The following paragraph is part of a news column written by C. Bottomley that appeared in the “The Wire” section of VH1.com:


Roxette are back! They’re finally getting around to releasing their European greatest-hits set, Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus, with a few tracks from Have a Nice Day. The 1999 Day album was never released in the U.S., following a dispute with the group’s record company. Said Marie Fredriksson, the cute one, “We have to work with promotion in America and really show the Americans that we are back and that we never quit. It’s really important to show our fans - if there are any still [laughs] - that we are here for them.”

• VH1 column

The site that was originally used to mount a successful campaign encouraging Marie to go on tour, has now evolved into a kind of “tour guide.” The site intends to help fans with their travel plans, and especially be a place where fans interested in meeting other fans can post their messages.

• MarieF Tour 2000 Guide

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• TDR to your PDA

Edel America Records (EAR) has announced a U.S. licensing deal for Swedish pop duo Roxette. The band remains affiliated with EMI in other territories. The first release under the deal will be the compilation “Don’t Bore Us — Get To The Chorus,” which has sold more than 4 million copies since its international debut in October 1995.

A Todd Terry remix of last year’s international release “Wish I Could Fly” is being added to the U.S. version of the compilation. EAR expects to release a new studio album by the band in May 2001.

Editor’s Note: Billboard got this wrong. An EAR spokesperson told TDR that the remix will not be on the album. (Lars-Erik)

• Billboard article

Billboard magazine reports that the record label interests of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (now called Newscorp Music Group, NCM) and Edel Music have signed an alliance to work on recorded music and Internet opportunities. NCM labels like Festival, Mushroom and Rawkus, (the first 2 mentioned are big labels in Australia) will license through Edel in countries outside of Australiasia, North America and the UK. In Australia and New Zealand, NCM and Edel will form a joint company, and NCM chairman James Murdoch is tipped to join Edel’s supervisory board. Rumour of the week is that Festival Mushroom Group is to change its name to News Music or Newscorp Music.

Editor’s Note: This transaction does not appear to affect Roxette in any way, as their recent deal with Edel is limited solely to the United States. (Lars-Erik)

Marie’s album “Äntligen [Bästa 1984-2000]” dropped 4 spots to #5 on the album sales charts in Sweden this week. The new #1 is Iron Maiden with their latest album “Brave New World”.

• Svenska Topplistan

roxette.org has been re-opened after 3 weeks of maintenance. The site has a new design and a new search engine. Some services are still down, but the visitors and users can expect good modifications.

Editor’s Note: And, of course, one of the most important changes is that there are now latest TDR headlines on the frontpage! (roxeteer)

• roxette.org

The members of Gyllene Tider tell about the recently published old demo tracks in Aftonbladet. The tracks, “Nu går det bara av farten” and “Cilla, 16 - söt som socker”, were refused by the record company. “You can easily figure out why,” says Per. “The main reason was my pathetic lyrics.”

Or what do you think? Gyllene Tider in 1980: “Det går av bara farten, vi har sex mitt i maten och struntar i durex-automaten.” (roughly translated: “Now we need to hurry, we have sex in the middle of lunch and we couldn’t care less about the condom machine.”)

Both tracks are from the same demo cassette, dated on June 18, 1980. Per has transferred all the demos on DAT tapes which he keeps in a fire-proof safe. “If everything else burns down, these demos will be left. What a fortune.”

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article

The Swedish singer Eva Dahlgren celebrates her 40th birthday today. According to Expressen, Eva and her closest friends, including Marie Fredriksson and Marie’s husband Micke Bolyos, will have a big birthday party tonight “in a secret place”.

• Expressen’s Swedish article

EMA Telstar has announced the opening act for Marie’s summer tour concerts: Sverige. Sverige (which is “Sweden” in Swedish) is a rather unknown band, which released their debut album “Som landet ligger” last spring. The album was put together very quickly, as the band has only existed since last winter. Many of the band members are familiar from a group called Just D. Sverige consists of Peder Ernerot (guitar, vocals), Markus Ernerot (guitar, vocals), Gustave Lund (percussion), Johan Forsberg (vocals), Thomas Lindberg (bass guitar), Stefan Carlsson (drums), Ludde Widegren (steel guitar, mandolin) and Joakim Uddling (keyboards).

“I really like Sverige,” says Marie in EMA’s press release. “Especially their lyrics. I appreciate that they sing in Swedish. Musically, their music and my music are a good combination.”