STOCKHOLM - Helena Josefsson, the girl from Per Gessle's "Mazarin," the girl from Son of a Plumber, the girl from behind The Ark, Andreas Johnson, from her own band Sandy Mouche and many others, is back. With her new debut album "Dynamo." "Dynamo" will be released February 28 on EMI Elevator Entertainment, Per Gessle's own label. Helena's first single from the album, "By Your Side," does well on the charts in Sweden. The follow-up "Never Never (My Dynamo)" was released to radio February 14. Helena will do lots of radio and TV for the release. Per Gessle himself sponsors her album and claims it will be a world hit, according to Expressen.

"'What do you want to be when you grow up?' 'Either a troll or an artist' I replied to that question in the "My friends" books one had in elementary school. Being an artist or a songwriter is probably one of few lifestyles where you can be a troll at the same time?
When you think about it, a troll and an artist have a lot in common. What I wanted, and still want, is the feeling of freedom, to be a part of nature, to have a place in a city, to find a good spot for picking mushrooms. To be OK to be like you are and still get loved at the same time!" Helena says.
"Once when I was a kid my mom got angry with me and then I made myself a sad song as comfort. Since then it has always been like that. Just that the songs have been about other things: love, revenge, to be afraid of everything, consideration, to feel inadequate, longing, then, now, later.
The music my mom played at home was a mix of Kate Bush, the '80s David Bowie, The Temptations, Enya, all the soul queens, Bruce [Springsteen] and a record that was on heavy rotation for 15 years was Jane Fonda's aerobics vinyl with everything from The Jacksons' 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' in a disco-soul version and Jane cheering on. It never gets old!
I've always sung, if I am to describe my music it sounds like my maternal grandparents were Kate Bush and Michael Jackson, and my paternal grandparents were Madonna and Nick Drake!" she continues.

The album is recorded in Christoffer Lundquist's studio the Aerosol Grey Machine using hand picked musicians like Martin Josefsson (Sandy Mouche,) Erik Hjärpe (Damn! Timbuktu) and Jens Jansson (Brainpool). "My goal with the recording was to get the contrast between glowing hot and icy cold, plastic and wood, between the most beautifully beautiful and the ugliest ugly. Like an enchanting siren of the woods with a black soggy hole in her back!" says Helena, who has written all the material herself.

Check out Helena's MySpace and also her own website.

STOCKHOLM - According to EMI Sweden Roxette's "Hits!" has now reached gold in Sweden, which means 30,000 delivered copies, as per usual.

STOCKHOLM - US magazine Blender gives Roxette's "Hits!" four stars out of five in their March issue meaning it is "great."

Another look at Sweden's #2 mixed-gender pop act.
If ABBA remain the Beatles of European bubblegum, then Roxette, their Swedish compatriots, are the genre's Zombies - hook-crazed followers whose fleeting U.S. chart success merely hints at their knack for embedding conflicting emotions and complex harmonies within ostensibly simple pop. Remembered for Prince-ly knicknack "The Look" and 1990's sweet teardrop "It Must Have Been Love" Roxette still score hits worldwide as their influence lingers (Kelly Clarkson's Swede-crafted "Since U Been Gone" resembles a Roxette ballad sung over a Roxette rocker.) Per Gessle's settings on this 18-year retrospective swing from the Ennio Morricone melodrama of "Crash! Boom! Bang!" to the kiddie-techno sing-along of "Stars" while Marie Fredriksson's secret melancholy substantiates the duo's sheen with a particularly Scandinavian sorrow.
Barry Walters

On a side note the "One Wish" video is placed at #2 on the LOGO channel's video chart.
NewNowNext is LOGO's weekly video show spotlighting brand-new videos by artists of interest to the LOGO community, as well as videos by emerging artists, gay and lesbian artists and videos that react with the audience.

NewNowNext premieres a new episode each Sunday at midnight.

See the chart here, and vote by all means.