After a delay of two weeks, “Room Service” was finally released by EMI Canada on May 29th. Apparently, EMI Canada’s only promotion for the album was to announce it on their Web page. In most record stores the album can’t be found in the new release section. Disappointingly, TCOTH didn’t receive any exposure on radio or TV.

• EMI Canada

UPDATED As we reported earlier, Roxette’s forthcoming “Room Service” tour – reported to feature 33 songs – will premiere in Stuttgart in late September. After touring in Southern and Central Europe, Roxette will visit Russia, Estonia, Finland and their home country Sweden in November. The last concert - at least so far - will be in Gothenburg on November 17th.

  Roxette ended their last world tour in Moscow in May 1995. Exactly six years later, Per and Marie have been in Germany to announce that they will embark on a European tour later this year. With a dozen tour dates in Germany, it made sense for them to announce the tour there, in order to generate coverage in the German press.

  Read the full article for tour schedule and Per and Marie’s comments.

  Photo of fans enjoying Marie’s concert last summer in Stockholm by Lars-Erik Olson.

  UPDATE - We have now added links to sites offering tickets to Swedish concerts and some of the German concerts. Read more…

Roxette performed on the final episode of the Norwegian “Big Brother” show. “Big Brother” has become a great success in Norway, and the show was most likely seen by thousands of viewers.

• Big Brother site (In Norwegian)

In today’s Aftonbladet, Per is quoted as saying that the tour might be extended to include additional countries should it prove to be successful.

  “There is the possibility to continue the tour in other countries in Europe in December and after the new year perhaps they’ll be more countries,” Per said.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

Billboard.com published a story today (see “article continues” for full text) in which they talk about the upcoming European tour and – erroneously – report that Edel America is “due to release ’Room Service’ sometime this year.”

(Puls contributed to this story.)

• Billboard.com’s Article

Read more…

“The Centre Of The Heart” is #1 in Uruguay after 12 weeks in the charts. Roxette is # 1 on four radio charts:
Energy FM 106.7 (2 weeks); La Costa FM 88.3 (1 week);
Diamante FM 98.7 (3 weeks); and Del Plata FM 95.5 (1 week).

  Roxette is at #2 on two other stations: Radiocero FM 104.3 and X-FM 100.3.

  Actually, Roxette is at this very moment in the top 10 of 11 radio charts and on the internet web page terra.com.uy TCOTH is at #4.

  “The Centre Of The Heart” is Roxette’s most played song since “Sleeping in my Car” in 1994! It was at that time that fans in Montevideo formed the ’Time to Rox’ fanclub.

Per recently bought a new Ferrari, this time a Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina for about 2-3,000,000 SEK.

  This car is extremely limited and you have to fulfill certain criteria to be able to buy one. Ferrari demands that you own at least two Ferraris already, or a classic F1 car. Per doesn’t. But when Torbjörn von Braun at
Ferrari Sweden talked to Ferrari Italy, he explained to them who Per is and how he would qualify as an owner of this car, so he was added to the list.

  “A Ferrari is probably one of the best investments you can do”, Torbjörn states.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

KOBLENZ - Per and Marie held two press conferences in Germany on Monday (one in Munich, the other in Dortmund), announcing that the premiere concert of their upcoming “Room Service” tour will take place in Stuttgart on September 25th, the first of 12 concerts planned for Germany.

  According to reports in the German press, Swedish stars Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle announced a show that will include numerous “world-wide #1 hits.”

  Roxette wants to celebrate with 33 new and old chart-toppers such as “The Centre of the Heart,” “Sleeping in My Car,” and “Fireworks.”

  “We missed the feeling of being with thousands of fans singing on the stage,” said Gessle and he added, jokingly, that he has a very “expensive woman” and must finally raise cash again.

  Fredriksson, addressing the question “Why is Roxette starting its world tour in Germany, answered: “Germany is one of our largest markets. We have so many fans here, and we like the country.”
  Some of the other questions reporters asked included: “How do you keep yourselves fit?” - “Sleep alot, from time to time go to parties,” answered Per. “Why do you look so young, Marie?” - “That’s only make-up”, she said. “How do you spend your money?” - “I have five autos”, said Per. “And your wife?” Gessle laughs. “She drives a bicycle.”

  For the fans, a “Best of…” tour waits, with songs from Roxette’s 15-year career. Besides the new songs, “it’s really fun to play the old songs also” confessed Gessle. “We must absolutely play ’It Must Have Been Love’, for example.”

(TDR Reporter: Tina Engmann. Westfaelische-Rundschau photo: Althoff; used with permission.)

• Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s article (All links in German)
• WR’s article
• Nachrichten’s article

Read more…

NEW YORK - Recording industry trade magazine Billboard published a front page article in last week’s edition in which they wrote about the current state of pop music in Sweden - with the focus being on music exports - and stated that there were no obvious candidates ready to follow in the footsteps of ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base, and the Cardigans.

  Artists mentioned as having potential included Infinite Mass, Daniel Lemma, Backyard Babies, Lisa Miskovsky, Nina Persson and Titiyo.

  Billboard’s story was picked up in today’s issue of the Swedish newspaper Expressen.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Check back later for a more complete version of this story.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish - with photo montage)
• Billboard (not a direct link to an article)

At last Russian fans knew the day of Roxette’s coming to Russia. It is November 7th and 8th, 2001.

  In St. Petersburg, they will perform at the new Ice Palace. Built two years ago for the World Hockey Championship, it is one of the largest and best concert stages in Europe. Read more…