STOCKHOLM - Inferring that the report published yesterday in Metro – Sweden’s largest morning newspaper – was fabricated, EMI Music Sweden posted this message today on Roxette.se, Roxette’s own “official” website:

  “This is an official comment on rumours regarding a forthcoming tour, release dates etc. There will be no Roxette tour this summer/year. Per and Marie are in the process of writing new material. There are however no plans to release anything before or during the summer of 2002.”

NEW YORK - Pressplay, which offers music from three of the five major labels, launched its online subscription service on Tuesday. The launch came on the same day that MusicCity – one of three file-sharing companies hoping to spoil the major labels’ party – asked a U.S. federal court to declare its free service legal.

  Pressplay – which offers songs from Sony, EMI and Universal artists – is the second fee-based service released by the five major record labels. MusicNet – run by EMI, Warner and BMG – launched in December (previous TDR article).

  Pressplay will be available through affiliates MP3.com, Roxio, Yahoo and MSN. Read more…

Today’s article in the Swedish editions of Metro (shown to the right in a reduced size) has, understandably, created quite a stir in the Roxette fan community. Any mention of new material, tour plans, or an album release is guaranteed to generate such excitement.

  The Daily Roxette plans to publish a follow-up story tomorrow – as there has been some questions raised as to the validity of the information published by Metro. Our team of reporters is investigating. In the meantime, we’d like to simply point out that legitimate journalists do not “make up” stories.

STOCKHOLM - Roxette will release another ’Greatest Hits’ album in June… or maybe even two. “We don’t know yet,” said Li Eriksson at EMI. As an enticement, the album will include two or three new songs along with the big hits.

  The thought is to precede the album(s) release with a single in May. Per thinks this it’s going to be a hit.

  “I feel it in my gut when I’m working with a song if it’s going to be a hit or not. But the most important thing is that it’s fun to work,” he said.

STOCKHOLM - Today’s report in Metro, a daily newspaper distributed here for free, reports that Roxette will go on a Swedish tour this summer, just after the release of the new compilation album mentioned in the article above.

Dutch consumer electronics manufacturer Philips, a co-creator of the CD format, is not playing along as major record labels unveil their copy-protection technology for CDs. Philips owns the “Compact Disc” trademark and the CD logo that has been on every disc since Philips and Sony jointly developed the technology in 1978. Now Philips says that as the copy-protected CDs can’t be played on some CD players, such as CD-ROM drives and even some standard stereo systems, the protected discs do not qualify as “compact discs” and thus can’t use the CD logo.

  The copy protection has been introduced by the five major record labels: BMG Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music and Warner Music Group. The controversial technology introduces minute errors to the CDs or changes the location of data on the discs to prevent them from being played back on computers.

  So far, only a couple of discs have been copy-protected with this technology. Natalie Imbruglia’s album “White Lilies Island” from BMG prompted numerous returns in the United Kingdom as record buyers thought their discs were broken.

• Reuters article at News.com

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Per and Marie were called onto the stage at the NRJ Nordic Radio Awards three times tonight to be presented with trophies. Roxette received awards for “Best Nordic Artist,” “Best Swedish Group, ” and “Best Nordic Song.”

  Roxette and Titiyo where the artists that had the most nominations – four each – one in each of the categories they qualified for.
  The award show was presented in Hovet, a multi-purpose arena next to the Globe.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)
• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish, with focus on Kylie Minogue)

STOCKHOLM - Roxette will appear on stage here tonight at the NRJ Radio Awards at Hovet near Globen. This is their first live appear since their Room Service tour ended in November. Other artists to perform are Ronan Keating, Westlife, Alanis Morissette, Kylie Minogue, E-Type, and the rising Swedish band Lambretta. Lenny Kravitz was supposed to perform, but he has cancelled his entire European tour due to sickness.

  The show will be broadcast live on Kanal 5 TV network in Sweden. The broadcast starts at 8pm CET (UTC+1). In Finland, Nelonen will show a 1-hour long version of the show on Sunday, starting at 2pm. We also suppose that all NRJ radio networks around Europe are broadcasting the show live.

  Don’t forget that Roxette is also nominated in the awards in Best Swedish Group category. Roxette’s “The Centre Of The Heart” is nominated in two categories, Best Nordic Song and Best Swedish Song. You can still vote at the NRJ Radio Awards site.

ST. PETERSBURG - “Milk and Toast and Honey” was selected as the as the best song of the year by Europa Plus Radio in Russia. In addition, “Real Sugar” placed at #6 and “The Centre of the Heart” at #32.

  Back on November 7ths, just before the show in Moscow, Per gave an interview to this radio network. Per’s answers are available online in MPEG video format.

  Part One Staying in Moscow; Applying the term ’radio-friendly’ to Roxette music; The American music market.

  Part Two Favorite countries to tour; Tour dates for Russia and Revolutionary holidays; Per reading IDs in Russian; Per signing ’Room Service’ CDs.

  Europa Plus’ Roman Ungurianu’s photos are also available for viewing. Once the page loads, click on the individual pictures to see them enlarged. First Set Second Set Third Set

Our thanks to Andrei Palamartchouk of Europa Plus for providing these links to TDR. Photo of Per on stage in Moscow by R. Ungurianu.

• EuropaPlus “Top 100” (All links in Russian)

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish “Grammi” nominations are out. But the Swedes’ favorite artists have been totally ignored by the jury. Now, Sweden’s best selling artists might be “no shows” at the event.

  Roxette, Patrik Isaksson, Excellence, Uno Sveningsson, E-type, Vikingarna, Shebang, Real Group, Lambretta, Barbados och Markoolio.

  They had some of the biggest hits last year in Sweden. Together, they sold well over 1 million albums and singles. But according to the Grammis jury, they don’t exist.

  Some of these artists have indicated they plan to stay away from the Grammis gala on February 14th in the Globe in Stockholm.

  Nutta Hultman, project leader for the Swedish branch of IFPI, the organization behind the Grammis, says that the Grammis purpuse is to stimulate quality and creativity in the Swedish music scene.

Expressen reporter Andreas Nordström asked, “Does this mean that the Swedish people have a poor taste in music?”

  “What makes the Grammis one of the most important prizes is the it draws attention to those artists that doen’t get much space normally in the media,” she answered.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)