Roxette placed at #1 with “A Thing About You” on German station SWR3’s voteshow on Sunday evening. Last week, they appeared at #3. SWR3 is one of Germany’s major radio stations.

STOCKHOLM - Jonas Åkerlund’s film “Spun,” which includes a Roxette version of Per Gessle’s song “Stupid” in the soundtrack is scheduled to open in Sweden on November 22nd.

  The Daily Roxette was present when the movie premiered at the Las Vegas Film Festival. TDR’s report stated that the Roxette song is not prominently featured in the film. “Spun” was also sreened at the recent Toronto Film Festival.

• Swedish movie site

COLOGNE - At EMI Electrola in Germany, Roxette gets respect. Based on their popularity and ability to generate sales, Roxette has an important part on their artist roster. The record label even built an artist-specific site for Roxette during the promotional period for “Room Service,” and they’ve just updated it to reflect the look and feel of the upcoming album.

  There are new wallpapers with the raspberry heart motif.

  Additionally, in a newsletter sent out today to subscribers, EMI informed Roxette fans that beginning Monday, October 14th, visitors to the T-Online website will be able to listen to the new songs featured on “The Ballad Hits” – even “before they are will be played on the radio.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: EMI Germany has sent out another newsletter today, telling that the T-Online special will start on October 15th, instead of 14th, as they announced in their previous newsletter.

• Roxette.de
• T-Online

COLOGNE - EMI Electrola, Roxette’s record label in Germany, has placed a 30-second clip of the unreleased song “The Weight of the World” on their website.


 The song is the “b-side” from the “A Thing About You” single and maxi-single, that will be released October 21st according to EMI Sweden’s website (but appears with an October 14th release date on EMI Germany’s site). It will also be featured as a bonus track on Roxette’s upcoming compilation album “The Ballad Hits”.

• EMI Electrola

As news of Marie’s condition spread around the world, more and more people went online seeking additional information. Many of them found the link to the e-Wishes guestbook set up by Judith Seuma and supported by The Daily Roxette and several other sites. Since printed, bound into a book, and sent to Marie, over 1,000 more people have left entries there.

  Even though these entires came in late, Judith has decided – just one more time – to again print and bind these additonal entries and forward them on to Marie. When this is done early next week, the guestbook will then be closed to additional entries, and converted to an archive view.

  Marie received the first group of get-well wishes while in the hospital for the operation. “She was so glad to get all these thoughts”, said Marie Dimberg, her manager, to The Daily Roxette.

• e-Wishes “guestbook”

STOCKHOLM - With any new album, Per and Marie’s schedule has included time with with a professional photographer for the prerequisite publicity photos to be taken. EMI’s press kit for the upcoming ballad hits album now includes the two photos shown here [click to enlarge].

  Taken during the video shoot for “A Thing About You,” the picture at the right is available to subscribers of The Daily Roxette as a hi-res file suitable for printing as a photo. Just send a request to [email protected] that includes your TDR user name.


Dates to remember:

- October 21st: “A Thing About You” single hits the stores worldwide in two forms, single and maxi single.

- November 4th: “The Ballad Hits” - Limited Edition - is released, containing an EP with previously unreleased songs.
(Note: In Germany, the EP will be replaced by a CD with additional tracks).

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle has written a song for the well-known Swedish singer and actor Peter Jöback, that will be included on his upcoming Swedish-language Christmas album.

  The album, “Jag Kommer Hem Igen till Jul” (English translation: “I’m Coming Home Again for Christmas”), will have a mix of 13 classic and new songs, one of which is a Gessle-penned ballad. Jöback will release the album on November 11th.

  “I’ve had this idea about a Christmas album for several years. But now I really felt it was the moment to release it, says Peter to Aftonbladet.

  Jöback, who is involved with Per in at least one business venture (Fame Studios) and has the same manager (Marie Dimberg, d&d), has starred in the London productions of “Miss Saigon” and “The Witches of Eastwick.” In Sweden, he had a leading role in the extremely successful “Kristina från Duvemala,” which was written by Benny and Björn from ABBA. More recently, Peter lent his voice to the title character in the Swedish release of the two “Stuart Little” films.

  The album is produced by Lars Halapi, who has previously served as producer for other Swedish artists such as Ulf Lundell and Sophie Zelmani.


Photo by Ulf Magnusson, courtesy Sony Music [click to enlarge]. (Agustina contributed to this article.)

• Peter Jöback Official Website (In English and Swedish)
• Aftonbladet’s article

KRISTIANSTAD - The Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen has published a couple of articles about how some potential guests have come forward to say they were requested to lie on TV3’s “Ricki Lake”-inspired show “Hannah”.

  The last one to make such an accusation is Michael Garderud, 30, an IT professional from Kristianstad.

  “I was contacted by one of Hannah’s researchers through the ’net. Since I look like Per Gessle, and in the late 90s I did an imitation of Per on ZTV, playing the song “Joyride,” they wanted to have me on a program with the title “I am obsessed with my idol”, he explains.


  “When I said that I wasn’t obsessed with Per Gessle at all, they asked me if I couldn’t pretend that I was. Furthermore, they wanted me to ask my friends to play along as well, and pretend that I was a crazed fan that liked Roxette… the purpose was to show me as being strange.”

  The program’s host, Hannah Widell, denies that guests are encouraged to lie, as does TV3’s spokesperson.

• TV3’s website
• Expressen’s article (with a photo of the ’look-alike’)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Both Aftonbladet and Expressen, the two major Swedish tabloid newspapers, report in today’s editions that Marie has been released from the hospital and is home with her family. They report is that she’s been home since last Friday afternoon.

  The reason: her children. Marie wanted to be with Josefin and Oscar at home, despite the doctors recommendation that she stay in the hospital for the weekend, report the newspapers.

  According to Expressen, there’s a nurse at Marie’s home, to take care of her post-operative pain.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Based on TDR’s own sources, we’d like to amend this article by clarifing two points: 1) Marie did NOT leave the hospital against doctor’s orders. 2) Marie does NOT have a nurse or any other hospital staff at her house. - LEO

• Expressen’s article
• Aftonbladet’s article

STOCKHOLM - Making an appearance on the RixFM “Morning Zoo” radio program, Per Gessle faced the inevitable question: “You’re alone today. Usually you’re two. We must ask about Marie.”

  “I met Marie the day before yesterday,” Per replied, “and Marie feels completely OK, with some pain of course, but completely OK.” Per went on to say she is both strong and positive.

  When asked if there was anything missing in his life, Per mentioned that perhaps he would like to have another child.

  Other topics touched upon in the interview segments included cars and driving, coffee rolls (it is, after all, an early morning program), the Oktoberfest going on in Halmstad (Per’s hometown in Sweden), his art gallery at the Tylösand Hotel and Björn and Benny (from ABBA).
  The on-air personalities at Rix said they would “hold their thumbs” (the Swedish equivilant of “cross our fingers”) for the new record and for Marie, of course.

(David Nuñez [royalball] contributed to this article).