UPDATED As we reported earlier, Roxette’s forthcoming “Room Service” tour – reported to feature 33 songs – will premiere in Stuttgart in late September. After touring in Southern and Central Europe, Roxette will visit Russia, Estonia, Finland and their home country Sweden in November. The last concert - at least so far - will be in Gothenburg on November 17th.

  Roxette ended their last world tour in Moscow in May 1995. Exactly six years later, Per and Marie have been in Germany to announce that they will embark on a European tour later this year. With a dozen tour dates in Germany, it made sense for them to announce the tour there, in order to generate coverage in the German press.

  Read the full article for tour schedule and Per and Marie’s comments.

  Photo of fans enjoying Marie’s concert last summer in Stockholm by Lars-Erik Olson.

  UPDATE - We have now added links to sites offering tickets to Swedish concerts and some of the German concerts. Read more…

Roxette performed on the final episode of the Norwegian “Big Brother” show. “Big Brother” has become a great success in Norway, and the show was most likely seen by thousands of viewers.

• Big Brother site (In Norwegian)

In today’s Aftonbladet, Per is quoted as saying that the tour might be extended to include additional countries should it prove to be successful.

  “There is the possibility to continue the tour in other countries in Europe in December and after the new year perhaps they’ll be more countries,” Per said.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

Billboard.com published a story today (see “article continues” for full text) in which they talk about the upcoming European tour and – erroneously – report that Edel America is “due to release ’Room Service’ sometime this year.”

(Puls contributed to this story.)

• Billboard.com’s Article

Read more…

“The Centre Of The Heart” is #1 in Uruguay after 12 weeks in the charts. Roxette is # 1 on four radio charts:
Energy FM 106.7 (2 weeks); La Costa FM 88.3 (1 week);
Diamante FM 98.7 (3 weeks); and Del Plata FM 95.5 (1 week).

  Roxette is at #2 on two other stations: Radiocero FM 104.3 and X-FM 100.3.

  Actually, Roxette is at this very moment in the top 10 of 11 radio charts and on the internet web page terra.com.uy TCOTH is at #4.

  “The Centre Of The Heart” is Roxette’s most played song since “Sleeping in my Car” in 1994! It was at that time that fans in Montevideo formed the ’Time to Rox’ fanclub.

Per recently bought a new Ferrari, this time a Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina for about 2-3,000,000 SEK.

  This car is extremely limited and you have to fulfill certain criteria to be able to buy one. Ferrari demands that you own at least two Ferraris already, or a classic F1 car. Per doesn’t. But when Torbjörn von Braun at
Ferrari Sweden talked to Ferrari Italy, he explained to them who Per is and how he would qualify as an owner of this car, so he was added to the list.

  “A Ferrari is probably one of the best investments you can do”, Torbjörn states.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

KOBLENZ - Per and Marie held two press conferences in Germany on Monday (one in Munich, the other in Dortmund), announcing that the premiere concert of their upcoming “Room Service” tour will take place in Stuttgart on September 25th, the first of 12 concerts planned for Germany.

  According to reports in the German press, Swedish stars Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle announced a show that will include numerous “world-wide #1 hits.”

  Roxette wants to celebrate with 33 new and old chart-toppers such as “The Centre of the Heart,” “Sleeping in My Car,” and “Fireworks.”

  “We missed the feeling of being with thousands of fans singing on the stage,” said Gessle and he added, jokingly, that he has a very “expensive woman” and must finally raise cash again.

  Fredriksson, addressing the question “Why is Roxette starting its world tour in Germany, answered: “Germany is one of our largest markets. We have so many fans here, and we like the country.”
  Some of the other questions reporters asked included: “How do you keep yourselves fit?” - “Sleep alot, from time to time go to parties,” answered Per. “Why do you look so young, Marie?” - “That’s only make-up”, she said. “How do you spend your money?” - “I have five autos”, said Per. “And your wife?” Gessle laughs. “She drives a bicycle.”

  For the fans, a “Best of…” tour waits, with songs from Roxette’s 15-year career. Besides the new songs, “it’s really fun to play the old songs also” confessed Gessle. “We must absolutely play ’It Must Have Been Love’, for example.”

(TDR Reporter: Tina Engmann. Westfaelische-Rundschau photo: Althoff; used with permission.)

• Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s article (All links in German)
• WR’s article
• Nachrichten’s article

Read more…

NEW YORK - Recording industry trade magazine Billboard published a front page article in last week’s edition in which they wrote about the current state of pop music in Sweden - with the focus being on music exports - and stated that there were no obvious candidates ready to follow in the footsteps of ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base, and the Cardigans.

  Artists mentioned as having potential included Infinite Mass, Daniel Lemma, Backyard Babies, Lisa Miskovsky, Nina Persson and Titiyo.

  Billboard’s story was picked up in today’s issue of the Swedish newspaper Expressen.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Check back later for a more complete version of this story.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish - with photo montage)
• Billboard (not a direct link to an article)

At last Russian fans knew the day of Roxette’s coming to Russia. It is November 7th and 8th, 2001.

  In St. Petersburg, they will perform at the new Ice Palace. Built two years ago for the World Hockey Championship, it is one of the largest and best concert stages in Europe. Read more…

EDITORIAL – We’re about to see the “Room Service” tour formally announced this upcoming week. With tickets already on sale for certain venues, and Per himself disclosing the Austrian dates, the fact that Roxette is indeed going on tour has been a badly kept secret. The Daily Roxette has, however, decided to hold off publishing further detail about the tour on our Front Page until the actual announcement. Until then, readers who “just can’t wait” will find rumors and factoids in our SmallTalk forum.

  In thinking about this tour, we wonder whether Marie would have toured Sweden last summer if there hadn’t been an online petition urging her to do so? Maybe so. But at the very least, the petition provided her management with a very good PR “hook” to give reporters to use when they announced the tour. They were able to say, “Marie’s fans are demanding it!” Such a hook played well in the Swedish press, especially in the tabloids.

  There was risk-taking involved in getting the trucks rolling for a “Room Service” tour. Obviously, there were many other factors that weighed more heavily than whether a core group of fans would enjoy seeing Roxette on tour again. This tour has to attract thousands upon thousands of people – people who would not necessarily consider themselves to be “fans.” Many others had to “buy in” to the idea of a tour besides Per and Marie, as the financial risks of a concert tour like this are high (as are, of course, the potential rewards).

  We know that Per skimmed through the petition that Sofia Björk and Judith Seuma created online and read some of the comments. Now that he, Marie, and all the other vested parties have decided to mount a tour… they’ll once again be able to point to the demand from fans… as part of the “hoopla” needed when the tour is announced. TDR appreciates the involvement of our readers, most of whom took the time to “sign” this petition. We think it was a worthwhile endeavor, and like the way that fans come together to support “causes” like this.

  While it may be a little geographically spotty, one only has to look at other articles on our Front Page to see that Roxette has other plenty of other successes to point to when announcing the tour. The Daily Roxette wishes them well, and looks forward to providing our readers with full coverage of the entire “Room Service” tour.

“The Centre of the Heart” is this week #1 on the 40 Principales chart, the best-known Spanish radio station. The song was #3 last week and entered the list at #7 a few weeks ago. Over 3 million people listen to 40 Principales a day.

• 40 Principales “Lista 40”

SAINT PETERSBURG - Roxette’s “Centre of the Heart” reached the top spot this week (#5 last week) on ’Europa Plus’, Russia’s most popular FM station. According to the station’s statistics, over 16,000,000 people listen to this station every day.

  The station’s DJs were predicting that TCOTH would reach #1 back around April 15th when it was at #19.
(Junkie contributed to this article.)

• Europa Plus’ Chart (In Russian)

“The Centre Of The Heart” is #5 on the Radio Express World Chart as of May 26th. The chart is based on the playlists of about 365 radio stations from all over the world.

  After two previous weeks at #6, it was expected to drop, but TCOTH picked up airplay to move up a notch into the top five.

• World Chart

The Netherlands, home to the individuals who run Roxette’s International Fan Club, is being passed over on the upcoming tour. The OIRFC is reporting today that a spokesperson at EMI Netherlands has told them that Roxette will not have a “Room Service” concert date in Holland. They also will not be releasing “Real Sugar” as a single, deciding to wait for “Milk and Toast and Honey.”

• OIRFC

Roxette will have their first live concert in Estonia on November 10th, two days before traveling 80 kilometers north to Helsinki. The concert will be one of the first to take place in Tallinn’s brand new sports and concert complex, the Saku Suurhall, which is in its final stages of construction.

  The Daily Roxette will have a comprehensive list of concert dates for the forthcoming European tour on Tuesday. The dates revealed so far are:

Oct 22 Brussels, Belgium, Forest National

Nov 1 Innsbruck, Austria

Nov 2 Vienna, Austria

Nov 10 Tallinn, Estonia, Saku Suurhall

Nov 12 Helsinki, Finland, Hartwall Areena

• Tickets (in Estonian)
• Tickets (in Latvian)

Usually, it works the other way around.

  But, in today’s edition of the Swedish newspaper Expressen, there’s an article in which they cite this “net newspaper” – The Daily Roxette – as their information source!

  The article, written by Olle Berggren, talks about the upcoming tour and Roxette’s probable visit to Brazil.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - “Roxette has changed style. In the new video “Real Sugar” they’re both tougher and funnier than before,” reports Aftonbladet in today’s edition.

  The Daily Roxette reported in a previous article that the video features Muppet-like puppets that look like the Ramones. They are the house band on “Dick Latka’s Late Night Show,” a classic American-style talk show where all are puppets except for Per and Marie.

 “The video is supercool. Warm, rough and tough,” says Per. “We’ve never done anything like it, and it was really cool to play with the Ramones,” he said with a laugh.

  “After 39 singles, it’s not that easy to have fresh ideas… but I think we’ve done it. This is one of our best videos,” Gessle stated.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Aftonbladet has updated their article to include both RealVideo and Quicktime versions of the full-length video. Caricatures’s of David Letterman (initials D.L.), host of the “Late Show” on CBS, always emphasize his big teeth. Seems director Jesper Hiro had Letterman in mind when creating Dick Latka (initials D.L.).

• Aftonbladet’s updated article INCLUDING VIDEO links

Roxette is not starting their European tour in Helsinki, as they’ve done on all of their major tours so far. Instead, the tour will start in Germany in September.

  Roxette’s Helsinki concert will take place at Hartwall Areena on November 12th. According to Welldone, the company organizing the concert, the doors will open at 6:30 pm and the concert begins at 8pm.

  Ticket sales will start on May 29th at 9am. Advance sales for members of Welldone Events Club has already started. The price of tickets ranges from 225 FIM to 245 FIM.

• Welldone press release (in Finnish)

Per and Marie’s current album “Room Service” reached Gold in Germany after six weeks! The album sold more than 150,000 copies even though it stayed “only” one month in the top 10 with a peak at #3.

TDR BREAKING STORY – Without even a press release – let alone a press conference – to formally announce that a tour is planned, tickets for certain venues of Roxette’s upcoming “Room Service” tour have already gone on sale!

 As first reported in The Daily Roxette weeks ago, Roxette and EMA Telstar have decided to mount a European tour. Dates and venues for the autumn tour are being added – Per has said that the rest of the dates are 99 percent in place – and it is expected that a formal announcement will be forthcoming Tuesday, probably at a press conference in Stockholm.

  TDR learned today (see story above) that the tour will begin in Germany in late September and that the concert date for Helsinki will be November 12th.

  Last week, during an online chat session in Austria, Roxette announced these two dates: November 1, Innsbruck and November 2, Vienna.

  Yesterday, tickets went on sale for an October 22nd performance in Brussels at the circular-shaped Forest National concert venue. The general admission tickets cost about $35 USD with fees included.

  The “Room Service” tour will take Per, Marie and the band to most of Europe’s major cities.

EDITOR’S NOTE: TDR will, of course, publish additional tour particulars as soon as they become available (Peter Aspeslagh and Visa Kopu contributed to this article).

• Brussels tickets
• Vienna info

As previously reported, “Milk and Toast and Honey” is included in the soundtrack of a Brazilian soap opera. The song was played for the first time on Saturday’s episode (May 19). The soundtrack CD goes on sale May 25th and is available for pre-order in a few “virtual stores” such as Som Livre.

Along with the Roxette song, the CD also features tracks by Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, Dido, REM, Eric Clapton and others.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Roxette and EMI are contemplating a June promotional appearance by Per and Marie in Brazil, but a final decision has yet to be reached. “Milk and Toast and Honey” is getting a LOT of airplay on Brazilian radio stations, and has even reached #1 on some charts!

  Ronaldo Mouro, who maintains the ’Pop Brasil Top 100’ airplay chart, tells The Daily Roxette that the reason M&T&H reached the top of the chart so quickly is that it’s being played in all parts of the country and that people still remember the other successes of Roxette in Brazil. “They have thousands of fans in all the cantos of the country,” he said. “In Brazil, Roxette is known and respected in the same way as ABBA, a-ha, Madonna, and Michael Jackson.”

• Som Livre (Internet retailer)
• Brazilian airplay chart (Roxette at #1 for third week)

In the TV guide of last Thursday’s Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda there was a short note on Roxette’s then forthcoming performance at Bingolotto. It said “After the massive critisizm of Roxette’s last boring playback performance on the Swedish music festival, we’ll see if they will finally do a live one.”

  The thing is, that no one ever plays live at Bingolotto! In this reporter’s opinion, Roxette doesn’t perform using playback more than anyone else!

• Newspaper site

Roxette will be performing live on Swedish TV show Bingolotto next Saturday. The show is broadcasted on TV4 at 7pm CET (UTC+1). Bingolotto is a Swedish competition where you can win money, cars, holidays and many other things. The show is hosted by Lasse Kronér.

• Bingolotto

Per, together with ex-ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, has become a shareholder in Swedish company NoteHeads AB. Björn Ulvaeus and Per Gessle are also joining NoteHeads’ Advisory Board.

  NoteHeads is developing an “Internet-oriented music publishing software”. Their purpose is to transfer sheet music from paper to digital format, thus enabling easier access to sheet music.

• NoteHeads.com

When Per, answering a question from The Daily Roxette, said that the “Real Sugar” video would feature puppets, many of our readers weren’t quite sure what to make of that. The concept could either be really great… or just plain stupid.

  “We’re using puppets,” Per told our Visa Kopu at a press conference in Helsinki. “Marie and I are the only real people in the video. We have a puppet band looking like The Ramones. The video starts with two puppets watching ’The Centre Of The Heart’ video on TV.”

  We’re pleased to report that director Jesper Hiro’s concept worked out well, as you can perhaps see for yourself in the publicity photo below obtained from EMI Sweden.

“Stars 2001 - The Popkomm.Gala” on August 15th marks the official start of the European trade show for Pop Music and Entertainment that takes place in Cologne from August 16 - 18.

  Acts besides Roxette confirmed to appear on stage at the Cologne Arena include Anastacia, Echt, Kylie Minogue, No Angels in a duet with Hear’Say, Ronan Keating, and Die Söhne Mannheims.

  The large-scale show is being produced for the first time in cooperation with the German SAT.1 channel and VIVA music TV. The show will be transmitted on Friday, August 17, during prime time at 8:15 p.m. on SAT.1.

• Popkomm (Click on popkomm. 2001 > English > News)

As of May 9th, Roxette climbed two spots from #14 to #12 on the MTV European Top20 chart with “The Centre of the Heart.” Is there enough momentum for them to rise even higher next week?

STOCKHOLM - According to STIM, the people in Sweden who made the most money on their music in 2000 were Max Martin, Per Gessle and Benny Andersson, the “Swedish pop music giants.”

  In total, STIM paid 910 million SEK ($91 million USD) to Swedish and foreign composers and publishers, which was an increase of 11% compared to 1999. 2000 was also the first year ever that fees for Swedish music played abroad exceeded fees for foreign music played in Sweden.

NEW YORK - TDR reader Michael Braatz thought it would be a good idea to write to Billboard columnist Fred Bronson and ask about Roxette and the U.S. record deal (or lack thereof).

  Bronson, whose column is read by many in the music industry, has published the question and his answer in the online version of ChartBeat, and will probably include it in the print version this Friday.

  Fred, who along with his “on-air” partner Chuck Taylor are both honorary members of RoxNorthAmeriFANS, have played “The Centre of the Heart” twice on Billboard Radio. Once as their “Pick to Click,” and once when it became the #1 single in Sweden.

  “Wish I Could Fly” was also a Billboard Radio “Pick to Click” at the time that edel America started to promote it as an on-air single here in the U.S. Referring to Roxette, Taylor said “We love ’em around here.”

• Billboard ChartBeat

Read more…

EMI Svenska has revealed the track listing for the “Real Sugar” single and maxi-single. The single won’t be released in early May as previously stated, but on June 18th.

 

Single (8793642)

1. Real Sugar
   
2. It Will Take A Long Long Time (Modern Rock Version)
   

Maxi single (8793650)

1. Real Sugar
   
2. It Will Take A Long Long Time (Modern Rock Version)
   
3. I Was So Lucky (The Golden Blow)
   
4. Enhanced video The Centre Of The Heart
   

The video for “Real Sugar” has already been shot and was directed by Jesper Hiro.

  Both Per and Marie were interviewed by quick-witted journalist Patricia Godes for the May, Spanish edition of the legendary rock magazine Rolling Stone. As this monthly publication does not have a website yet (although it has been around for 19 months already!), Roxette fans outside Spain will be pleased to read this translation of the interview:

  “They sell millions of records and earn millions of dollars, but they don’t have terrible pasts, emotional dramas or problems with drugs to speak of. Per and Marie, the members of the megapopular Roxette, spend most of their spare time sleeping instead of throwing TV sets through the window, experimenting with drugs or beating sexual prowess world records, as all big stars should do.

  Anyway, as we just can’t absorb the fact that some people don’t take advantage of their fame to indulge in the sort of debauchery we’d love to, we just maliciously try to make them talk.
Read more…

NEW YORK - Somewhat ironically, the talk of a possible return by Roxette to the American music scene comes almost exactly ten years after the group scored with its highest-ranking US album - “Joyride.” The album peaked on Billboard’s Album chart at #12 on May 4, 1991 while the “Joyride” single hit #1 during this same month.

  Now, a decade later, Roxette’s name can still be found in the current issue of the magazine, on the Euro (#3) and Scandinavian charts.

A little six-year-old boy will imitate Per Gessle as a solo artist on the TV4 show “Småtjärnorna” (“Small Stars”). Oscar Berander, complete with long blond hair, will compete with the song “Kix.”

  Geared for children 5-12 years old, the show features kids imitating famous musicians and dressing like there favorite stars. The winners of these contests will advance to the final round later this Spring.

  The show airs Friday at 8 pm (20:00 CET).

• TV4 (Search [sˆk] for “smÂstj‰rnorna”)

The days of unrestricted Rox-MP3-sharing over the internet appear to be over. In fact, if you run a search for “Roxette” on Napster, the result will be “No matches found.”

  Napster has stated its intention to filter out all copyrighted material – without regard to artist or record company – from their servers so that users will not be able to view, search or share copyrighted material.

  Some Napster alternatives have already begun to install similar filters while others appear to be on the road to closure.
Read more…

MTV3 will broadcast a special documentary on Roxette next Sunday, May 6th. The 35-minute program will feature clips from Roxette’s recent visit to Helsinki as well as from older interviews. Roxette recorded a live performance when they were in Helsinki and that material will also be used in the documentary. The program starts at 15.05 EET (UTC+2).

Per Gessle has, together with Niklas Strömstedt and Meja, written a song for the dance band BlackJack, reported the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet today.

  “This is our best song we’ve ever recorded,” said lead singer Tony Ljungström.

  The song is called “Sundown” and it will be found on Black Jack’s upcoming album. It is composed by Gessle and Strömstedt. Meja has contributed the Swedish lyrics.

• BlackJack’s website (In Swedish - with RealAudio and MP3 clips)

The planned merger of EMI, the world’s third largest music company, and Bertelsmann’s BMG has been scrapped. The deal was scuttled today in London after it became clear that regulatory hurdles were too high to clear. The merger would have created the world’s largest music company.

  EMI, whose artists include Roxette, Mariah Carey and the Beatles, reportedly would have had to shed various portions of their company before being allowed to acquire BMG. BMG’s artists include David Bowie and Whitney Houston. Read more…