STOCKHOLM - Swedish radio station Rix FM’s morning show “Morronzoo” will feature Per Gessle talking about his new single Monday morning.

  The show is on the air between 6-10 CET, Per is scheduled to appear around 8:30.

• Rix FM (Click “Lyssna på Rix FM”.)

STOCKHOLM - Keep your browser tuned to The Daily Roxette and come here on Monday at 00.01 CET. With the kind permission of Capitol Records Sweden, The Daily Roxette will stream 30 seconds of Per Gessle’s new single “Här kommer alla känslorna (På en och samma gång),” which is being released to radio stations the same day. The street date, confirmed by Capitol, is June 23rd.

  The B-side is called “Nu är det ju juli igen, ju” [see note] and is an instrumental number. The single is published by HipHappy and Capitol Elevator Entertainment and has been produced by Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist and Per Gessle.

  Meanwhile, here’s the single sleeve!

EDITOR’S NOTE: The B-side title is a humorous take-off on a traditional Swedish Christmas song, “Nu är det Jul igen [Now It Is Yule Again],” changing “Jul” [Yule] to Juli [July]. -LEO

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - A new solo album by Per Gessle, “Mazarin,” (Cupcake) will be released on June 16. The album is in Swedish and contains 14 tracks. A single, “Här kommer alla känslorna (På en och samma gång)” (Here come all the feelings [all at once]), is to precede the album, with a radio date of May 19.

  The working name was “Mazarin” and the name has been kept, since like this pastry (see photo at right), this album is full of good stuff!

  The album is recorded in Christoffer Lundquist’s studio - The Aerosol Gray Machine - with Per Gessle, Christoffer Lundquist and Clarence Öfwerman.

  Lately Per has had a partiality to write in Swedish, and since the pile of songs grew a Swedish album came to mind. So when the year was at its darkest and coldest, an album that breathes – from the first tone to the last – Swedish summer, came alive.

  The sleeve (see below) and the poster photos (click to enlarge the one shown at left) are taken by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn who has worked with U2, Depeche Mode and Roxette, to mention a few. The album cover is shown below.

  A special limited edition of the album has been made, that includes a DVD: “En Mazarin blir till” (The Making of a Mazarin). A 32-minute long behind-the-scenes “documentary” filmed and edited by Per and his friends.

  “It’s been a totally fantastic recording,” Per says. “An incredible recording really. We stayed in a hostel and worked basically around the clock, five weeks down in a snow-covered Skåne. Christoffer and Clarence shared my dream to make a warm, immediate and yet kind of thoughtful album. Small town. Small thoughts but Big feelings. I don’t think I can get any more personal than this.”

  Aftonbladet also reports today about Per Gessle’s new solo album, and reveals a nice surprise to all Marie fans: she has recorded a song for the album, where she sings both chorus and backing vocals.


  The song is “På promenad genom staden” (Strolling through the town) and is about Per’s hometown, Halmstad. “It’s incredibly cool that Marie wanted to sing on a song for the album,” Per tells Aftonbladet.

  This is the first full song Marie records after she was operated due to a tumor last September, and it was recorded in Stockholm three weeks ago under complete secrecy.


  Per explains that Marie feels much better, almost completely fine, and that she is on her way back, “…she has gone through a bad time, but she is back, and it feels fantastic…” Per says. He also points out that the song is not a duet. “Marie sings parts and backgrounds, but it’s a full song, not like ’Opportunity Nox’.”

  “One of the album’s advantages is that nothing sounds like this. While one of its disadvantages is that nothing sounds this…” Per laughs.


Birgit Eichler, Judith Seuma and Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article



“Mazarin - pastry; short crust pastry filled with almond-flavored marzipan and covered with frosting”.

• Aftonbladet’s article

STOCKHOLM - Swedish singer Monia Sjöström’s new album “Söderns hjärtas ros” (Frituna CD: 584798 2) starts off with the track “Mannen med gitarr” (“The Man With the Guitar”) written by Per Gessle. The track is the regular Per-style pop-rock we have gotten used to. (A few seconds of the song can be heard in the TV-spot shown on Frituna’s site). Other contributors to the album include Mauro Scocco, Nisse Hellberg (of Wilmer X) and Peter LeMarc.

  Monia was previously the lead singer in the dance band Grönwalls, but has since gone solo. This is her second solo album. Her first, released two years ago, was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

  “Söderns hjärtas ros” is produced by Micke “Nord” Andersson and Kjell Andersson.

• Frituna (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Last week we reported about a nice surprise for all Marie Fredriksson fans: Marie has recorded a song for Per Gessle’s new album “Mazarin”. “Marie is on her way back,” said Per then to Aftonbladet.

  And she certainly is: Marie attended Paul McCartney’s concert in Globen, Stockholm, last night. Marie is a big fan of The Beatles and McCartney, so of course she couldn’t miss this event, that lasted almost three hours and was followed by 13,000 in the audience. Marie’s friend Eva Dahlgren and Benny Andersson were other artists that could be seen at the show.


  Aftonbladet published earlier a picture of Marie at the concert, where you could see she seems very happy.


Mattias contributed to this article

• Aftonbladet’s article

LONDON - EMI Recorded Music announced plans yesterday for the biggest European music download initiative by a record company in Europe to date. The company will make available for sale online over 140,000 tracks from over 3,000 EMI artists.

  As well as upping the amount of tracks available, EMI’s new program gives consumers more flexibility over how and when they can access its music, enabling them to:

• Burn music onto CD-R
• Copy tracks to portable players
• Purchase singles online as soon as the songs are serviced to radio and in advance of their commercial release on CD

 Already more than 20 music retail websites from six different European countries are gearing up to start selling EMI’s new downloads and will go live at varying times over the coming weeks.

  Read more…

NEW YORK (UPDATED) - Jewel case packages of “Look Sharp!” are on sale in the United States where, by mistake, the cover booklet was inserted reverse-side-up and the now-classic Mikael Jansson photographic image of Marie and Per lounging against a black limo – along with their “autographs” – shows through as the cover art.

  A spokesperson at EMI knew of no intentional change to the cover, and the number of units affected is unknown. The catalog number is CDP-7-91098-2.

NEW YORK (UPDATED) - Without any fanfare – and at retail stores at least, totally overwhelmed by the hype surrounding the release of Madonna’s new album – “The Ballad Hits” was finally released in the United States today.

  This release marks the return of Roxette to the EMI family of labels in the US, after a many years of separation. During that period, Roxette released “The Greatest Hits” on the Edel America label, just before that company went out-of-business two years ago.
  According to The Daily Roxette’s correspondents, only a handful of copies of “The Ballad Hits” could be found at Virgin Megastore in New York City’s Times Square (where Roxette performed just a few years ago), and not with the new releases in the front of the store, but in the bin with previous Roxette albums. In the Miami area, the CD is nowhere to be found. Many stores there have not even heard about the release.

  Capitol does not intend to release “A Thing About You” as a radio single to promote the album. A sticker on the CD package reads “15 of the International duo’s biggest love songs including the #1 smash It Must Have Been Love.”

  Thomas Evensson and Jackie_Radiorox contributed to this article.

STOCKHOLM - Peter Danowsky, legal counselor for the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen, has now replied to Marie Fredriksson’s claim against the paper.

  The tabloid, writes the counselor, has not written that Marie is a criminal, or blameworthy. “Nor defamed, abusively treated or [subjected her to] any other outrageous treatment.”

  “Expressen doesn’t seem to have read my summons especially carefully,” Leif Silbersky, Marie’s lawyer, says to the competing newspaper Aftonbladet. “The grounds for my demands are that persons in Marie’s vicinity experienced Marie as untruthful,” Silbersky continues. “Marie got scared as well, and thought the doctors were deceiving her, while at the same time giving the truth to the media.”

  Silbersky also points out that Sjöberg [Expressen’s Editor-in-Chief] at first claimed that Expressen’s information was correct, and then suddenly turned around and admitted that it was wrong publishing it.

• Aftonbladet’s story (In Swedish)

COPENHAGEN - Chat transcript from Jubii. While the questions have been translated from Swedish and Danish, Per’s replies are in his original English.




  Per: good afternoon!

Guest 32 asks: Gessle, is it correct that a new Roxette album will be released in 2004?

  Per: Well, we don’t know do we? It might happen!

Havstrym 75 asks: Hello Per, how is Marie?

  Per: Hello there. She’s much much much better now. She’s busy writing songs and dancing

Guest 12 asks: Will there be a GT-tour next summer? (have to plan my vacation anyway =)/ love you!

  Per: Good thinking! There just might be a tour next year, yes. It all depends on whether we can get Micke Syd to lose 10 kilos.

Guest 47 asks: What is your favorite acoustic guitar?

  Per: I have several but I bought a Martin from 1968 the other month and it’s kicking azz

Casper . Foldager asks: Is it really Per Gessle live?

  Per: It’s really me. You have to trust the media.

• Jubii’s site (Various languages)

Read more…