Roxette will be performing in “Schlager-SM,” the Swedish pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, on Friday in Malmö, Sweden. Roxette is not taking part in the contest, but they will be on the stage during the voting, after each competitor has performed.

  The show has a very limited budget and thus it’s a big surprise that they got Roxette to perform. “Roxette will perform practically for free,” says Expressen’s anonymous source. “But to get the chance to perform at Schlager-SM has a huge promotional value.” So, it isn’t so much of a surprise that according to the source, the initiative for Roxette’s live performance came from EMI Svenska, their record company.

  Schlager-SM was watched last year by 4 million viewers. Roxette’s performance on the show won’t be officially revealed until Thursday, but Expressen seems to be very certain of their source. (Helge and several people on the Roxette Mailing List contributed to this article)

• Expressen’s Swedish article

The Official Roxette Fanclub has published four previously unseen photos from “The Center Of The Heart” video shooting on their website. The video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund and was shot in Madonna Inn, California in January. The fanclub received the photos from the press department of Roxette’s Swedish record company, EMI Svenska.

• Official Roxette Fanclub

Hungary’s largest commercial radio startion, Danubius, has recently asked listeners to name their favorite songs. In their Top 300 countdown, featuring all time international and Hungarian hits, Roxette is present with five songs: “Sleeping In My Car,” “Listen To Your Heart,” “It Must Have Been Love,” “How Do You Do” and “Joyride.” No other artists achieved such a result. Roxette songs ranked way higher that those of such present-day teen idols as the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.

• Danubius R·diÛ

The Daily Roxette has reported that previously unknown songs written by Per and Marie were found listed in BMI’s online database. One of the titles was “The Center Of The Heart (Is A Suburb To The Brain)” which – as we know now – will be the lead single from their forthcoming album, “Room Service.”

  Per has now come forward to say that the other titles “are defintely Roxette’s however they are not the songs from the ’Room Service’ album” and that “it should not take too long before we can release them to you.”

  It is unknown why the songs were registered with BMI before their release. For example, “Entering Your Heart”, the b-side track for “The Center Of The Heart” single, is not yet listed in BMI’s Hyper Repertoire service.

The Official Roxette Fanclub has now put a 30-second sound clip on their website. Visitors can choose between downloading an MP3 file (469 KB) or the same file in a compressed ZIP archive (467 KB).

  The fanclub was supposed to release the sound clip on February 19th at midnight Central European time, but as the full song has already been available on Napster, the fanclub apparently got permission from EMI to put the clip online ahead of that schedule.

• Official Roxette Fanclub

UPDATED The Daily Roxette is gathering links to online articles about the new album “Room Service” and the first single.

Latest articles:

• Expressen 2/7/2001: Smalare Gessle med bantat Roxette (Swedish)
  

“The Center Of The Heart” on Napster

• Aftonbladet 2/9/2001: Roxettes osläppta singel på Napster (Swedish)

• Expressen 2/9/2001: Roxettes nya singel på Napster (Swedish)
  

Please submit your article links using the feedback form. Thanks for your help! Read the entire article for more links. Read more…

The cover art is still missing, and the song clips are unavailable, but on EMI Germany’s website, you can find “The Centre Of The Heart” listed. Retail outlets can order product number 8790312 which is described as a “Maxi-CD” with “Entering Your Heart” as the second track.

EDITOR’S NOTE: T-Rox contributed to this article. – LEO

• EMI Germany’s product listing

A brief note in Rolling Stone’s music news asks their readers if they “remember the Swedish pop duo Roxette?” It goes on to mention the release date of the new single and album.

UPDATED – Graham Ashton, a spokesman for EMI Australia, reports that while these dates are yet to be “100% confirmed,” it looks likely that “The Center of the Heart” single will be released on March 19th while the album, “Room Service,” will be released on May 2nd.

  Additionally, the single should begin to air March 5th on radio and February 26th on “Video Hits.”

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…