STOCKHOLM - “Opportunity Nox” falls from #11 to #23 today on the official Swedish singles charts, after only two weeks on the charts. Lack of promotion is most probably the key element here. The single is still #2 on the noted radio show “Tracks”.

• GLF at Aftonbladet

STOCKHOLM - Swedish tabloid Expressen reports that Per Gessle’s, Björn Ulvaeus’, Tomas Ledin’s, Peter Jöback’s and Meja’s IT company, Fame Studios, continues to have financial problems. Per and the others are partners in that company, which still has to pay taxes and is fighting with sinking income.

  Fame Studios is responsible for websites such as ABBA, Chess, Tomas Ledin, and Roxette. The companies subsidiary, Fame Development, has tax debts amounting to 15,000 SEK.

  Neither Ledin nor Jöback wanted to comment on the situation according to Expressen’s article.

STOCKHOLM - Not surprisingly, as it was the intention from the very beginning, EMI has now released Marie’s five remastered solo albums that were packaged together last year in the box set “Kärlekens Guld.”

  With stock on the previous back catalog diminished, these new CDs will replace the older versions of the same albums. The albums are to be sold as “mid-price” CDs.

• CD On (sales limited to Scandinavia/Netherlands)
• Skivhugget (International shipping available)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Roxette’s latest single, “Opportunity Nox”, goes straight to the top positions on the Swedish radio show “Tracks” charts.

  “This is great,” says Per to Aftonbladet. “We’ve been around since 1986, which is amazingly long in this business and I’m happy every time something works out like this. It’s especially nice this time, because the song is an honest 3-chord track, a descendant of the songs I wrote when I was a teenager.” Roxette has had over 40 songs on that radio show and is the biggest act ever on “Tracks”.

  The single also enters the sales chart, at #11, which is ten spots below “The Centre of the Heart” which shot straight into #1.

  Currently, Per is writing songs in both English and Swedish. He also says it really looks like there is going to be yet another Gyllene Tider tour in summer 2004, when the band is celebrating their 25th anniversary. Gyllene Tider will have a meeting this fall to discuss further about a possible reunion.

(Daniel_Alv contributed to this article.)

• Aftonbladet article
• The Official Swedish Single Charts at Aftonbladet

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson is not satisfied with the apology the tabloid Expressen published last Monday. Therefore, she will now start a legal process against Expressen.

  “She is very angry about the treatment she’s got from Expressen,” her laywer Leif Silbersky says.

  To win this case Silbersky will summon doctors who can testify that the information published by Expressen January 31st, is totally faulty. “Expressen won’t get away with this simple apology. We want this tried on two levels now.” Silbersky says to Aftonbladet. One thing is filing a complaint with the press ombudsman, for ethical reasons. Part two is a formal lawsuit in about a week. As reported earlier, they will demand 500,000 Swedish kronor in damages, which will go to the Cancer Fund.

  “If Expressen is convicted, we will demand that the sentence is published by Expressen,” Silbersky states.

(Big-little-girl contributed to this article.)




(The news bill to the right says “MARIE Fredriksson FIGHTS NEW lump that is believed to be TUMOR!”)

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - “We’ll sue Expressen if Marie has the energy to,” states Silbersky in an article published today in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

  Peter Danowsky, Expressen’s legal ombudsman, answered Marie’s letter yesterday. The tabloid feels the apology published last Monday is enough.

  “Personally I feel it’s the height of impudence,” Leif Silbersky says to Aftonbladet. “Marie is in Thailand now, but I’m in continuous phone contact with her. I will recommend her to sue [Expressen]. It has been her intention from the start,” Silbersky continues. “The problem lies in her being in a delicate phase of her illness. But if she says she has the physical and psychological strength, then there will be no doubts.”

  This kind of personal slander is protected via the new EU rules. Silbersky will quote both Swedish and EU legislature.

  “It’s a deep violation of the personal integrity to publish false information of her illness like this. This is a crime of integrity,” Silbersky says.

(Camillarox contributed to this article.)

• Aftonbladet’s article

STOCKHOLM - Marie’s spark is back! According to an article in today’s Aftonbladet, Marie Fredriksson and her family are on vacation in Thailand.

  “That is correct. She feels a lot better than before,” Marie’s manager Marie Dimberg confirms.

  Marie left with her family, husband Micke Boloys and children Josefin and Oskar, for Thailand last Sunday, to relax and to be with her close ones. Their plan is to stay there for two weeks.

  “These last few weeks Marie has been a lot perkier. And her eyes have that spark no one can mistake for anything else.” one of her friends says.

  Friend and colleague Per Gessle stated yesterday in Svenska Dagbladet that “…compared to November-December, it’s like day and night…”

• Aftonbladet’s story (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Roxette is rushing up the charts again. At the moment Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson are #11 on the U.K. album chart. But there will be no tour.


  “Marie may decide to take it easy for a few years, and that may well be,” Per Gessle says to Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s major morning papers.

  It’s been eight years since Roxette was on the U.K. album chart with “Don’t Bore Us - Get to the Chorus!”. This time it’s the new collection “The Ballad Hits” which is a sudden success.

  “I grew up with British music so it feels a bit different compared to being number 11 in Holland,” Per Gessle laughs.

“Is there a new Roxette wave coming?”

  “I can feel that we’ve been doing this for so long and that it’s a circle being closed. Our songs start to feel right and great, very eighties.”

“Do you still get as happy as before, when things go your way?”

  “You never get tired of success, but you get sick of the [record] business. It’s not as fun doing 42 interviews in Frankfurt.” Per states to Svenska Dagbladet’s Harry Amster.

• Svenska Dagbladet (In Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Expressen has published today, [very small] on their front page, an apology for having written in an article in January that Marie Fredriksson is “fighting another lump that is believed to be another tumor” and that the doctors suspected that this [tumor] was only one of several additional tumors.


Expressen’s Editor in Chief, Otto Sjöberg, writes:



  “Sometimes we make mistakes. Expressen’s article published on January 31 about Marie Fredriksson’s illness was one of them.


  When two weeks after the publication Marie Fredriksson let us know that she had reacted with anger and consternation over the article, I thought I’d review the article again.

  I then decided that the article shouldn’t have been published. It contains, as Marie Fredriksson has pointed out, speculations and it was a mistake to publish them. And the responsibility is mine.


  I want, therefore, to apologize to Marie for having published the article and I regret having caused all this trouble to Marie.”




Otto Sjöberg


Editor-in-Chief and responsible for the publication.”



  Otto agrees that Expressen was refering to tests and test results that weren’t concluded yet.


  On the other hand, site “Journalisten” publishes that Marie’s lawyer, Leif Silbersky, claims that this apology is not enough and that “…Expressen shouldn’t think that they will get off this easily…”.

  Leif Silbersky, just arrived to Sturup airport in Malmö, hasn’t seen the apology yet. So when he gets the article explained to him he says immediately that it’s not enough. “We’ve gotten the ball rolling but only ever so slightly.” Silbersky says. He is surprised that Expressen has published the apology without discussing it first. He adds “We have received no official response to our demands. And it’s apparent that that this isn’t enough. If they think they will get away this easily they’re badly mistaken.”

  Silbersky is relieved that they have published an apology though, this means they’re admitting their guilt.

• Expressen’s article
• Journalisten’s Article

LONDON - Roxette continues the crusade of Europe; EMI UK confirms today that the UK version of Roxette’s “The Ballad Hits” has gone silver, which is more than 60,000 units sold.

  Whilst the album still looks to remain on the UK top 40 for another week (somewhere around #35), this is still the most successful Roxette album in the UK since the first greatest hits collection, “Don’t Bore Us - Get to the Chorus!”, in 1995.