The upcoming Roxette single “The Center Of The Heart (Is A Suburb To The Brain)” found its way onto Napster this week. The track is an up-tempo song with both Per and Marie singing. The song has generated a huge response from fans who have been able to hear it. Many have endorsed Roxette’s decision to release an up-tempo single track, but the song’s similarity to Savage Garden’s “I Want You” has disturbed others. Some even claim that the song sounds more like a demo or a remix than a radio track.

  It’s unknown who the individual was that put the song on Napster in the first place. EMI Svenska started this week to send out promo singles to the media and local EMI offices, so it was probably someone amongst these people.

  “The Center Of The Heart” is the first single release from Roxette’s new album “Room Service”. Airplay of the single is scheduled to start on February 19th. Retail version will be released on March 19th. The album will be released worldwide by EMI on April 2nd, excluding the USA where Edel America Records will release it a day later on April 3rd. Read more…

NEW YORK - By listening to recorded music and interview segments, and purchasing a custom CD, Roxette fans have helped syndicated radio show RetroRewind raise over $500 for charity in about a month’s time.

  As we previously reported, RetroRewind was here in Times Square last fall when Roxette performed a promo concert at Virgin Megastore. In order to raise money for the National Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Roxette allowed Dave Harris, the program’s host and one of our readers, to distribute the recordings to fans via a site on MP3.com.

  Since these segments were first posted, Harris has added “Listen To Your Heart.” This particular song will only remain there for a very short time, as the recording is not of the same quality as the other four songs.

  A small amount of money is earned from MP3.com each time one of the files is listened to or downloaded, a little more when a CD is sold. This all adds up… and the total at presstime was $509.52.

• RetroRewind’s Roxette Files

In an interview published in today’s Expressen, Jonas Åkerlund reveals that he will be the man behind the cover design for “Room Service.”

  Åkerlund goes on to say that the new U2 project he is working on will be done in a similar style to his Roxette “Run to You” video.

  Believing that he has too many commitments right now, Åkerlund has backed out of directing a new Britney Spears video that had been on his production schedule.

• Expressen article

If nothing else, this will be one of the most expensive Roxette music videos ever made. With a budget over $520,000 dollars, most of the footage for the soon-to-be-released “Center of the Heart” video was shot at a unique, ecclecticly-decorated hotel on the California coast. Director Jonas Åkerlund, who has done nine Roxette videos, is now busy working with a post-production house on the editing of the film.

  Roxette, along with Åkerlund and his film crew, took over a good portion of the Madonna Inn (named after the family that owns the property) located in San Luis Obispo, a town situated on the Pacific Coast Highway in California, almost exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  The Roxette entourage and film crew rented 48 of the guest rooms in the resort hotel, a popular destination for honeymooners. Each of the Inn’s 109 rooms is uniquely decorated with a special theme and color scheme – some of them with showers constructed with rocks to resemble a waterfall.

  EMI Sweden, anxious to encourage positive press coverage – especially in Sweden where interest is high – invited reporters from two of Sweden’s tabloids to the hotel. Both Aftonbladet and Expressen have featured coverage of the video shoot in their Entertainment sections.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Magnus Sundholm, Aftonbladet’s reporter/photographer, incorrectly refers to the inn as a “porno hotel.” Having stayed at this property myself, I can only surmise that Sundholm’s impression of the décor in some of the rooms was that of a bordello. That some of the rooms feature “unusual” themes is an understatement, as you’ll see if you take the “tour” offered in the link below. Pictured here is of the luxurious Austrian Suite, where some of the filming was done. Photo ©1992 by Phyllis Madonna, used with permission. – LEO

• Madonna Inn (tour their rooms online)
• Aftonbladet story (focuses on Marie beating her own sales record in Sweden)
• Expressen article (includes photos taken during a break in the filming)

Roxette fans in Australia are announcing the first Australian Roxette Fan Meeting for 2001. The meeting will take place at Bondi, Sydney, NSW, Australia on Saturday February 10th. The site chosen is where Roxette filmed parts of their film clip “Vulnerable”.

  For more information, contact Paul Rands at [email protected] or visit their website.

• RoxMeet @ Bondi

With Roxette’s new album, “Room Service”, about to be released… and the first single, “The Center of the Heart”, out even sooner… some fans think the time has come to plan for whats come to be known as a “RoxAttaq” – and they want to do it on a global scale.

 Frederico Leonardo and Judith Seuma have launched Roxattaq.org with the goal of gathering links to the worldwide media (Radio, TV, newspapers) including addresses, phone numbers… all the information possible.

 “We can’t do it all ourselves,” they say. “We need fans from all over the world to step forward and take responsibility for each country’s ’Attaq’ organization.” They’ll set up a “yourcountry.roxattaq.org” domain where each volunteer – or group of volunteers – can put all the information they gather.

 “Sure, a lot of the promotion is up to the record labels,” they told The Daily Roxette, “but we fans want to be involved, and the previous RoxAttaqs – for the most part – have proved helpful.”

 Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Brasil, the United States and Spain are some of the countries already represented.

 For more information about how to start working, go to Roxattaq.org or e-mail Judith and Frederico at [email protected] if you (as an individual or as a group) think you can lead a Roxattaq in your country.

The famous intro of Gyllene Tider hit song “Flickorna på TV2” has been used as a sample in a new Swedish rap song by Trippel Ett. The song, entitled simply “Flickorna,” is the first single from the band’s forthcoming debut album “Svar på tal”.

  The sample from “Flickorna på TV2” was used with Per’s permission. Trippel Ett didn’t contact Per directly, but spoke with his record company.

  “It wasn’t a problem to get the permission,” says Andreas Nordström of Trippel Ett. “But he wanted to hear the song and know what the lyrics are about, so that we weren’t throwing shit on him.”

  Per’s manager, Marie Dimberg, says laughingly in CNN Sverige’s interview that Per is “Halmstad’s biggest hip-hopper” and that Per gave the permission because he thought that the song was good.

  The single is already in radio rotation. The retail single will be in the Swedish shops on January 29th. The album will be released in mid-February.

• Trippel Ett @ FanGlobe.com
• CNN Sverige’s Swedish article

Wearing sparkling green pants and a denim jacket, Marie sang “För dom som älskar” (“For Those Who Love”) last night at the Anti-Racism concert at Globen in Stockholm. Sitting alone – under a solitary spotlight – at a grand piano that had been brought on stage, Marie’s voice was strong, clear, and full of emotion. Before the last notes of the song could fade away, the performance was met with generous applause.

  Even Aftonbladet’s music critic Per Bjurman, who admits that he seldom has very much nice to say about Marie, wrote in his column today that her performance was “especially fine and extremely emotional.”

  Several fans who subscribe to RML reported that they were able to hear Marie’s performance live over the internet. Sveriges Radio (P3) both broadcast and Webcast the gala. A fan in Spain recorded the Webcast (see first comment for the link) and a CD of the gala, including Marie’s song, is being rushed into production.

  (Rodrigo Andrés, Judith Seuma and Sofia Björk contributed to this article.)

• Bjurman’s Aftonbladet column

Billboard Online has a short article on Roxette’s new album. They don’t have very much more to say than EMI’s press release had, but Billboard does tell that the album “is scheduled for a worldwide release on April 2, and in the U.S. the following day via Edel Records.”

• Billboard’s article

Did somebody call for “Room Service”?

  Roxette’s new album will be entitled “Room Service” and, according to a press release issued today by EMI Svenska, will be in “record stores of the world” on April 2, 2001.

  EMI reports that Per and Marie are currently checking out of Polar Studios in Stockholm where they recorded their new tracks, and checking in at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London for mastering the album.

  The lead single will be “The Center of the Heart (Is a Suburb to the Brain)” with airplay scheduled to start on February 19th. The retail single will be released exactly a month later, on March 19th.

  “The Center of the Heart”, along with other songs that may appear on “Room Service,” were registered with BMI as early as last November.

  The video for this first single, as we reported earlier, will be shot in Los Angeles on January 22 and directed by Jonas Åkerlund.