HELSINKI - The yet-to-be-titled Marie Fredriksson documentary will be broadcast by Finnish commercial TV channel MTV3. The day for the broadcast is November 27.

  The documentary will be on Swedish TV4 three days earlier. There have been no announcements from other countries yet.

• MTV3

HALMSTAD - Mats MP Persson, guitarist, song-co-writer and studio guru of Gyllene Tider, has once again gotten one of his songs into the Finnish leg of the Eurovision song contest! Last year’s contribution was called “Can’t Stop Loving You” and ended up as #6. It was co-written by “a fella from Vaasa” named Patrick Linman, and so is this year’s piece - “Everything But Still Nothing”, a traditional pop song. “We almost forgot that we had entered it,” MP says in Aftonbladet.


  MP feels it’s a small, but yet possible, chance that he gets to compete against his friend Per Gessle in Kiev. “Theoretically that’s possible,” MP states, “It would be fun, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m surprised our contribution got through to the Finnish contest.” The song will be performed by Patrick, a troubador and a former member of the Finnish popduo Place2go. “I myself will be in the audience or in the green room,” MP laughs.

  He won’t judge their chances this year. “Last year we ended up at number six, with a really catchy tune. It’s hard to say if this song is stronger…”


Mari contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF) had their annual Swedish songwriter awards in Nalen, Stockholm on Thursday. Per Gessle received two awards, for the composer of the year and for the lyricist of the year. Povel Ramel received the lifetime achievement award, a hefty 10.8-kilo glass statue.

• Sundsvalls Tidning article (in Swedish)
• Swedish Music Publishers Association

STOCKHOLM - As previously reported by The Daily Roxette, Gyllene Tider will release a live DVD, and live CD this fall - “En scen vid en plats i en stad.” What’s new is that the CD is now mixed and ready. “It sounds like overkill [releasing both a CD and a DVD], but it isn’t,” Per Gessle says. “For the album we sat down and listened to the ten best gigs this summer. Then we chose the best songs from these, and removed all ballads. It will be a real power-pop bomb!” he says laughing.

  From what The Daily Roxette remembers there weren’t really any ballads this summer so we’ll see how it looks like…

STOCKHOLM - In conjunction with the release of “The Change,” Marie Fredriksson has started a new publishing company together with her husband Micke Bolyos. MaryJane Music was mainly created “as a home for Marie’s solo albums,” states the label’s website, “but as the musical collaboration between Marie and Mikael continues and expands, don’t be surprised if you find other exciting projects with some of their musical friends released on this label.”

  The website features information about Marie’s new release as well as pictures taken at Vinden Studios and Polar Studios during the recording of “The Change” and the documentary that will be shown on Swedish TV4 on November 24th.

• MaryJane Music

Various Swedish newspapers have published reviews today of Marie’s new album, “The Change”.


  Hallandsposten’s Jan-Owe Wikström gives the album 4 out of 5. Wikström believes that Marie doesn’t really care about the album’s position in the charts or about sold units, “she has already won the biggest victory by releasing the album,” Wikström writes, “there must have been many moments of despair and doubt in these past two years.” The album, which has worked as a therapy for Marie, is a step back to her roots, to blues, r&b and gospel. “That’s why ’The Change’ is different to her other albums, this is more what she used to do every summer with her husband’s band Sugarcane in the basement of Penny Lane in Halmstad.”


  Aftonbladet’s Per Bjurman joins Wikström by giving 4 out of 5 to the album. After stating that he doesn’t make this review “out of pity or to escape being mean,” he goes on writing Marie’s come back is a triumph and that the album is very strong, “too strong sometimes.” Bjurman points out that the album isn’t as dark as one might think, “often one can feel the anger, the lust for life, the gratitude for love and for the fact that the day actually starts.” He also compares the naked feelings in “Mother” with John Lennon’s song by the same title and ends his review by telling that the album is totally private, “till such an extent that one has to hold the breath in order to listen to the album some times.”


  On the other hand, Göteborgsposten gives the album 3 out of 5. Lindqvist compares the album with a diary made with music and thinks Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” or Ulf Lundell’s “Den vassa eggen” have one thing in common with “The Change”: the fact that one’s creativity and inspiration becomes strong when one goes through a crisis, as Marie has in the past two years fighting against brain cancer. According to Lindqvist it’s hard to criticize music this personal and even private. “What I can say after all is that Marie Fredriksson’s singing has never been this frank. She’s always had the ambition to put her soul into her songs, and on occation she has succeeded.” But on these songs she just sings, “from the inside and out.” “The Lenny Kravitz rock that takes a lot of space is not really fresh. On the other hand the single ’2:nd Chance’ is nice, and ’All about you’ is a tender love song full of soul,” Lindqvist feels.
He concludes writing the album is a “very brave album. A letter signed from the couple Fredriksson/Bolyos who has one message: love conquers all.”


  Many other Swedish newspapers report about the fact that “The Change” will be released internationally, “it will be released, more or less, in countries where Roxette has released some albums. South America, South Africa, Europe, Japan, Indonesia and so on,” tells Li Lindebäck from EMI to TT Spektra. Lindebäck also reveals that the album has already shipped in 30,000 copies, which means gold in Sweden.

• Hallandsposten
• Aftonbladet
• Göteborgsposten
• Article in Norrköpings Tidning

Here we are, three TDR news editors sitting around the table (virtually, at least) discussing the new Marie Fredriksson album “The Change.” It’s her first all-new album in eight years and the first one since her severe illness that took her away from the limelight for two years.

Visa Kopu: Without even hearing the songs, you can really see that this album speaks about her recovery. The titles like “2:nd Chance,” “Love 2 Live” and “The Good Life” are just that. After I heard “2:nd Chance” for the first time, I was a little disappointed. It was so unsurprising.

Judith Seuma: When Eva Dahlgren released “Lai Lai” people criticized the album as being nothing but her comeback and coming out with her love for Efva Attling. But well… what else should it have been, in that situation? But what surprises me is that [Marie’s husband] Micke has written five of the twelve songs.

Thomas Evensson: As you probably know, I’m not a typical Marie fan. She’s always been too dull and sad, musically, for my taste. So when I got “The Change” in my hands, I was less than enthused, to say the least. I was also surprised about Micke’s big role, but even more by the fact that this album has been recorded over such a long time, even before her sickness. Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson’s new album “The Change” will be available in the Swedish stores on Wednesday. Everybody seems to be awaiting and getting ready for this day: one can read many “I cannot wait any longer!” messages in any Roxette & co forum; today Aftonbladet started its own countdown with streaming two snippets off the album and Capitol Records Sweden has made two more promotion pictures of Marie available, which you can find to the left and right of this article [click to enlarge].



Dates to remember:


- October 27th: release in Sweden and Hungary

- October 29th: release in South Africa

- November 15th: release in Germany

- November 22nd: release in Japan, Poland and Russia

- November 29th: release in Austria



More dates to be added soon.

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet will stream snippets off Marie Fredriksson’s new album “The Change” starting today and until Wednesday 27th, when the album is released in Sweden. In addition to the snippets, you will be able to read Marie’s comments about the songs.

  Today Aftonbladet streams “April Snow” and “All About You”. Marie explains that she wrote “April Snow” long ago when two good friends of her broke up. “One gets inspiration from many things in life, not only one’s own life,” she tells Aftonbladet.


  On the other hand, “All about you” is a love song written by Micke for Marie. “Everybody should have a love song dedicated…”


  Tomorrow Aftonbladet will stream two more songs.

  Aftonbladet also published an article about the documentary and the recording of “The Change” yesterday. Marie explained that they started to work with the album a year before she was diagnosed with cancer. They went on with the recording afterwards. “We could play for three days and then stop for three-five months,” says Nicci Notini (drums) to Aftonbladet. The documentary will show these recordings, tough moments, but also funny parts like when Marie and Micke’s kids joke in front of the cameras. “This isn’t a dark documentary but bright and forward-looking,” says the producer of the documentary, Anette Beijer.


  Kiwein1 and SparvogaMarie contributed to this article

• Listen to “The Change” in Aftonbladet
• Aftonbladet’s article

(UPDATED) - The international release plans of Marie Fredriksson’s forthcoming album “The Change” continue to take form. One of The Daily Roxette’s reporters contacted EMI South Africa and found out that the single “2:nd Chance” has been rejected by all South African radio stations and will therefore not be released. But on the other hand, the album will be released only two days after the Swedish release, namely Friday Oct 29, with albums in the stores on Monday.

  There will, however, not be any kind of promotion around this release, since it’s a low priority release for EMI South Africa.

  In Germany, Amazon and other Internet retailers have listed “The Change” scheduled for release November 15, while in Hungary, the release date is the same as in Sweden; October 27. Japan releases it November 22.

sleepingSingle and Pietro contributed to this article.

• Amazon.de (In German)