HALMSTAD/HELSINKI - An old friend of Per’s, a member of Gyllene Tider, a co-writer of “Listen To Your Heart”, Mats “MP” Persson is in the spotlight again. He has written a song for the Finnish selection of Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The song, titled “Can’t Stop Loving You”, will be performed by Patrick Linman, a singer-songwriter who wrote the song together with MP. The selection will take place in January 2004.

  “I almost forgot we even sent a song to the contest,” MP told Hallandsposten. MP and Linman met each other at a seminar for people in music business that took place on a ferry traveling from Sweden to Finland. MP was there promoting new artists from Halmstad and Linman was performing as a troubador.

  Because of Finland’s bad result in 2002, the selected song must also go through the all-European semi-final on May 12 to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest final in Istanbul on May 15. However, after bomb attacks in Turkey, there has been talks on moving the final to a safer place in Europe.

  We reported earlier that Per has been invited to write a song for the Swedish selection of Eurovision Song Contest.

• Hallandsposten article (in Swedish)
• Helsingin Sanomat article (in Finnish)
• List of songs on Finnish selection

The long-time producer Clarence Öfwerman, who has worked with Roxette since the very first single, has written the music for this year’s Swedish Christmas calendar TV series. TV’s Christmas calendar is an old annual tradition for children and has a different theme or story each year. This year the series’ name is “Håkan Bråkan” and it will be broadcast every day from December 1 until Christmas Eve on SVT.

  Now it’s two weeks to the premiere and Clarence has all the music ready, at least for the first 16-17 episodes. “In the last episode there will come an aunt from space in a sleigh. I don’t know what music there should be, but I still have a couple of weeks to make up my mind,” he says.

  Making music for TV has been a new world for Clarence. “I’ve just started to realize how many people and how much technology is involved. It was also unbelievably cool to be able to go to Berwaldhallen and play with 40 strings from the Radio Symphony Orchestra.”

  Editor’s note: According to the article, Clarence’s favorite Roxette songs are “It Must Have Been You” and “You’ve Got The Look”. We hope it’s the reporter who has made the mistake.

• Nacka Värmdöposten article (in Swedish)
• SVT’s introduction to “Håkan Bråkan” (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Swedish artists Miio will release their first album, “På vårt sätt” (In our way), soon. The tracklisting reveals that they have made two more covers of Gyllene Tider songs. The CD will include their first single, the Gold Awarded cover of “När vi två blir en” (Aka “Beating Heart”). The other Gyllene Tider covers are “När alla vännerna gått hem” and “Det hjärta som brinner”.

  In addition to Gyllene they have also recorded Tomas Ledin, Orup and Lasse Lindbom Band material, among others.

• CDon

World famous director Jonas Åkerlund, who has directed videos for Roxette, Madonna, Metallica, U2 among many others, will direct a new thriller based on Mo Hayder’s novel “Birdman”. The movie will be shot in L.A. next year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

  No actors are cast yet.

  According to Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, the current #1 song in Greece has a special relation with Per Gessle. The song, “All The Woman You Need”, was written by Finnish songwriters Macke Granberg and Patrick Sarin. They both work for Tom Bone Music - a publishing company owned by Per - and the song was written during a 3-day songwriting session in Per’s hotel last year. Per had invited musicians from different countries to Hotel Tylösand to create music together. “The song was written in the sunshine on the beach,” Macke Granberg says.

  “All The Woman You Need” is performed by Hi-5, the first band in Greece that was formed in the Popstars reality TV show. Their album has sold platinum (50,000 copies) during its first two weeks.

• Ilta-Sanomat article (in Finnish)
• Tom Bone Music
• Hi-5 (in Greek)

NORRKÖPING - In an action together, 1,200 European artists signed a petition to get the EU to lower the value added taxes (VAT) that apply to records, especially in countries like Sweden or Denmark, which have the highest taxes: 25%. In the other countries of the EU the tax is at the lowest about 15%, while, for example, books, newspapers or written music, can be as low as 5%.


  One of the Swedish artists who supports this action is Per Gessle, along with Eva Dahlgren, Uno Svenningsson, Robert Wells and Daniel Lemma. Other artists that can be found in this list are Elton John, Julio Iglesias, Andrea Bocelli and Eros Ramazotti.

• Article in Norrköpings Tidningar

STOCKHOLM - Jonas Åkerlund’s film “Spun,” which includes a Roxette version of Per Gessle’s song “Stupid” in the soundtrack is scheduled to open in Sweden on November 22nd.

  The Daily Roxette was present when the movie premiered at the Las Vegas Film Festival. TDR’s report stated that the Roxette song is not prominently featured in the film. “Spun” was also sreened at the recent Toronto Film Festival.

• Swedish movie site

With big international hits, come the inevitable cover versions… and we’ve learned about a couple of recent covers of Roxette songs.

  Belgian singer Belle Perez (who has Spanish roots) just released her second album entitled “Everything.” Included on the CD is a reggae-influenced cover she did of Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love.”

  “This song has always been my big dream,” Belle commented, “and I knew this would be the perfect cover to do. Though, I had to convince many people before I could record this song. It’s one of my favourites on the album and the first time I heard it I just felt like WOW! It’s not really a slow song but it certainly is a fantastic song!”
  In addition, a thread in TDR’s SmallTalk section pointed out that a contestant on the Spanish version of Popstars also sang this song.

• 30-sec. clip of Belle’s cover version
• Belle’s site (in English)
• Popstars Spain (in Spanish)

An upcoming album from Supersuckers, a Blues-grunge band from Tucson, Arizona is entitled “Must’ve Been Live” – an apparent paraphrasing of Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love.” No other connection seems to exist between the album and Roxette.

• Rolling Stone article

JOHANNESBURG - Three weeks ago, “Centre of the Heart” entered the Coca-Cola Top 40 chart on 5FM in South Africa at position #20. This was the highest new entry for the week, and the presenter commented that it is very seldom that a song enters straight into the Top 20. Last week, it climbed to #15 and this week, it climbed another six positions to #9.

  Interestingly, the station’s website lists the song as “Centre of the Earth.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Obviously, we’re not able to publish an article about how “Centre” - or any other single - is doing on each and every radio station around the world. We’re leaving that to Jim Greulich and the few other individuals who follow chart activity. However, when there’s something exceptional, or when what’s happening at one radio station indicates potential success in an entire country (as is the case here), we’ll publish the story. TDR is happy to have a worldwide “staff” of reporters. Be one of them by using the “Submit Article” button if and when you become aware of any solid news item. - LEO

• Radio station 5FM