t work well. All the message subject lines linked to the same message.

• www.haveaniceday.nu

Roxette was on Sen kväll med Luuk show on December 22. The show’s own site features a short introduction to Roxette’s interview. Here are some parts of it translated into English:

Roxette consists of a boy and a girl.

 

[The boy] is 39 years old and describes himself as “the oldest teenager in the country”. If he wouldn’t have become a pop star, he thinks he would have become a interior designer. Once when he had a birthday he got 700 birthday cards on the same day. […] When he was young he used to ponder a lot and write poems and song lyrics about death and religion. He can neither read or write notes and he is very interested in design and art.

 

The girl is 40 years old and as a teenager she wanted to become an actress. These dreams faded away for the benefit of music […]. She’s the youngest of five children and has a daughter (their son, Oscar Mikael, is not mentioned! - Visa) with his man who she met in fall 1991. If she’s asked to give an advice, she says: “Stand up and think for a while, take a chance on everything that’s free in life. There is luck. [It’s] not in career or in money.”

 

Together they are Roxette.

 

On the TV show they tell e.g. about their collection of musical instruments and about Spain where they recorded most of the new material.

I just got mail from www.haveaniceday.nu webmaster Martin Enestedt. He told me that a sound clip from “Wish I Could Fly” will be released at www.haveaniceday.nu on January 3. A sound clip from the song is also going to be posted to Roxette Fan Club’s site on the same day.

• www.haveaniceday.nu
• Official Roxette Fanclub

The movie “Sånt är livet” (“That’s life”) had its premiere in Sweden on October 25, 1996. The interesting thing in this movie by Colin Nutley was that it featured many songs by Marie Fredriksson. Most of the songs were later released on Marie’s “I en tid som vår” album. The movie was a success in Sweden: on the first weekend it was seen by 47,352 people. Total of 292,252 people have seen the movie since then in the theatres. Colin Nutley’s latest movie “Under solen” (“Under the sun”) was the most popular movie in Sweden on Christmas.

“Wish I Could Fly” will be released in the UK on March 1, the album on March 15. According to EMI UK, the radio promos will begin in mid-January.

Aftonbladet has listed the hottest Swedish artists of 1998. Roxette is #16 and Per Gessle #18 on the list. Rather interesting, I would say, as Roxette didn’t even release anything in 1998!

On Expressen, Per tells his favorite tunes of 1998. “A top year of hit singles”, says Per. “Favorites? I like songs such as ’Rockefeller skank’ by Fatboy Slim, ’All ’bout the money’ by Meja, Cardigans’ ’My Favourite Game’ and ’Big Big World’ by Emilia.”

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article

According to EMI Electrola’s web site, “Have A Nice Day!” will be released in Germany in March. There’s no further details available yet.

• EMI Electrola

The Official Roxette Fan Club has recently removed the tracklisting of “Have A Nice Day!” from their news page. EMI Svenska asked them to remove it, because EMI didn’t want it to be published yet.

• Official Roxette Fanclub

The www.haveaniceday.nu site provides also four different Roxette greetings cards, ready to be send over the Internet. The page is in Swedish, but it’s easy to use: just select the card you wish to send, type in the email address you want to send the card to, then put your name and the message to be attached with your card. Finally click the “Skicka” button.

• S‰nd ett Roxette vykort

The official site of “Have A Nice Day” is now working. The pages are only in Swedish. There is a link to Boxman where you can pre-order “Wish I Could Fly” CD single and “Have A Nice Day!” album. There’s also a mailinglist. Everyone subscribing the mailinglist also enters a competition. Java game (what has Asteroids to do with Roxette???) was out of order yesterday, but now it seems to be working.

The layout of the page is… hmm… exotic?

• www.haveaniceday.nu

The fan club has got a permission from EMI Svenska to put a 30-second sound clip of “Wish I Could Fly” on their web site. The sound clip will be available for dowloading on fan club’s news page on Jan 3, 1999 00:00:01 CET.

• Official Roxette Fanclub

In June 1997 I wrote on TDR: “Per has said that the next Roxette album will be released on Roxette’s own record label -“. Apparently this is true. Look at www.haveaniceday.nu; there’s a tiny logo on the left bottom corner that says “Roxette Recordings” if I can see it right!

• www.haveaniceday.nu

“Have A Nice Day!” will be the first Roxette album to have its own web site. The URL of the site is www.haveaniceday.nu and it’s already online. I did some research and it seems that the address is registered to SlashX Stockholm, which is the new media division of DesignX Stockholm. Karl-Magnus Olsson from DesignX designed the cover of “The World According To Gessle”.

The picture on the first page of haveaniceday.nu is quite horrible. I hope the album cover won’t be as awful…

• www.haveaniceday.nu

The video for Roxette’s new single, “Wish I Could Fly” was shot in a luxury apartment on Strandvägen, Stockholm. The apartment is not owned by Per as I said before. However, Per’s huge apartment is very near on the same street. The apartment where the video was shot is owned by a private person and it was totally renovated for the video.

“It is a stirring, a bit of mystic, dramatic and sensual video. That’s what Jonas is very good at”, says Marie on Expressen. The video tells about nightlife. One of scenes is Marie waking up in the middle of the night and going to kitchen to have a glass of milk.

The video is directed by Jonas Åkerlund, famous for Madonna’s “Ray Of Light” and Cardigans’ “My Favorite Game”. Many of his videos have been censored on MTV, Per’s “Kix” being one of those. “I hope we aren’t censored this time”, says Per. Jonas promises that “Wish I Could Fly” won’t be censored, but “that’s what I always say” adds Jonas.

Roxette Fan Club has also the track listing on their web site. However, there are slight differences in the two listings. First of all they have all the words written together! Here’s their version of the track listing:

1. CrushOnYou
   
   fast, danceable up-tempo song, sung by Per and chorus by Marie

2. WishICouldFly
   
   mid-tempo, sung by Marie

3. Youcantputyourarmsaroundwhatsalreadygone
   
   mid-tempo, sung by Per

4. WaitingForTheRain
   
   sixties style, mid-tempo, sung by Marie

5. IWasSoLucky
   
   up-tempo, sung by Marie

6. ItWillTakeALongTime
   
   mid-tempo, sung by Marie

7. 7twenty7

8. Anyone

9. Star

10. Salvation
    
    ballad, sung by Marie

11. PayThePrice

12. Cooper

13. StaringAtTheGround
    
    ballad, sung by both

14. BeautifulThing
    
    ballad, sung and written by Marie
    

Soundtrack for the Swedish movie “Fucking Åmål” is now released. The album contains Gyllene Tider’s “När vi två blir en”.

Swedish movie channel TV1000 broadcasts Roxette’s concert in Ellis Park, Johannesburg, on December 25, 20.00 CET. The concert was recorded during the Crash! Boom! Bang! tour on January 14, 1995. “Roxette - Live in South Africa” is the same concert as the “Crash! Boom! Live!” home video, except that the TV version is only 52 minutes long.

• TV1000

Christmas will be TV time for Swedish Roxette fans. Here’s the menu:

• 12/22/98, 22.45 CET, TV4 Nordisk: Sen kväll med Luuk
  
  Special guests of the night: Marie & Per
  
• 12/25/98, 20.00 CET, TV1000: Roxette - Live in South Africa
  
  Crash! Boom! Bang! tour visiting Johannesburg
  
• 12/25/98, 21.15 CET, SVT1: Ulvaeus & Gessle i Burmans spår
  
  Per as reporter, documentary on record producer Anders Burman
  
• 1/1/99, 12.40 CET, SVT2: Ulvaeus & Gessle i Burmans spår
  
  The same documentary again, this time with subtitles
  

And next year the real hassle will begin…

I talked with EMI Svenska’s promotion department today. Unfortunately the people who would have known the current situation best were unavailable at the moment; Karin Häggblom was sick (she’s away until January!) and Li Eriksson was in the meeting with Roxette (!), so I couldn’t talk with them.

Anyway, “Sen kväll med Luuk” featuring Roxette is going to be shot tomorrow. Roxette is not going to perform live, so it’s going to be just an interview with Marie and Per. The show will be shown on TV4 Nordisk on December 22.

There is no promo material released yet, the promo single of “Wish I Could Fly” is going to be in stock on December 31. The guy I talked with didn’t want to tell if the song is going to be a ballad or an up-tempo song, because he wanted “everything to be told by either the band or Li Eriksson”. However, he said that “’Wish I Could’ is not a ’Sleeping In My Car’ but it’s not ’Crash! Boom! Bang!’ either. It’s a great song, if you like Roxette.”

Earlier I told that Roxette will be the guest stars of season’s last Sen kväll med Luuk show. The show will broadcasted on December 22 on TV4 Nordisk.

  11 years and 4 months. That long has ’Listen To Your Heart’ been played on American radio.” During that time, “Listen To Your Heart” has been on the air 2 million times. BMI awarded Roxette for this historic event.

  Says Per: “We have never been satisfied with our record company EMI in the USA. Our greatest hits compilation wasn’t even released in the USA and even then ’Listen To Your Heart’ is so popular. It makes me really proud.”

Someone on the Roxette mailing list phoned EMI UK and got the track listing of “Have A Nice Day!”.

1. A Crush On You
   
2. Wish I Could Fly
   
3. Youcantputyourarmsaroundwhatsalreadygone
   
4. Waiting For The Rain
   
5. Anyone
   
6. It Will Take A Long Time
   
7. 7/27
   
8. I Was So Lucky
   
9. Star
   
10. Salvation
    
11. Pay The Price
    
12. Cooper
    
13. Staring At The Ground
    
14. Beautiful Thing
    

By the way, does anyone see “Myth” there?!!

Last year Per paid 35 million SEK (4.4 million USD) as income tax and 6 million SEK (750000 USD) taxes for the capital he has. However, according to Expressen, he gets about 1 million SEK (125000 USD) tax refund.

Per Gessle and ex-Abba Björn Ulvaeus have done a documentary on 70-year-old Swedish record producer Anders Burman. The documentary “Ulvaeus och Gessle i Burmans spår” will be shown on SVT1 on Christmas Day. The documentary is about Burman’s career in music business and Per and Björn interview many of the stars Burman brought to the spotlight during the 50 years he was in the business. Per has never worked with Burman, but he has a refusal letter from Burman and his company Metronome framed on his wall. “I have one from Björn and Polar [the record company Abba established], too. Neither of them was interested in Gyllene Tider.”

Expressen has listed the five best selling Roxette albums on their home page. Number one is of course “Joyride” with 10 million copies sold worldwide. “Look Sharp!” is second with 9 million copies. Then come “Tourism” (5 million), “Crash! Boom! Bang!” (4 million) and “Don’t Bore Us - Get To The Chorus!” (3.8 million).

The video for “Wish I Could Fly” is directed by Jonas Åkerlund. The video will be shot December 29-30 and it should be ready for broadcasting January 18.

Expressen tells that after the release of the album in February, Per and Marie are going to make a big 6-months PR tour. However, they are not going to go to the USA, because the album won’t be released there before fall 1999.

“We used to be a guitar band, but now the guitars are almost gone. We’ve tried to make an album that sounds very ’now’ and that’s why we’ve built much of it on the modern technology and programming. And there’s a lot of violins, too”, says Per on Expressen.

Per is not afraid even though the new albums of The Cardigans and Ace Of Base haven’t sold very well. “I think there’s demand for our type of music, more than in 1995-96 when we released our previous album. I’m thinking about hits like Emilia’s ’Big Big World’ and Aerosmith’s ’I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing’ and bands like Corrs and Savage Garden who sell millions of records”, explains Per.

“The USA is screaming after our music”, Per and Marie say in Aftonbladet’s article. The first single will be released in the early February, as I’ve told before, and it’s title will be “Wish I Could Fly”.

“It sounds more modern”, Per says about the new album. Per and Marie are sure that their music is “in” at the moment. “Just look at Savage Garden and The Corrs”, they say.

The article confirms that Jonas Åkerlund is really going to direct the next Roxette video.

But what about the world tour? Says Marie: “It would be really cool, I’m anxious to tour, but we’re going to wait and see how the album sells.”

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article