In an interview published in today’s Expressen, Jonas Åkerlund reveals that he will be the man behind the cover design for “Room Service.”

  Åkerlund goes on to say that the new U2 project he is working on will be done in a similar style to his Roxette “Run to You” video.

  Believing that he has too many commitments right now, Åkerlund has backed out of directing a new Britney Spears video that had been on his production schedule.

• Expressen article

If nothing else, this will be one of the most expensive Roxette music videos ever made. With a budget over $520,000 dollars, most of the footage for the soon-to-be-released “Center of the Heart” video was shot at a unique, ecclecticly-decorated hotel on the California coast. Director Jonas Åkerlund, who has done nine Roxette videos, is now busy working with a post-production house on the editing of the film.

  Roxette, along with Åkerlund and his film crew, took over a good portion of the Madonna Inn (named after the family that owns the property) located in San Luis Obispo, a town situated on the Pacific Coast Highway in California, almost exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  The Roxette entourage and film crew rented 48 of the guest rooms in the resort hotel, a popular destination for honeymooners. Each of the Inn’s 109 rooms is uniquely decorated with a special theme and color scheme – some of them with showers constructed with rocks to resemble a waterfall.

  EMI Sweden, anxious to encourage positive press coverage – especially in Sweden where interest is high – invited reporters from two of Sweden’s tabloids to the hotel. Both Aftonbladet and Expressen have featured coverage of the video shoot in their Entertainment sections.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Magnus Sundholm, Aftonbladet’s reporter/photographer, incorrectly refers to the inn as a “porno hotel.” Having stayed at this property myself, I can only surmise that Sundholm’s impression of the décor in some of the rooms was that of a bordello. That some of the rooms feature “unusual” themes is an understatement, as you’ll see if you take the “tour” offered in the link below. Pictured here is of the luxurious Austrian Suite, where some of the filming was done. Photo ©1992 by Phyllis Madonna, used with permission. – LEO

• Madonna Inn (tour their rooms online)
• Aftonbladet story (focuses on Marie beating her own sales record in Sweden)
• Expressen article (includes photos taken during a break in the filming)

Roxette fans in Australia are announcing the first Australian Roxette Fan Meeting for 2001. The meeting will take place at Bondi, Sydney, NSW, Australia on Saturday February 10th. The site chosen is where Roxette filmed parts of their film clip “Vulnerable”.

  For more information, contact Paul Rands at [email protected] or visit their website.

• RoxMeet @ Bondi

With Roxette’s new album, “Room Service”, about to be released… and the first single, “The Center of the Heart”, out even sooner… some fans think the time has come to plan for whats come to be known as a “RoxAttaq” – and they want to do it on a global scale.

 Frederico Leonardo and Judith Seuma have launched Roxattaq.org with the goal of gathering links to the worldwide media (Radio, TV, newspapers) including addresses, phone numbers… all the information possible.

 “We can’t do it all ourselves,” they say. “We need fans from all over the world to step forward and take responsibility for each country’s ’Attaq’ organization.” They’ll set up a “yourcountry.roxattaq.org” domain where each volunteer – or group of volunteers – can put all the information they gather.

 “Sure, a lot of the promotion is up to the record labels,” they told The Daily Roxette, “but we fans want to be involved, and the previous RoxAttaqs – for the most part – have proved helpful.”

 Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Brasil, the United States and Spain are some of the countries already represented.

 For more information about how to start working, go to Roxattaq.org or e-mail Judith and Frederico at [email protected] if you (as an individual or as a group) think you can lead a Roxattaq in your country.

The famous intro of Gyllene Tider hit song “Flickorna på TV2” has been used as a sample in a new Swedish rap song by Trippel Ett. The song, entitled simply “Flickorna,” is the first single from the band’s forthcoming debut album “Svar på tal”.

  The sample from “Flickorna på TV2” was used with Per’s permission. Trippel Ett didn’t contact Per directly, but spoke with his record company.

  “It wasn’t a problem to get the permission,” says Andreas Nordström of Trippel Ett. “But he wanted to hear the song and know what the lyrics are about, so that we weren’t throwing shit on him.”

  Per’s manager, Marie Dimberg, says laughingly in CNN Sverige’s interview that Per is “Halmstad’s biggest hip-hopper” and that Per gave the permission because he thought that the song was good.

  The single is already in radio rotation. The retail single will be in the Swedish shops on January 29th. The album will be released in mid-February.

• Trippel Ett @ FanGlobe.com
• CNN Sverige’s Swedish article

Wearing sparkling green pants and a denim jacket, Marie sang “För dom som älskar” (“For Those Who Love”) last night at the Anti-Racism concert at Globen in Stockholm. Sitting alone – under a solitary spotlight – at a grand piano that had been brought on stage, Marie’s voice was strong, clear, and full of emotion. Before the last notes of the song could fade away, the performance was met with generous applause.

  Even Aftonbladet’s music critic Per Bjurman, who admits that he seldom has very much nice to say about Marie, wrote in his column today that her performance was “especially fine and extremely emotional.”

  Several fans who subscribe to RML reported that they were able to hear Marie’s performance live over the internet. Sveriges Radio (P3) both broadcast and Webcast the gala. A fan in Spain recorded the Webcast (see first comment for the link) and a CD of the gala, including Marie’s song, is being rushed into production.

  (Rodrigo Andrés, Judith Seuma and Sofia Björk contributed to this article.)

• Bjurman’s Aftonbladet column

Billboard Online has a short article on Roxette’s new album. They don’t have very much more to say than EMI’s press release had, but Billboard does tell that the album “is scheduled for a worldwide release on April 2, and in the U.S. the following day via Edel Records.”

• Billboard’s article

Did somebody call for “Room Service”?

  Roxette’s new album will be entitled “Room Service” and, according to a press release issued today by EMI Svenska, will be in “record stores of the world” on April 2, 2001.

  EMI reports that Per and Marie are currently checking out of Polar Studios in Stockholm where they recorded their new tracks, and checking in at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London for mastering the album.

  The lead single will be “The Center of the Heart (Is a Suburb to the Brain)” with airplay scheduled to start on February 19th. The retail single will be released exactly a month later, on March 19th.

  “The Center of the Heart”, along with other songs that may appear on “Room Service,” were registered with BMI as early as last November.

  The video for this first single, as we reported earlier, will be shot in Los Angeles on January 22 and directed by Jonas Åkerlund.

Roxette.org is soon officially re-launching their Roxette fan directory, Roxer Friends. On the site, fans can search for other fans’ contact information, such as email addresses, web sites and instant messenger nicknames. You can also instantly see if an ICQ user is online or not. The directory is open for all fans around the world.

• Roxer Friends

Today, January 12, is Per’s 42nd birthday. Per-Håkan Gessle was born on this day in 1959 in Halmstad, Southern Sweden. The Daily Roxette wishes him happy birthday!

  You can send your birthday messages to [email protected]. Official Roxette Fanclub has promised to forward all messages to Per.

  Today was a special day also for the re-launched “Gessle Girls” site which, naturally, is dedicated to Per. Go and visit their new site!

NEW YORK - “Always the Last to Know,” “Being With You,” “Only When I Dream,” and “Ghost in the House” are some of the songs that have been written by Per Gessle, apparently for the forthcoming album (“FA”). They are listed on BMI’s website.

  BMI, based here in the Big Apple, is the American performing rights organization which represents more than 250,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers - including Per and Marie - has a feature on their website called “HyperRepertoire” that gives access to the song title registration information contained in the BMI repertoire, including foreign works registered with BMI for performance in the United States.

  A search for songs by Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson turns up a number of songs that have only recently been registered. A call to BMI today confirmed that most of these “new” songs were registered in November. They are, apparently, contenders for the 14 or so tracks that will appear on “FA”. Other new Gessle songs include “Holiday,” “Little Miss Sorrow,” “Loud Clothes,” “Makin’ Love to You,” “Run to Me,” “Turn of the Tide,” and “The Center of the Heart (is a suburb to the brain).”

  Marie’s possible contributions include “All I Ever Wanted,” “Bad Moon,” “Do You Wanna Go With Me?,” “New World,” and “Remember.”

  BMI collects license fees (from radio stations, for example), and then distributes royalties to the writers and copyright holders it represents.

  Per told The Daily Roxette, during an interview in Boston just after MixFest, that between Marie and himself, they had come up with more than enough songs for FA. “From these, we’ll select the songs that fit together best,” he said. “The guitars will be back,” he continued, “and we think all the fans will be pleased.” He indicated that if a song didn’t make it onto the album, that that didn’t mean it wasn’t a “good song,” but often meant only that they didn’t think it worked that well with the other songs. In fact, he said, they have the idea to release some sort of cross between “Tourism” and “Rarities” that would include many of the songs that didn’t make it onto “HAND” - or wouldn’t make it onto “FA”.

  We asked Per if there will be a song on “FA” that has a good chance of becoming a #1 song on the Billboard chart here in the States. “Absolutely,” he replied quickly, “there’s several of them actually.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: A tip of the hat to Károly Bérci and Chris Oriet for their help in developing this article. The photo is of Per onstage during MixFest in Boston. - LEO

• BMI

During the past two days, someone uploaded a song on Napster, incorrectly identifying it as Roxette’s new single. The song’s title, “Alone”, was taken from an Aftonbladet article that was recently mentioned on TDR. The article included a list of Roxette videos directed by Jonas Åkerlund, and it contained a song entitled “Alone”.

  The real Roxette track has not yet been revealed, not even its title. The track, being spread with Roxette’s name attached, is actually “Alone” by Heart, a band that Roxette has been often compared to. In the “Don’t Bore Us - Get To The Chorus!” liner notes, Per says: “When [Listen To Your Heart] hit big in the States we suddenly found ourselves lumped together with bands like Heart and Starship, which wasn’t the intention behind Roxette at all. But we got out of that one…I hope.”

A while ago, TDR reported of unexpected broadcast of a Finnish Roxette documentary, “Roxette past and present”, on TV channel Nelonen. The 10-minute documentary was actually part 1 of 2 of a longer documentary used as a filler between programmes, and Nelonen had no intentions to show the second part at all. Now it seems that as unexpectedly as the first part was shown, they are showing the second part today at 19.05 EET (UTC+2). (Thanks to Mari!)

• Nelonen

Aftonbladet published an article today about Swedish music video director Jonas Åkerlund who will be directing Britney Spears’ new video later this month. But before that, on January 17th, he is going to fly Los Angeles to shoot the video for Roxette’s new single.

  The single will be sent to radio stations at the end of February. EMI Finland confirms this, saying also that the retail version will be in the shops at the beginning of March.

  Åkerlund says in Aftonbladet that there are three possible tracks to be the lead single at the moment. “I’m working on ideas for each of them at the same time,” he said.

  According to EMI Finland, it’s “very much possible” that the release date for the album will be April 20th, even though EMI Svenska has already denied it. EMI Finland doesn’t have any exact dates at the moment, but according to them, the album “should be released in April”.

  Neither Aftonbladet nor EMI Finland give any titles at the moment. Aftonbladet, however, lists a Roxette video called “Alone” that was directed by Åkerlund. The list is not very accurate though, as it contains obvious errors such as Roxette videos entitled “Whale” and “Pay For Me”. Actually, Whale is a Swedish band for which Åkerlund has directed the “Pay For Me” video.

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article

NEW YORK - (Updated) Retro Rewind, a syndicated radio show hosted by Dave Harris (pictured at left between Per and Marie), is featuring Roxette as their Artist-of-the-Month. The program can be heard live, online, every Saturday night at 7pm EST (New York time), on WDAQ via a link on the programs’s site. The Roxette portions have also been made available online via a link on their site.

  Dave chatted one-on-one with Roxette when they were here in New York during the recent promo tour. The programs this month will feature Dave’s interview with Roxette and portions of the September 27th performance at Virgin Megastore in Times Square.

  Dave’s written for top-rated syndicated radio shows and created the Retro Rewind program several years ago. A regular reader of The Daily Roxette, he recently worked as the manager of the 80s group The Outfield and also assists VH-1 in locating many stars from the past for their popular show “Where Are They Now?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this article was first published, Retro Rewind reports that they have received numerous e-mail messages from our international readers expressing interest (but unable to be online at the specified time). “By popular demand,” they now have their entire Roxette interview online and available either to download or listen to in streaming audio. “Because of all the e-mails from Roxette fans from around the world,” Dave told TDR, “fans dying to hear the interviews and performances from the NYC event, we’ve posted them in partnership with MP3.com. That way fans can listen and download some of these nuggets in crystal-clear MP3. We’re also selling the interview to help raise money for the many charities we support. This is the first time we’ve released an interview to the public before all the parts have had a chance to air. The response has been overwhelming!”- LEO

• Retro Rewind (weekly syndicated radio show)
• Interview and performance files (proceeds go to charity)

Peter Mills reported on the Roxette Mailing List that EMI Spain had revealed him the release date for Roxette’s forthcoming album. According to EMI Spain, the official release date will be April 20 with the lead single released a month before that.

  Now EMI Svenska, the record company’s branch in Roxette’s homeland Sweden, says through Official Roxette Fanclub that the album definitely is not going to be released on that day. They don’t, however, give any further details.

  It may very well be that there is no fixed release date yet. As we know, Roxette is just finishing the recordings and it’s still a long way to the actual release.

Napster, the controversial MP3-sharing community, has announced that it has formed an alliance with German-based record company Edel Music AG, one of the world’s largest independent music labels. As we all well know, Roxette signed a contract with Edel’s US label, Edel America Records (EAR), last year.

  Edel said on Tuesday “it will allow master recordings and musical compositions it owns or controls to be used for file sharing under the new service Napster is developing”.

  Edel is the second record company to sign a deal with Napster. Bertelsmann AG, another Germany-based record company, formed an alliance with Napster in October. Back then, Bertelsmann said it would drop its lawsuit against Napster once they were offered a secure, fee-charging service.

• Napster
• Edel Music

Aftonbladet has nominated Marie as the queen of pop music in the year 2000 for selling the most records in Sweden last year. Marie’s greatest hits compilation, released last spring, has so far sold over 250,000 copies.

Number 2 in the charts were The Beatles with their greatest hits album “1” (215,000 copies) and third was Magnus Uggla and his latest album “Där jag är é re alltid bäst” (206,000 copies). (Thanks to lerina74)

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article