HELSINKI - Roxette said in their press conference yesterday immediately prior to the concert here that after finishing their current tour, they are planning to write as much new music as possible. In March of next year, they will go into a studio to record this new material. At the moment, they don’t have any clear plans for new releases. “We’ll see what happens,” said Per to The Daily Roxette.

  Per and Marie have both enjoyed the “Room Service” tour. “We’ve had huge crowds… It’s been fantastic,” they said.

  For Per and Marie, this tour has been too short. “We will maybe have some more shows in the summer,” said Per. “This tour is over too soon.” When asked about the possibility of a summer concert in Halmstad, their hometown in Southern Sweden, both Per and Marie looked happily surprised with the question. “We’re really hoping to have a concert there,” they said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Roxette’s Angie Perrault, who is currently in college and studying for a career in the music industry, spoke recently with Stefan Gullberg, the director of EMI Svenka AB, about the strengths and weaknesses of his company, the state of the Swedish music industry, and - of course - Roxette.

What follows is a transcript of that telephone interview:


The Daily Roxette: We came across an article from back in 1994 that stated that 80% of EMI Svenska’s repertoire was recorded in Swedish, do you know what that percentage is today? Is it still pretty high?

Stefan Gullberg: Yeah, well, if you mean the music that we are repertoire only
for…obviously we are distributing and marketing American and English
repertoire as well, repertoire from all over the world. But I would guess
probably 75% is recorded in Swedish from the local repertoire.

TDR: Do you think that’s a strength or a weakness?

SG: I think it’s a strength. It’s also about the culture I think. The
culture within the company has been… it’s the oldest company in Sweden. It’s
100 years next year and we have a huge catalog with local Swedish artists.
So even though we have actually the last couple of years been much more in
English in order to try to exploit it. If you have success like we had with
Roxette, for example, you try… Read more…

HELSINKI - Per and Marie told The Daily Roxette yesterday that they have no plans of releasing a live DVD - an item that many fans would like to be released - of any of the “Room Service” tour concerts. They are going to shoot the Stockholm concert for a live webcast, but its quality will not be high enough for a DVD or home video.

  “Recording a concert for a DVD would mean cameramen running around on the stage. It would destroy the night,” said Per. “We would also need much more light in some parts of the concert and they wouldn’t be as intimate anymore,” added Marie.

The Official Roxette Fanclub is organizing parties for Roxette fans before and after the band’s concerts in Sweden.

  In Karlstad (November 14th) there will be an after-party in the night club Arena. In Stockholm (November 16th) there will be a gathering before the concert at Olivlunden, Gullmarsplan, at 4pm, and an after-party at Kickis Bar & Café. For the after party you have to be over 18 and you’ll need an ID to get in. The entrance fee is 40 SEK if you have a concert ticket with you or 60 SEK without one.

  The fanclub is still working on a party in Gothenburg on November 17th.

• Roxettenews.com

NEW YORK - Sweden-based entertainment website Musicbrigade.com is currently featuring two video-on-demand channels that have been pre-programmed with Roxette videos. One channel features ballads such as “It Must Have Been Love” while the other channel features more up-tempo hits like “Joyride.”

  Recently in the Big Apple for the Broadway premiere of “Mamma Mia!”, MusicBrigade’s Jeffery de Hart told The Daily Roxette that “we recently entered into a partnership with EMI that gave us access to the Roxette video collection. These new channels have proven to be quite popular with visitors to our site. We plan to have additional Roxette features as time goes on.”

  Along with his duties for MusicBrigade, de Hart is the Swedish correspondent for Billboard magazine, and has recently written an article on the state of the Swedish music industry. Also in New York and seen at the cast party after the show, were Billboard Radio’s Chuck Taylor and columnist and chart expert Fred Bronson. Taylor was present at the reception for Roxette at the Swedish Consul General’s residence after the showcase performance in Times Square a little over a year ago.

EDITOR’S NOTE: TDR readers who are interested in other Swedish pop music acts may be interested to know that Taylor and Bronson have both heard sneak previews of new Ace of Base material and endorse it as “the best stuff they have ever done.” That’s strong praise from two knowledgable sources! The release of the new Ace of Base album, however, is still quite a ways away.

• MusicBrigade

Per has written a song, titled “I Do Believe,” for 21-year-old Norwegian singer Paris. The song is on her first single, released by Columbia/Sony. On her (Norwegian) promotional website, she says that the song is a catchy pop tune and that she became instantly enthusiastic about the song when she first heard it.

• Paris @ Sony Music Norway

STOCKHOLM - Telenordia, a Scandinavian Internet service provider, is going to webcast Roxette’s Stockholm live on the Net. They are going to have cameras not only shooting the stage of the sold out Globen, but also the VIP room, backstage and the audience. The streaming video broadcast starts at 8.30pm CET on November 16th and the video will also be available on Telenordia’s site for later viewing. The webcast is a co-operation between Telenordia, EMI Svenska, Roxette’s record company, and EMA Telstar, their tour promoter.

• Telenordia

HELSINKI - Our what-should-have-been-a-snap switch of servers turned out to be several days offline. Sorry folks! Everything should be working again. Thanks for your patience. If you sent me email and got an error message as a reply, please re-send your message! For a couple of days last week, I wasn’t able to receive any mail.

  Today, Lars-Erik and I are going to Roxette’s press conference here and after that… Roxette live! For me, it’s the first time since 1994. God, how time flies…

STOCKHOLM - You can now view one-minute snippets of almost every Roxette video at Aftonbladet’s website. They also have two-minute clips from the two documentaries that will appear on Roxette’s first DVD release. The DVD also includes 5 videos from Roxette’s early days that are not featured at Aftonbladet’s site, for example the first version of “The Look” video.

  Real Player is required to view the video clips.

• Videos @ Aftonbladet.se

STOCKHOLM - In a spike attributed to the three upcoming concert performances, “Room Service” has re-entered the Swedish album chart
this week at #48.

  Patrik Isaksson, who last summer collaborated with Marie Fredriksson, tops the chart with his new album, “Tillbaks på Ruta 1” (Back to Square 1).

TDR reporter Anders Järnberg contributed to this article. Thanks to Thomas Evensson for correcting the translation.