NEW YORK - In a move that undoubtedly will confound people who want to play by the rules, music consumers will be paying twice if they want to listen to their music on their stereo and on their computer. And yes, EMI is involved.

  Today, Universal became the first label to sell copy-protected CDs with the release of its soundtrack “Fast & Furious.” This CD will keep people from listening to their music on a computer or other digital device.

  Essentially, consumers will be required to pay once for a physical CD and once for the digital music file. Fear of piracy cutting into retail sales is the major record labels’ justification for restricting how people can listen to the music they buy. The goal is to keep people from turning individual songs into the MP3 format. Read more…

STOCKHOLM - After counting more than 86,600 votes, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet has announced that Roxette are finalists in the category “Year’s Swedish Group.” Voting now continues to determine who will be announced as the winner at this year’s Rock Bear gala.

The nominees:

Bad Cash Quartet – Romantic pop novelty band from Gothenburg; Bo Kasper’s Orkester – 10-year-anniversary-celebrating, Bossa Nova-scented northerners; Fattaru – Four guys who rap hard as dogs; Lambretta – Quintet who got help from Max Martin and ended up high on the “Tracks” list; and
Roxette – Veterans who have already won six Rock Bears.

• Aftonbladet’s Rock Bear Awards (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - According to a report in Expressen, a Swedish tabloid newspaper, Marie suddenly refused to perform in a charity gala for the homeless. Marie had promised to appear in the gala several months ago, but at the last minute her manager, Marie Dimberg, told the organizers that she wouldn’t be there if Carola was performing.

  The charity gala “A Song for the Homeless”, for Stadsmissionen (“City Mission”) was held on Tuesday night in Katarina church, Södermalm, Stockholm. It will be broadcast on Swedish TV3 on December 23rd. Because it had already been printed, Marie even made it to the cover of TV3’s magazine, Viasat News.

  When Expressen asked Dimberg about the reasons behind Marie’s sudden refusal, she denied that Marie was refusing to perform on the same bill as Carola. According to Dimberg, they had a disagreement with the organizers about Marie’s musical contribution. “They had one idea and Marie had another,” Dimberg told Expressen and continued: “If you want to do something, you should be able to do it the way you want it, and they wanted to have a different approach.”

  Carola is a Swedish singer with a long and successful career. In 1983, she won Melodifestivalen in Sweden and was third in the Eurovision Song Contest. Since 1981, she has released several albums in both Swedish and English – the latest, “My Show”, in October of this year.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following up on this story, reporter Johan Lindwall filed another story, this time saying that musical and pop star Peter Jöback did the same thing.

  “I understood from their manager that I had to make a choice. Either Marie Fredriksson and Peter Jöback or Carola,” said Bonnie de Souza, talent coordinator for the event. “I chose Carola. For me she’s a bigger artist and more suitable for Christmastime,” she continued.

  Clearly disappointed, she said “I understood from her [Dimberg] that there would be too many stars on the stage at the same time. But when it’s about charity, you’d think you could ignore such things.”

  Manager Marie Dimberg explained why her artists didn’t participate:

  “There was an agreement with TV3 that Marie Fredriksson, Peter Jöback and Lisa Nilsson would appear together. But [then they indicated] they would rather have Carola and so we said ’fine, we’ll do it instead some other time.’”

  “But couldn’t they all have appeared together?,” Lindwall asked.

  “But there was a covenant, an agreement . You’re trying to make this into something that it’s not. I see what you’re after, and it’s sad that it’s going to be this kind of slant.”

  Marie Davis, Thomas Evensson, and others on RML contributed to this article.

• Expressen article
• Carola official website
• Expressen’s follow-up article
• Peter Jˆback’s website

NEW YORK - Billboard columnist Fred Bronson has placed Roxette on his year-ending Best of the Year Top Ten list. Bronson, an admitted fan of Roxette and other Scandinavian pop music acts, ranked Roxette’s “Room Service” as his #7 album of 2001.

  Also placing on Bronson’s year-end chart was ABBA at #4, Danish group the Olsen Brothers “Walk Right Back” at #8.

  What topped Bronson’s list? Roxette’s EMI Sweden labelmates Standfast’s self-titled album.

• Billboard Magazine staff top 10 lists

Per is currently writing songs for a forthcoming Roxette album, revealed Aftonbladet in today’s edition. So far, five or six songs are ready and more are coming. During Christmas, he’s going to record demos in Halmstad and in the spring Marie will join him to record the final versions. “After that, we’ll see. But I hope we would be able to release the album during the next year,” he says.

  Per has planned that Roxette’s tour would continue in the autumn of 2002. “There are places we didn’t visit this year: Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Asia… it’s a big world,” Per says.

  After the tour, Per would like to release a new solo album. “I have so much Swedish material lying around. I haven’t recorded much of it, but there are a lot of songs,” he says. “There will be a day when we choose to take a break from Roxette again. And I miss communicating in Swedish. So, there will certainly be an album.”

  Birgit Eichler contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet article

Happy Family Dog Production, or HFDP, a design company employed by Roxette has opened their own website with a large gallery of their selected works. These works include Room Service Tour poster and Roxette’s new DVD release “All Videos Ever Made And More”, both designed by Karl-Magnus Boske of HFDP. Some people may remember that Karl-Magnus also designed Per’s “The World According To Gessle” solo album’s cover and related material in 1997.

• HFDP Design Group

NEW YORK - It’s unusally warm for the beginning of December. Warm enough so that a large crowd has gathered comfortably here this evening in Strawberry Fields, a section of Central Park devoted to the memory of John Lennon, who was shot to death in 1980 by a deranged fan at the nearby Dakota apartment building.

  In a circle around the “Imagine” mosaic that is embedded in the walkway, people are strumming guitars and singing songs written by Lennon’s friend and fellow Beatle George Harrison, who died in California Thursday after a long battle with cancer.

  Harrison had fans all over the world… including a young boy in Halmstad, Sweden who – like many of his generation – grew up heavily influenced by the music of the Beatles. Second only to Ringo Starr, Harrison was Per Gessle’s favorite Beatle, and in a statement published by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet today, Per had this to say:

  George Harrison played a big part in the fact that I became obsessed with pop music as a seven-year-old. And to be honest, it wasn’t because of the way he played guitar, or even the Beatle’s music. It was the cover picture on the jacket of “Rubber Soul.”

  The tough suède leather jackets. The attitudes. The hairstyles. And for me there was no doubt about it, George was the coolest.

  Since then, I’ve always liked George. His songs stood out on the Beatles albums. He ended up having to stand behind the giants Paul and John the whole time – which was unfortunate. You can hear [his talent] on ”All Things Must Pass” where several of the songs he wrote during the Beatles period, but were never included on albums, are collected. In my opinion, it’s his strongest solo album.

  George was also the man who took the Beatles on their musical journey to India, and introduced them to world music. He was I think the man behind John – sort of the glue that held the Beatles together.

  After the split up, he and John worked together. They were a little like a pair, a team. But I have the feeling that George never really took his own music as seriously as it deserved.

  Maybe he preferred the role of being in the background.

  There are probably not a lot of people who know that he was behind several of the comedy gang Monty Python’s biggest films… “Life of Brian” among others. He financed them. George – there also – but the whole time a step behind John Cleese and the others.

  I never met George, but I have stood outside his gigantic villa in Henley-on-Thames together with Japanese tourists.

  As a fan.

• Per’s comments to Aftonbladet (In Swedish)

Read more…