Jonas Åkerlund, well-known for directing Roxette music videos such as “The Centre Of The Heart,” has signed on to direct the dark indie comedy “Spun.”

  Movie rumour site Ain’t It Cool News reports that the film deals with an unemployed guy (played by Jason Schwartzman) who uses methamphetamine and gets entangled with the maker of the drug (Mickey Rourke), who then takes him on a three-day journey. Other actors involved include Brittany Murphy (playing a stripper), John Leguizamo (a dealer), Patrick Fugit (a speed addict), and Swedish actor Peter Stormare, who plays a policeman. The script was written by Creighton Vero and Will De Los Santos.

  Åkerlund previously directed the 1997 short film ’The Hidden,’ but this appears to be his first-full length feature.

• Ain’t It Cool News article

Per’s dream came true last week when he was allowed to drive a McLaren Formula 1 racing car in Hockenheim, Germany. The car wasn’t their official race vehicle, but a 2-seated version (on the left in picture) for promotional use.

  Per is known for being a Formula 1 enthusiast. He had to pay 200,000 SEK (almost 20,000 USD) to get this chance. However, not everyone – even if they have the money – is permitted to drive the car. McLaren only lets people with promotional value to test their Formula 1 car.

  Per was in the car only as a passenger. The person who drove was McLaren’s test driver Darren Turner.

• Expressen’s article (in Swedish)

Looking at only at Top Ten chart positions, Roxette’s “Room Service” moved up one notch to the #3 spot on the German album chart this past week, while retaining their top #1 position in Belgium and Sweden. In Switzerland, the album dropped from #2 to #4; in Austria, from #4 to #7.

Today’s Metro Helsinki has published Top 10 list of best love songs ever, as voted by the listeners of Stockholm radio station Lugna Favoriter 104,7 RTL. The listeners of Lugna Favoriter (“Easy-listening favorites”) voted Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” as their all-time favorite.

  #2 was Michael Bolton with “When A Man Loves A Woman” and #3 Bette Midler with “The Rose”. Elton John was the only one to have 2 songs in Top 10, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” at #4 and “Sacrifice” at #10.

• Lugna Favoriter 104,7 RTL

Sweden’s DeeJayPromo.com features the remixes of “The Centre of the Heart” as a new release this week (entering the dance charts at #35), and shows the cover of the maxi CD. Fans can preview clips of some of the remixes and vote “hit” or “miss”. So far, the highly critical visitors to this site have voted it a hit!

• Dee Jay Promotions Scandinavia

NEW YORK - Billboard magazine, in its current issue published here, shows that the Eurochart for albums has Roxette placed at #6.

  London-based Billboard reporter Paul Sexton, in writing about the additions to the top 10 in the online edition at Billboard.com, refers to Roxette as “chart evergreens.”

• Billboard’s Daily Music News (April 16)

The feeling is, “if it worked before, why not try it again?”

  With the memory of a “successful” petition drive last summer still fresh in their heads – a campaign that was credited at least with convincing Marie Fredriksson to tour Sweden – Judith Seuma, along with several other fans, have launched a similar effort to urge Roxette to mount a “Room Service” world tour.

  A joint effort between RoxSpain and the OIRFC in the Netherlands, hundred of fans have already signed the petition being hosted at www.roxetteontour.com.

Nout Van Den Neste contributed to this article.

• “Room Service” tour petition drive

With a prize package that seems both obvious and brilliant, the EMI companies in Germany and Austria began contests today, in conjuction with various online partners, where the winners will receive airfare for two to Los Angeles… and a week’s stay at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Opisbo, California, where the “Centre of the Heart” video was shot!

  Cleverly designed to be fun and engaging, the “Room Service Internet Competition” takes you through some of the rooms at the Madonna Inn, where you can click on certain items. There are some hidden specials there, including soundfiles, pictures and interviews. After collecting the passwords to be able to visit the last room, the contest entry form awaits.

  The contests are open to residents of Germany and Austria only, but anyone (even without much knowledge of German) can “play” the game.

Stefan Schönhacker contributed to this article. Photograph of the “American Beauty” room (named after a type of rose) ©2000 by Tom Meinhold. Used with permission.

• EMI Electrola’s Roxette site (In German)
• EMI Austria’s Roxette site (Also in German)

The Japanese edition of “Room Service” features a previously unreleased bonus track, “Entering Your Heart (Extended version)”. The same song, but 30 seconds shorter, appeared as the b-side for “The Centre Of The Heart” single. The extended version contains lyrics missing from the single version.

  “Room Service” was released in Japan by Toshiba-EMI on April 11th. (Ryan Cameron contributed to this article.)

• Toshiba-EMI release information (in Japanese)

A couple of days ago, we had an English summary of part one of Expressen’s article series on Roxette’s history. Now we’ll continue with parts two and three. Expressen also published a column by Anders Nunstedt, entitled “Roxette is not hungry anymore”. We’ll have a summary on that one later in this article. So, read on! (Probably the longest article in TDR ever :-)

• Roxette’s history, part 2
• Roxette’s history, part 3
• Nunstedt’s column (all articles in Swedish)

Read more…