TONALA (MEXICO) - It was unmistakable. Walking down a crowded aisle in a street fair here in Mexico, the sound of “Nah, nah, nah, Nah, nah, nah…” coming from a vendor’s booth. “That’s Roxette!” I said to my friends.

  It turns out the song was not coming from some pirated CD, which I had expected, but instead from a Konami Playstation game called “Dance Dance Revolution 5th Mix” that is a kind of disco dance simulation. “Centre of the Heart” was one of the options for the player to “dance” to.

STOCKHOLM -

The Daily Roxette is proud to present exclusive pictures from Monday’s NRJ Radio Awards, taken by our reporter/photographer Thomas Evensson. Click to enlarge.

HELSINKI - TDR had its own reporter and photographer on location when Roxette visited Finland’s capital Helsinki on Monday. In their press conference, Per and Marie shared the unfortunate news of not releasing a live DVD and the fortunate news of new recording session and additional concerts. They were also presented a double platinum record for “Joyride” (100,000 copies sold) and a gold record for “Room Service” (15,000 copies sold) by EMI Finland just before the concert began in front of a multitude of photographers from the Finnish newspapers.

  These exclusive photos were taken by TDR News Editor Lars-Erik Olson. Read on for more pictures! Click the pictures to see them full size in a new window. Read more…

HELSINKI - Roxette said in their press conference yesterday immediately prior to the concert here that after finishing their current tour, they are planning to write as much new music as possible. In March of next year, they will go into a studio to record this new material. At the moment, they don’t have any clear plans for new releases. “We’ll see what happens,” said Per to The Daily Roxette.

  Per and Marie have both enjoyed the “Room Service” tour. “We’ve had huge crowds… It’s been fantastic,” they said.

  For Per and Marie, this tour has been too short. “We will maybe have some more shows in the summer,” said Per. “This tour is over too soon.” When asked about the possibility of a summer concert in Halmstad, their hometown in Southern Sweden, both Per and Marie looked happily surprised with the question. “We’re really hoping to have a concert there,” they said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Roxette’s Angie Perrault, who is currently in college and studying for a career in the music industry, spoke recently with Stefan Gullberg, the director of EMI Svenka AB, about the strengths and weaknesses of his company, the state of the Swedish music industry, and - of course - Roxette.

What follows is a transcript of that telephone interview:


The Daily Roxette: We came across an article from back in 1994 that stated that 80% of EMI Svenska’s repertoire was recorded in Swedish, do you know what that percentage is today? Is it still pretty high?

Stefan Gullberg: Yeah, well, if you mean the music that we are repertoire only
for…obviously we are distributing and marketing American and English
repertoire as well, repertoire from all over the world. But I would guess
probably 75% is recorded in Swedish from the local repertoire.

TDR: Do you think that’s a strength or a weakness?

SG: I think it’s a strength. It’s also about the culture I think. The
culture within the company has been… it’s the oldest company in Sweden. It’s
100 years next year and we have a huge catalog with local Swedish artists.
So even though we have actually the last couple of years been much more in
English in order to try to exploit it. If you have success like we had with
Roxette, for example, you try… Read more…

HELSINKI - Per and Marie told The Daily Roxette yesterday that they have no plans of releasing a live DVD - an item that many fans would like to be released - of any of the “Room Service” tour concerts. They are going to shoot the Stockholm concert for a live webcast, but its quality will not be high enough for a DVD or home video.

  “Recording a concert for a DVD would mean cameramen running around on the stage. It would destroy the night,” said Per. “We would also need much more light in some parts of the concert and they wouldn’t be as intimate anymore,” added Marie.

NEW YORK - Sweden-based entertainment website Musicbrigade.com is currently featuring two video-on-demand channels that have been pre-programmed with Roxette videos. One channel features ballads such as “It Must Have Been Love” while the other channel features more up-tempo hits like “Joyride.”

  Recently in the Big Apple for the Broadway premiere of “Mamma Mia!”, MusicBrigade’s Jeffery de Hart told The Daily Roxette that “we recently entered into a partnership with EMI that gave us access to the Roxette video collection. These new channels have proven to be quite popular with visitors to our site. We plan to have additional Roxette features as time goes on.”

  Along with his duties for MusicBrigade, de Hart is the Swedish correspondent for Billboard magazine, and has recently written an article on the state of the Swedish music industry. Also in New York and seen at the cast party after the show, were Billboard Radio’s Chuck Taylor and columnist and chart expert Fred Bronson. Taylor was present at the reception for Roxette at the Swedish Consul General’s residence after the showcase performance in Times Square a little over a year ago.

EDITOR’S NOTE: TDR readers who are interested in other Swedish pop music acts may be interested to know that Taylor and Bronson have both heard sneak previews of new Ace of Base material and endorse it as “the best stuff they have ever done.” That’s strong praise from two knowledgable sources! The release of the new Ace of Base album, however, is still quite a ways away.

• MusicBrigade