NEW YORK - What color is Roxette?!?

  According to a U.S. cosmetics firm based in California, Roxette is in the “red” family. As part of their “Wet ’n’ Wild” line, Markwins Beauty Products is marketing a shade of nail polish called “Roxette.” The shade could perhaps best be described as a raspberry-red (think “Ballad Hits”) color.

  Tina Perez, the Wet ’n’ Wild brand manager at Markwins, tells The Daily Roxette that “it’s one of our more popular colors… it’s actually been around for several years now. Roxette is a ’hot’ name and the color is a ’hot’ red.”

  The crystalic, calcium-enriched nail color sells for around $2 USD a bottle, and is available at many retail locations in the United States – both in-store and online.

  Meanwhile, the designers at fashion house XOXO have given the name “Roxette” to a pump-type, Mary Jane-style shoe in their collection.

  Making the connection to the musical group Roxette, the copywriter at Amazon.com writes “Look sharp! These dressy, sporty mary jane pumps from XOXO have a great hybrid style.”

  The shoes sell for around $72 USD.

Scoll contributed to this article.

• Shoes on Amazon
• Shoes on Zappos (View the three colors)
• Nail color on ULTA
• Nail color on Walgreens

HALMSTAD - Mats “MP” Persson – guitarist in Gyllene Tider, drummer in Back on Stage, owner of studio Tits & Ass, et cetera – received a platinum award for his and Christer Schill’s song “On the Night of a Black Out,” recorded by Japanese boy band Kinki Kids.

  Kinki Kids has sold over 22 million records in Japan so far, with their albums being named “A,” “B,” “C” and so on.

  “On the Night of a Black Out” is taken from the hit album “G Album 24/7”. From what The Daily Roxette has learned, platinum in Japan means 200,000 units sold.

• G Album 24/7

NEW YORK - Laura Branigan, a Grammy-nominated pop singer who recorded a Roxette cover but is best known for her 1982 platinum hit “Gloria,” has died. She was 47.

  Branigan died of a brain anuerysm Thursday in her sleep said her brother Mark Branigan. He said she had complained to a friend of a headache for about two weeks before she died, but had not sought medical attention.

  “Gloria,” a signature song from her debut album “Branigan,” stayed atop the pop charts for 36 weeks and earned her a Grammy nomination for best female pop vocalist, the first of four nominations in her career.

  Laura was also known for her recording of Roxette’s “The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye.” Her cover of the song appeared on her “Over My Heart” album released in 1993. It’s been said that Laura also wanted to record a cover of “Queen of Rain.”

  After the death of her husband in 1996, Branigan stopped performing but returned to the stage in 2001. In 2002 she starred as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical “Love, Janis,” which earned her rave reviews.

  Funeral services are scheduled for Monday.

• Laura Branigan website

MALMÖ -   Brainpool’s latest project “Junk: a Rock Opera” will be out in the stores this Thursday, August 19th. The double CD – which will also be presented live with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (MSO) during the Malmö Music Festival on the same day – contains a total of 28 songs in English.


  The band, consisting of Jens Jansson, David Birde and Christoffer Lundquist, celebrates its 10th anniversary with this release, which is the first since 1999 when they released “You Are Here.”


  The live version of Junk with the MSO will naturally differ considerably from Brainpools CD-version, which is being released by Playground Music. The group has worked on the recording off-an-on for about four years, in between other projects. Most recently, Lundquist – who has played with Roxette – co-produced Gyllene Tider’s “Finn 5 Fel” album.

  Some of the songs from “Junk” are available to listen to on the band’s official website.

• Brainpool’s official website
• Malmö Festival (in English and Swedish)

GÖTEBORG - “Sweden’s Biggest Boyband is in Town,” proclaims a full-page advertisement that’s been appearing for several weeks now in newspapers here in Göteborg. The circus-like display font used in the ad is unmistakable, given the success of “Finn 5 Fel!” and the advertising surrounding the release of that album. It’s the same font… so it’s obviously Gyllene Tider’s upcoming appearance at Ullevi this Saturday evening that’s being hyped, right?

  But having captured our attention, the ad continues by saying “Or more accurately, we’re almost always in town.” It turns out this clever ad is actually promoting the Göteborg Boys Choir (Göteborgs Gosskör), a group with members between the ages of 7 and 24 years old.

  It’s one more example of how pervasive the Gyllene Tider phenomenon is in Sweden this summer.

  Ulf Sollin, a spokesperson for the choir, tells TDR that the ad was created by Inform Reklambyrå and is one of a series of pro-bono ads the agency has produced recently to promote the choir and attract new members. Göteborgs-Posten, in turn, donated the space in their newspaper.

• Gothenburg Boys Choir

HELSINKI (UPDATED) - Finnish pop group Nerdee is going to present a Roxette cover song concert this Thursday evening. The band will play at Semifinal Club, Helsinki at 22.30 local time. The tickets cost 6 Euros and are only available at door.

  Nerdee has released two albums and several singles. The band’s line-up has changed many times since its formation in 1995, and only one of the members in the original group is still playing. Currently the band consists of five 23- to 25-year-old women.

  Update: The set list of the concert was “June Afternoon” (+ “Wild Thing”!), “Fading Like A Flower”, “Crash! Boom! Bang!”, “The Big L”, “It Must Have Been Love”, “Joyride”, “Listen To Your Heart”, “Sleeping In My Car” and “Spending My Time” as encore. Also added a picture from the concert, contributed by Mikko Hänninen.

• Nerdee (in Finnish)
• Semifinal

HALMSTAD - As reported some weeks ago, the “Join the Flumeride” DVD is now out in the stores in Sweden. The DVD can be purchased in two stores in Halmstad as well as via Internet at the “Join The Flumeride” web site.

  The web site describes the movie: “Join The Flumeride is the true story about Gula Tidningen and Pincette. A colorful musical journey through USA no 1s, barré chords and spectacular hairstyles. This movie is full of songs - all of them are hits!”

• Join the Flumeride

YSTAD - Christoffer Lundquist’s band Brainpool is finally getting their rock opera “Junk” on stage. The band members tell Ystads Allehanda that the opera criticizes our modern consumer society. As the band members describe it, “the society produces junk, talks crap and stinks like trash.”

  Brainpool will perform the opera with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra during the Malmö Music Festival on August 19. The opera will also be released on CD on August 25.

  The opera was first mentioned in The Daily Roxette in June 2000. Since then, Christoffer has worked with both Roxette and Per Gessle. Another Brainpool member, Jens Jansson, played with Per’s band on the “Mazarin” album and the tour last year.

• Ystads Allehanda article (in Swedish)

MORA - Micke “Syd” Andersson, the drummer of Gyllene Tider, is taking a break from their current studio work to tour with his band S.O.S.

  The band, originally named Stars of Snäck, was formed to be the house band at Hotel Snäck on Gotland island during the summer months. Now that they are performing also in the other places, they decided to use the acronym S.O.S. They play only cover songs – including, apparently, some of the old Gyllene Tider hits.

  “This is the band’s winter edition,” says Micke Syd. S.O.S. is performing today in Sälen and tomorrow in Falun.

  Micke has been working with the other members of Gyllene Tider to record songs for the new record. “We’ll see what we get out of it. The single is a summer song – Gyllene Tider is always Gyllene Tider – but if we get more songs done, maybe it will sound a little different,” he says. Asked why he’s in Sälen instead of Halmstad, he comments “We haven’t played together for eight years, but it took us two minutes to get back to work. The studio work is very relaxed.”

• Mora Tidning article (in Swedish)

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.