GÖTEBORG - Per Gessle was nominated in two categories in Sweden’s national radio’s “P3 Guld” awards. This time he wasn’t lucky enough to get any trophies home. The public voted Moneybrother as the male artist of the year with his “Blood Panic” album. Moneybrother also received two other awards. In the other one of Per’s categories - the song of the year - the winner was rapper Timbuktu with “The botten is nådd”.

• Svenska Dagbladet article (in Swedish)
• P3 Guld

HELSINKI - As we previously reported, Mats “MP” Persson wrote a song for the Finnish selection of Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The song did make it to the national final, but not to the European final. The winner was Jari Sillanpää with his ill-titled song “Takes 2 To Tango”.

  The song contest will continue with semi-final on May 12 and final in Istanbul on May 15.

HALMSTAD - Per Gessle can flash his well-known V-sign. There will be a summer concert with Gyllene Tider at Örjans Vall in Halmstad.

  Halmstad’s local governing body (kommun) has given the go ahead for one, possibly two, concerts in July and thus Gessle’s dream can be fulfilled: to break the attendence record at his hometown football (soccer) arena.

  It’s been held so far by Per’s favorite team, IS Halmia, when on October 13, 1962, a night game against Landskrona Bois was seen by 20,381 people.

  Gyllene Tider can also count on breaking their own Halmstad record which originated from a concert at Stora Torg in June 1995 when around 15,000 attended the group’s first real reunion.

  It will be the first time Örjans Vall will be used as a rock arena. Earlier proposals have been rejected because of concern over damage to the grass during the Swedish soccer season.

• Hallands Posten’s article (In Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - All of the publicity surrounding the success with Per’s “Mazarin” has propelled the album back to the top of the Swedish album charts. The album ended its 11 week run at the top in September and has remained in the top 20 since it was released in June of last year.

  Meanwhile, on the singles chart, “Tycker om när du tar på mig” is at #11 in it’s 6th week, doing much better on the charts than “På promenad genom stan.”

Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article.

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle killed all opposition when he collected no less than three Rockbjörnar (Rock Bears) tonight at Cirkus on Djurgården in Stockholm. The Rockbjörnen is Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet’s award and it turns 25 years this year.

  Per was nominated in the best male artist, best song and best album categories. “2003 was a fantastic year and 2004 has started off really well,” Per says to Aftonbladet. When receiving the grandest award of them all - best male artist - Per says “Sweet Jesus, thank you all again! See you this summer with Gyllene Tider!”

  Over the years Roxette has received six Bears, Marie Fredriksson five, Gyllene Tider two and now Per Gessle three.

  Last year’s record of 480,000 votes was broken with some margin; 760,000 votes this year!

• Aftonbladet’s story (In Swedish)

Per Gessle’s “Mazarin” solo album and the single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” were major hits last year. You can see that clearly now when award nominations and yearly charts are announced.

  Today were the nominations for the Swedish Grammis awards revealed. Per is listed not less than seven times: artist of the year, male artist of the year, album of the year (“Mazarin”), song of the year (“Här kommer alla känslorna”), composer of the year, producer of the year (together with Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundquist) and lyricist of the year. The awards gala is on February 9 and it will be broadcast on TV4 the next day. News agency TT Spektra tried to contact Per for a comment, but “he was in Africa”.

  Other Per’s success stories were: 30 weeks on Svensktoppen charts with “Här kommer alla känslorna”, 22 weeks at #1; Most played song on the Swedish radio; Most sold album of the year (240,000 copies, four times platinum); Third most sold single; Second most sold DVD (“En mazarin, älskling?”).

  Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this story.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

HALMSTAD - Per turns 45 today. We know that normally the 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th … anniversaries are the ones that get special attention, but since 2003 has been such a great, special, amazing year for The Man, we just thought he deserved some special attention, and also remember other special moments in Per’s life.



January 12, 1959 Per is born.

1978 First record ever - The “Billy” EP.

1979 Gyllene Tider’s first single on EMI - “Flickorna på TV2”.

1979 First #1 on the Swedish charts - “Flickorna på TV2”.

1983 Per’s first solo album, “Per Gessle” is released.

1986 Roxette is born, first single “Neverending Love” is released.

March 28, 1989 “The Look” goes #1 on Billboard and breaks Roxette worldwide.

1993 Roxette plays MTV Unplugged at Cirkus in Stockholm.

August 21, 1993 Per marries Åsa.

1996 Gyllene Tider reunites for Scandinavia’s biggest tour ever.

1997 Per’s first solo album in English, “The World According To…” is released.

August 5, 1997 Per and Åsa’s son, Screamin’ Lord G (Gabriel) is born.

June 16, 2003 Per releases “Mazarin” and creates a mass hysteria in Sweden.

2004 Gyllene Tider turns 25 years, a new album and a tour is in the pipeline.



A huge Happy Birthday, Per, from all of us at The Daily Roxette! Here’s to many more!

STOCKHOLM - Be it the new single, “Tycker om när du tar på mej”, or the need to get a great Christmas present - “Mazarin” climbs back to #6 on the Swedish album charts this week. At the same time “Tycker om när du tar på mej” enters the singles charts at #9, which is a lot better than the previous single. It is getting an enormous amount of airplay in Sweden.

Update Jan 10: “Mazarin” climbs to #3 this week, and “Tycker om när du tar på mej” shoots up from #21 to #12! It is also still doing great on the airplay charts.

HELSINKI - Antti Tuisku, a semi-finalist on the Finnish “Idols” contest, sings “Spending My Time” on a new CD put together of the songs performed during the TV series. The series is based on the very popular international format first shown in the UK with the name “Pop Idol”. In the series a hard-worded jury judges the performances and unmercifully throws out the contestants with not-so-good voices. Tuisku did very well in the series, as he was ranked third and had to go just before the final battle.

  The “Idols” final is broadcast live on the Finnish MTV3 channel tonight. The CD is published by BMG and its release date was also today.

• Antti Tuisku Fanclub (in Finnish)

STOCKHOLM - The year of 2003 was a huge success for Per Gessle. The hit single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” was the most played song on Swedish radio stations, both on SR (Sveriges Radio) and commercial stations, during 2003. It’s the first time since Music Control started this list in 1996 that a Swedish artist is #1 on that year list.

  At second place came Robbie Williams with his song “Feel”, and at #3 Blue and Elton John’s hit song “Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word”. All in all four Swedish songs were on the top ten.

• TT in Metro (Page 18, in Swedish)