SYDNEY (Updated) - The good news is that the very popular music channel “Music MAX” has finally dedicated air time to Roxette with this morning’s “Superstar Top 20: Roxette” special. The program counted down their 20 biggest videos including the new release “She’s Got Nothing On (But the Radio)” coming in at #15. Also, in a first time ever for Australian TV, Music MAX played the videos to some of Roxette’s more obscure songs including 1986’s “Soul Deep”, 1995’s “She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and 2001’s “Real Sugar” (neither of which were ever officially released here as singles!)

Meanwhile, some less than positive news with regards to the new album Charm School with one of the nation’s biggest newspapers giving it “one star” out of five. The Sunday Telegraph review would go on to say "…the warning bell rings loud and clear with the first single ‘She’s Got Nothing On’. If old cheese is your preferred taste, then enjoy the retro feast…”

At the very least it lets the Australian market know that a new Roxette CD is available… despite the negative review.

Update:  Charm School is featured in the "New & noteworthy" section of the Australian iTunes store. (Like the single back in January.) Probably as a result of this the album is hovering around the top 40 mark which is nice. The deluxe version & the Hits are also in the top 200.

Hotblooded contributed to this article.

In the first weekend of its release, Charm School managed to reach the upper regions of the iTunes Album charts in Europe. The new album made it to the Top 10 in not less than 11 countries. Besides that, even A Collection Of Their 20 Greatest Hits! pops up in the charts in Germany (at #10) and Austria (at #8).  By anyone's standards, this appears to be a great comeback! Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Two Swedish house music DJ/remixers, Adam Rickfors and Adrian Lux – both of them based in Stockholm – were commissioned to create remix versions of "She's Got Nothing On (But the Radio)" for Roxette and EMI Sweden.  Despite the fact that both of them are relatively young, their individual careers are well-established. They each have contracts with major electronic dance music record labels.

Sources tell The Daily Roxette that the remix EP, which will be released very soon, will have five tracks with Lux contributing two (the "original" at just over 5½ minutes and an edited "radio" version that's under three) and Rickfors' three tracks (the full "dub" version running 7¼ minutes and both a "power edit" and a "radio" edit that are each about  3½ minutes long).  

Rickfors and Lux were both given access to the master vocal and instrumental tracks, as is almost always the case with an "official" remix. The main reason the remixes were commissioned, as most of our readers already understand, is that a good remix – and our inside source assures us that these are indeed good – extends the viability of a single and serve as a form of promotion for both the single and the album and – in this case – a tour as well.

COPENHAGEN - Roxette is getting nice promo for the new album next week on the Danish radio channel P4. The channel has selected Charm School as the "album-of-the-week" next week.

P4 is among of the biggest radio stations in Denmark with the entire country as listeners.

P4 will airplay several tracks from the album next week - for instance "Way Out", "Speak To Me", "Dream On", "In My Own Way" and "After All", besides the first single, "Radio," off the album.

Submitted by Anders Falck Tindborg.

Here it is - the traditional Daily Roxette team album review! Lars-Erik, Thomas, Judith, Colin & Paul gathered in the virtual TDR newsroom to write up this special review on Roxette’s brand-new album!

It’s been a long, long time (It’s been a while and lots of miles…) coming but here we are… a brand new studio album from Roxette. Years of speculation on Roxette’s future have ended with the release of Charm School and the upcoming World Tour.  As for the album itself, it has so many trademark Roxette sounds, yet is totally new and it feels great to have real instruments again on some of the songs. Most fans we're sure will love it, but obviously there will always be some who won’t.  Our review is quite lengthy, but it’s been 10 years since we've had a chance to do one of these. Anyway, song by song review time:

“WAY OUT”

Colin: A Roxette album that starts with a mouth harp - that must be a first! The first verse really has that Aerosol Grey Machine studio sound and then at the catchy chorus the heavier guitars kick in. The song has a really positive vibe to it and to me it feels like a sequel to “June Afternoon” – awesome!
Thomas: “We will we will rock you!” drums. Love those guitars. And it must be Per playing that first weee-wah-wah-wah-wa after the first chorus! They also used a mouth harp in “I Remember You” if you remember.
Colin: Oh I do remember! That was my first Roxette song - loved it!
Paul: This song reminds me more of “Stupid” from The World According To Gessle. The drum beat is very similar indeed.
Lars-Erik: You know you’re right! I thought this had a familiar sound to it and that was it!
Paul: Not a typical Rox-album-opener really. I was expecting something along the lines of “Crush On You” or “Real Sugar”, so this came as a surprise… a nice surprise. The song, as with a few others on the album, is too short though.  A Marie middle-8 would have fixed that problem Mr G!
Thomas: 2.46?? That’s barely longer than “Här kommer alla känslorna”.
Judith: Now that you mention this song, I keep having this one in mind when I listen to some of the tracks on this album. It must be the happy mood. This album has a lot of the Roxette sound we know, but yet we get to hear some new sounds we never heard with Roxette before. This is one example. Great guitars and opener! I am glad that Per realized he can use and experiment with his voice a lot more than he used to! I must say both sing wonderfully on this album. I think this is a wonderful album so you won’t get much negative points from my side, I am afraid. The only one is that the album is too short! I want more!! 2-3 more songs would have done it.
Thomas: Yes, what else is there to add? This is one of my favorites as well, maybe even “The Favorite” and I had hoped the whole album had been a bit more like this song.
Colin: Definitely one of my favorites too, after listening to the albums a few times this is the chorus that really keeps hanging around in my head!
Lars-Erik: Nobody’s mentioned the ending… I really like it! I think the distorted guitar there is cool!
Thomas: Yes we did! We all felt it came way too soon!

Read more…

MONTREAL - Roxette's Charm School will finally see the light of day in Canada on March 29, according to EMI Canada's website.  As yet, it is unclear whether the CD release will be the regular or deluxe version, but the vinyl LP will be released the same day - the first vinyl release for Roxette in Canada since Look Sharp! in 1989!  As everywhere, the lead single is "She's Got Nothing On (But the Radio)" which has already aired on Montréal's largest radio station, CKOI.  This is the first major Canadian radio station to play a new Roxette single since "Wish I Could Fly."  Listeners can vote for the song on the daily top 6 at 6 by visiting their website. "Radio" is also getting airplay on KIX 106 in Alberta. Can a Canadian tour date be far behind?!

(Updated) - This weekend Roxette's forthcoming album Charm School leaked from French online store Qobuz which put up snippets of all songs from both CDs. Fans were fast and recorded them. Subsequently the snippets have been removed on EMI's request although the snippets are now all over YouTube and this reporter thinks that EMI is fighting a losing battle. Judging from the circa 30 second long snippets, fans are in for a treat!

Update: (Some different) snippets are now available on iTunes and JPC.

MILAN - Sergio Staffieri, a writer who contributes reviews to the Italian music site Accordo.it, was somehow able to listen to an advance copy of Charm School and has submitted what appears to be one of the very first reviews of Roxette's new album.  Our reporter Paulo Kaltenhauser provides this translation:

By Sergio Staffieri 

Roxette used to be for many years one of the best European pop rock groups, coming from Sweden and placing an epic song like “It Must Have Been Love” into the Pretty Woman soundtrack.

With time, the two (Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle) managed to find a balance and bring out all the components of their own style: the Beatlesian influences, the ballads mostly for female voice, the rock songs (Per Gessle, the main author, has always given space to his beloved instrument, even when he used to sing about loving the “sound of crashing guitars”) and curious pastiches bound more to the eighties both for sound and intention.

Between the early and the mid-nineties they came out with three albums (Joyride, Tourism [which I think is one of the best albums of that period] and Crash! Boom! Bang!) which definitely blessed them, and then – as often happens in these cases – they slowed down and took a break.

Today, ten years after the last album, Charm School is released (EMI). All of the songs are written by Per Gessle and show, it’s unavoidable, some good points together with some attempts  to be (ironically or not, we're not allowed to know) “à la page” or, on the other side, “retro”. There’s always the usual alternation of songs given to his and her voice, their choruses and the mix of the two voices outstanding still today. When Gessle doesn't incline to youthfulness or to pander (some sounds, some episodes like “Only when I Dream,” the electro-funky “She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio), or the closer “Sitting on Top of the World”), he proves once again to be one of the greatest rock assimilators and revisors, with enviable mimetic abilities.

Take as an example the first two songs: “Way Out” sung by him and “No One Makes It On Her Own,” where he looks to a Dylan's America through a George Harrison filter. The first one, starting with an acoustic mood – almost country – turns then more electric, with nice guitar sections. The second one, sung by her, again veined with country and with a piano, features a nice Harrisonian solo. Then there are the classic Roxette songs like “Speak To Me” and “I’m Glad You Called,” which has an acoustic rhythm a bit reminiscent of their classic “Crash! Boom! Bang!” …  the six-eight soul of “In My Own Way” and timeless pop songs like “Dream On,” with its twelve string and harpsicord … and a British-school jewel “After All” that show the true strength  of the duo: songs the stick inside your head and never come out.

LONDON - In a release issued by EMI Music today, confirmation is given that the European launch of Charm School will be on 14 February, while the UK will see a spring launch.

As we approach the release of their first new studio album in a decade, Roxette have just released the video to their new single, "She’s Got Nothing On (But the Radio)".

The European release date for the top-selling Swedish duo’s new album, Charm School, is February 14. In the UK the album and single will be out in the spring.

The official Roxette Facebook site is now live as well which you can check out here.

"Australia is definitely releasing Charm School, both versions of it" says Mark Holland, A&R rep at EMI Australia. "We are definitely putting some promotion into this album," he continues.

Marks also tells this reporter that there will be features in News Ltd Sunday papers, reviews to run in newspapers, women's magazines and the weeklys like Women's Weekly, NW, Who, Grazia etc. News Ltd. is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is the most read newspaper franchise in Australia.

Furthermore the single is being serviced to radio this week, so Mark hopes we'll be hearing it on the waves soon! Charm School is slated for release February 11.

More info will soon be available.