OSLO (UPDATED) - Per’s successful concert and TV appearances in Norway seem to have paid off. “Mazarin” re-entered the charts last week and climbs from #23 to #6 this week. The album has spent five weeks on the Norwegian charts. This is the highest position a solo album by Per Gessle has reached in Norway so far. Previously, Marie Fredriksson’s greatest hits album, “Äntligen,” also reached #6 in the year 2000.

  In Sweden, “Mazarin” is still at #3. The first single, “Här kommer alla känslorna,” has climbed back to #6 from #7. At the same time, the second single, “På promenad genom stan,” has entered the chart at #20. But that’s not all: there’s also a cover version of the old Gyllene Tider hit “När vi två blir en” by Miio on the Swedish chart at #5.

  Editor’s note: The reason for moving “Mazarin” from #5 to #6 is that the sales of Sting’s new album was miscalculated due to the SACD version being counted by itself. When counted as one Sting overtook Per. TEV

  Bengt Meidell Hjertholm contributed to this article.

• Official Norwegian Topp 40 in VG

HELSINKI - Here’s something very funny and very exclusive for the readers of The Daily Roxette. You know these “jingles” they play on the radio? “This is Per Gessle from Roxette, and you’re listening to Radio Blah Blah.” is a jingle. Besides being annoying, they are often quite hilarious.

  Well, we wanted a jingle of our own, so when we met Per before his concert in Helsinki, we asked him to record one for us. Here you go:


Per’s jingle for The Daily Roxette (MP3, 6 secs, 117 KB)

HELSINKI - The rock club Tavastia in Helsinki, Finland wasn’t completely packed with people, but that made the atmosphere even more enjoyable and intimate for those fortunate enough to be there. About 400 tickets were sold in advance and since the club has the capacity of 700, The Daily Roxette estimates there were around 500 people listening to this last concert of Per’s “Mazarin” summer tour.

  The set list was exactly the same as in Oslo on Tuesday, concentrating on the more rocking songs. Especially “(Hon vill ha) Puls” rocked like it never has before. Rather surprisingly, the audience really warmed up when “Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång” started. It seemed like everyone knew the lyrics and sang along. A similar reaction was only produced with “Sommartider,” which ended the concert.

  Per first looked a bit tired on stage, but was nevertheless in a good mood. Because of the nature of a club concert, the audience was able to shout their comments and requests to him. Unfortunately, the song list had already been decided and Per and his band didn’t play any songs suggested by the audience.

  An excellent gig by excellent musicians, anyway.

  The “Mazarin” album hasn’t been a major success in Finland, having failed to reach the Top 40 chart. However, the songs have been very popular among the Swedish-speaking minority, and it looked like most of the audience were either members of that minority or Roxette fans - or both.

HELSINKI - The Daily Roxette meets a neatly dressed Per Gessle in Hotel Simonkenttä, Helsinki, Finland. He’s wearing jeans, a pink striped shirt and a new, cool necklace. “Thanks, Jonas [Åkerlund] found it in L.A., he finds the best stuff all the time!” Per says proudly. It’s “Sommar-Mazarin” time for Finland and Per is doing a whole stretch of interviews. Although today the weather is far from summer in Helsinki, with eight centigrades and rain. Per is looking a bit exhausted this being his tenth interview for the day. He’s also been on the road almost constantly since Tuesday, he lets TDR know. Tuesday he was in Oslo giving a concert at Rockefeller. The concert was a blast and they all had fun. “There was a huge party afterwards, I’m told,” Per says. He didn’t join, as he felt he wanted to visit his family quickly. Per flew in very early this morning to Helsinki instead.

  Why Helsinki? Per says that it felt empty when the tour ended - uncomplete. There were no more places to play in Sweden. “So we thought about Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen. Copenhagen didn’t work out, but the other two did.” He also mentions that it’s good for the press coverage and good for the local record company branches. “It doesn’t matter to me if it’s a big place or not. The important thing for me is to play. It will be a little bit like the release party gig [in Halmstad], only longer, and better,” Per adds, smiling.

  Per calls this the “shortest world tour ever”. It started in Oslo on Tuesday and now ends in Helsinki. Read more…

HELSINKI - This just in! Per Gessle will be in Hyppönen Enbuske Experience tonight at 21:00 on Nelonen. He will be interviewed by comedienne Krisse Salminen. The TV show is live, but the interview was recorded earlier today. According to our sources, the interview was “very funny.” Because all the Finns are going to Per’s concert at that time, they have to wait until Sunday, when the show is re-run.

  Per has also been interviewed by MTV3. His insert will be broadcast during Huomenta Suomi morning show tomorrow. According to the schedule on their website, it will be on at 8:12.

KALMAR/STOCKHOLM - As previously reported, SVT1 will broadcast the awaited documentary about Per “Per Gessle - Ta en kaka till!” tonight at 20.00 CET.


 Hans Engholm and Anders Karlsson have recorded the documentary and explained to Peter Åhlé, from Oskarhamns Tidningen, about the experience.


 It all started with the release party held in Halmstad on June 10th. Engholm didn’t really think “Mazarin” would become such a hit. “We were asked by EMI and Per’s manager Marie Dimberg to record the release party for the album at Hotell Tylösand,” explains Engholm to Barometern. It was not clear, at that point, what it would be used for.


When the single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” started to be played on the radio and Engholm and Karlsson got to hear the whole album, they understood that it would become something big. “We contacted SVT and asked them if they were interested [in the material], they said ’sounds exciting’, and now it’s on its way. The 30-minute long “Ta en kaka till!” will be on TV tonight.”


 The documentary features an interview with Per at his home, live footage from Slottskogsvallen in Gothenburg (with 22,000 in the audience), rehearsals, and a bus trip through Halmstad. “Our point in the documentary was to describe Per Gessle 2003. There’s no going-backs, no Gyllene Tider or Roxette. The film goes just around ’Mazarin’,” says Engholm.


 The film speaks about Per’s love for Halmstad, for the Swedish language and how much fun he has with music. “Why he does this instead of “sitting in a castle in France counting money,” says Engholm. “Mazarin” was recorded during the winter in Christoffer Lundquist’s studio in Skåne. Then Per worked hard with the camera and the result can also be seen in tonight’s program.


 In addition, their company, Produktionsbolaget, will make the DVD for Mazarin. Both Engholm and Karlsson agree with saying that it is very nice to work with Per, “he is nice, simple, engaged and professional.”

• Article in Barometern.se (in Swedish)

Per Gessle was asked a short comment on Roxette’s future by Aftonbladet. “We are waiting until Marie knows what she wants to do and how she’s coping. But the next thing is that we’ll update the DVD with the latest singles,” Per says.

  Roxette unveiled their first - and so far the only - DVD release in 2001, aptly titled “All Videos Ever Made & More - Roxette The Complete Collection 1987-2001”. The DVD contains the 35 “official” music videos they had released, five previously unreleased video clips and two documentaries.

• Aftonbladet article (in Swedish)

The traditional World Music Awards will be held in Monte Carlo on October 12th. Roxette will receive an award for being the best-selling Scandinavian act of the year 2002. Their only new releases during that year were “The Ballad Hits” compilation and the single “A Thing About You”, but Roxette still beat other artists by selling over one million copies.

  Roxette received the same award in the year 2000. Back then, they also performed live in the gala. This year Per and Marie are not attending.

• Aftonbladet article (in Swedish)

OSLO (UPDATED) - Per Gessle performed at Oslo night club Rockefeller yesterday night in front of crowd of a thousand fans.

  The set list for this concert was quite similar to the one played during the tour through Sweden. Per started off with “Kung Av Sand” and went through most of the songs included in his last album “Mazarin” and, of course, Gyllene Tider songs. Some old solo songs, such as “Speedo” or “Regn” that were played in the first concerts in Sweden, were left out. The set list:

Kung av sand

Vilket håll du än går

Gungar

Inte tillsammans, inte isär

(Hon Vill Ha) Puls

På en promenad genom stan

Timmar av iver

Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång

Jag tror du bär på en stor hemlighet

Smakar på ett regn

Här kommer alla känslorna

Födelsedag

Spegelboll

Juni, juli, augusti



Extras:



Om du bara vill

Tycker om när du tar på mej

Det är över nu

Gå & fiska

Sommartider

Tomorrow Per will give the last concert of his summer tour in Club Tavastia, Helsinki.

  Update: Click the picture on the right to see the band’s original song list in full size.

Ketil Nordgaard and Felicity Brown contributed to this article

• Article in VG (in Norwegian)

STOCKHOLM - Per’s Swedish tour this summer was a huge success, as we all know. Expressen has some statistics to back this up. A total of 157,000 people saw Per live in concert during his Sommar-Mazarin tour. Here is a list of the concerts and their number of attendance:

• Halmstad, Jul 7: 13,000
• Helsingborg, Jul 30: 12,000
• Skövde, Aug 1: 8,000
• Finspång, Aug 2: 8,000
• Varberg, Aug 3: 12,000
• Malmö, Aug 5: 10,000
• Göteborg, Aug 6: 22,000
• Kalmar, Aug 8: 9,000
• Jönköping, Aug 9: 7,000
• Karlskrona, Aug 10: 7,000
• Stockholm, Aug 12: 17,000
• Sundsvall, Aug 14: 6,000
• Leksand, Aug 15: 9,000
• Karlstad, Aug 16: 7,000
• Eskilstuna, Aug 17: 10,000

Per thinks one of the highlights was the mid-August concert in Stockholm. “Over 17,000 wonderful people showed up. Playing in Stockholm has always been tough for a country boy like me, but eventually it was an excellent concert,” says Per.

  “The tour was fantastic, but all too short,” Per said to Expressen. “I hope there will be a follow-up.”

• Expressen article (in Swedish)

LONDON - EMI Group Plc, the London-based head office of Roxette’s record company, has returned to the negotiating table with Time Warner. According to sources, EMI is refreshing the offer they made earlier this year to take control of Time Warner’s music branch. The rumor has it that EMI is offering Time Warner 1.5 billion Euros.

  At the same time, Time Warner is in talks with German media giant Bertelsmann about joining forces in music business. The joint venture of Warner Music and Bertelsmann’s BMG would create the world’s second biggest music company.

  Time Warner, Bertelsmann, Warner Music, BMG and EMI have all declined to comment.

• Reuters article

STOCKHOLM - Journalisten.se, the online magazine of The Swedish Union of Journalists, reports that The Swedish Press Council has decided that the newspaper Expressen “violated good journalistic practice” in its coverage on Marie Fredriksson’s illness.

 The Swedish Press Council is a self-regulated organization that monitors matters of press ethics in Sweden. Any member of the public can file a complaint to the Press Council and the council then undertakes an inquiry. A newspaper that has been found to violate good journalistic practice is expected to publish the written decision of the Press Council. It must also pay an administrative fine.

 The Press Council isn’t a court of law, but its decision may have some weight in the trial. In her lawsuit, Marie is demanding compensation of 500,000 Swedish krona from Expressen.

• Journalisten.se article (in Swedish)
• The Swedish Press Council

OSLO - Per Gessle will appear on the Norwegian TV2’s talk-show “Senkveld med Thomas og Harald” (Late Night with Thomas and Harald) tonight. As the name indicates, the program is hosted by Thomas Numme and Harald J. Rønneberg, who will also interview Hege Schøyen, Kjersti Holmen and Alex Rosén during the program.


“Senkveld” runs between 22.15 and 23.15 CET and, according to TV2’s website, it will also be broadcast online, after logging in.

• Norwegian TV2 - Senkveld med Thomas og Harald
• “Senkveld” Web-TV (Login is required)

HELSINKI - The winners of The Daily Roxette Per Gessle Mazarin summer tour contest have been chosen. The lucky winners are:

Tickets to the Oslo concert

• Marius Ellingsen, Norway
• Håkon Gundersen, Norway

Tickets to the Helsinki concert

• bandquitter, Lithuania
• Riina Perttala, Finland

We also had a surprise for the four runner-ups: they will receive a copy of Per’s “Mazarin” CD! Here are the winners:

• C. Greatbatch, Australia
• irvye, Canada
• Michaela Hertle, USA
• Majsan75, Austria

The Daily Roxette would like to thank Capitol Records Norway, EMI Finland and Welldone for making it possible to have this contest.

NANTERRE - Unfortunately not. EMI is not allowed to release defective CDs, a French court decided. But EMI wasn’t forbidden to release copy protected CDs per se.

  Last week’s ruling is a victory for UFC. A French consumer rights organization, which has been protesting against copy protected CDs for years now, because copy protected discs won’t play in a lot of car stereos, computers and portable players.

  Furthermore, UFC says the record companies only release copy protected discs in Europe, because in the US they’re afraid of getting sued. But now it seems they are no longer safe in Europe either.

  The case was set up around a release of EMI France, the new CD of French singer Alain Souchon, according to press agency AFP. The judge ruled in favor of UFC. EMI is obligated to compensate the buyers of the CD. This means that EMI must refund customers who have bought CDs they can’t play, or provide them with a full-working copy.

  On the other hand, a consumer who reported EMI Australia to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) for the same thing, got turned down.

• The Register
• The Age

STOCKHOLM - It was a relaxed Per Gessle who visited the second to last episode of the TV show “Ola 21:30” the other day. He had just gotten back from France. They joked around and blind tested Leif’s Lounge’s “own” beer Leif’s Lager (which in reality is Krönlein’s Three Hearts Lager) with two other brands. “Do I make my own beer?” Per decided incorrectly that Carlsberg was the correct one, and judged Leif’s Lager “Ewww, I sure hope this isn’t the one…”

 When asked, Per claimed he tries to be a good father. Per is not afraid of dropping Gabriel “He’s six you know” Per joked. He also said that his own father maybe wouldn’t have liked him to become a musician. Per’s father, Kurt Gessle, died in 1978, the same day Expressen published the first article ever about Gyllene Tider. “My mom recently told me that dad would probably have freaked out if he had known I had become a musician.”


 They also played a little game. Ola asked Per what this was: “Now (pause) now (pause) now,” every four seconds. It didn’t take long before Per knew what it was about. When the “Joyride” album was hot, a copy of it was sold every four seconds. “But how did you know that,” an amazed Per asked the host. “I told you, I know things,” Ola answered mysteriously.


  Per also took a few questions from the 10-12 people small audience. Among the questions was “Will you do a digital concert on the net, like David Bowie, now that you’ve finished touring”? Per’s answer was no, he wants to continue touring.

  At the time of the show’s taping the stabbing (and later, murder) of Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh, hadn’t yet occured so this was not discussed in the show.

STOCKHOLM - After 11 weeks of being the solid #1 in Sweden, Per Gessle’s album “Mazarin” finally folds for Britain’s heavy metal band Iron Maiden. However, it only falls two spots, to #3. Maiden’s new album, “Dance of Death”, goes straight into #1 after two days’ sales. “We have very loyal fans in Sweden,” Iron Maiden says.

STOCKHOLM - As reported previously Swedish TV1 will broadcast a documentary on Per called “Per Gessle - Ta en kaka till (Have another cookie)”. The makers of the film accompanied Per while travelling through Halmstad by local bus. Furthermore, we’ll meet Per’s friend, and famous photographer, Anton Corbijn, while Per himself will talk about his solo CD “Mazarin”.

  The documentary will be broadcast on Thursday, September 25th at 20:00 CET. Per will have to set his VCR though, as he’ll be in Helsinki performing. There are still tickets available for this, the final “Mazarin” concert.

STOCKHOLM - It’s been a year now since the fainting incident that brought Marie Fredriksson to the hospital…. a year that Marie has spent recovering from the concussion, the surgery to remove the tumor found in the back of her head, and undergoing the aggressive treatments used to fight cancer.

  As was to be expected, this recovery has taken some time, but Marie felt well enough at the end of January to attend a ceremony at the Royal Palace and accept an honorary medal from the King of Sweden. Since then, according to sources close to Marie, when she feels so inclined, she’s been working on new material – using the recording studio in her home to lay down tracks. As readers of The Daily Roxette already know, she contributed back-up vocals for one on the songs on Per Gessle’s “Mazarin” album.

  In February, Marie filed a libel lawsuit against Expressen, one of Sweden’s major newspapers, for publishing a story that claimed she had an additional lump believed to be a tumor. “Expressen’s information is totally untrue. We would, of course, not start a legal process if we weren’t telling the truth ourselves,” states Marie Dimberg, who is Marie Fredriksson’s (and Roxette’s) manager.

  “Marie’s condition is, like Per Gessle sometimes says, ’not the flu.’ She’s undergoing the necessary standard procedures, all normal in cases like this,” Dimberg tells TDR. “Sometimes she feels very good, and sometimes a bit worse, due to her treatment. The doctors say it’s all like it should be.”

  To those impatient for news about Marie’s recovery, Dimberg tells us “It will take the time it takes, and we all have to be patient and support Marie - and not spread more rumors.”

STOCKHOLM - In today’s Aftonbladet Per praises the Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund. “Of all the big names we’ve worked with Jonas and Anton Corbijn are the best. It’s not always easy to work with a friend, but with Jonas it has only helped.”

  Per and Jonas met for the first time in 1992. Per wanted him to direct Roxette’s “The Big L.” video, but the first video Åkerlund directed for Roxette was “Fingertips ’93” a year later.

  “Both Marie and I were fans of Jonas’ wild but beautiful ideas. And after all, we were the only Swedish band with a budget to create such videos,” Per says in Aftonbladet’s interview. “He was - and is - an incredibly gifted person. Pleasant, but determined, professional, honest and just enough crazy. He has a good taste in music, a very personal taste in clothes and he’s unbelievably creative.”

  Last times Per and Jonas Åkerlund worked together were when Roxette’s version of the song “Stupid” was played in Åkerlund’s movie “Spun” and when Åkerlund provided art direction for Roxette’s “Ballad Hits” and “Pop Hits” album covers.

• Aftonbladet article (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - After an incredible reign of in total 9 weeks as double #1:s “Här kommer alla känslorna” finally releases the #1 spot and falls to #3. “Mazarin” on the other hand keeps the #1 spot in a firm grip. “Mazarin” entered the charts as #1 in June and has remained there for 11 weeks, so far.

  Monday Sept. 8th the next single, “På promenad genom stan”, will be released to the radio, and it has already entered the Rix FM’s chart “Topp 6 at 6”, at #5. Official release is Sept. 17, as reported before.

  Per is also indirectly #4 on the singles charts with female duo Miio’s cover of Gyllene Tider’s 1980 super hit “När vi två blir en”.

STOCKHOLM - On Wednesday September 10th, Per will appear as a guest on Swedish TV show Ola 21:30. It’s a live talkshow where Ola Lindholm and a small audience interview famous Swedish people. The program will be on at 21:30 CET, as the name implies, on SVT 2.

  The show will be broadcasted simultaneously on SVT Europa.

  The Vice-Chairman of EMI, David Munns, has defended his company’s stance on record prices and the state of the music industry.

  In his statement, Munns defends his prices by saying, “There’s a lot that goes into the retail price - VAT, retailer’s cut, distribution costs, advertising and other marketing costs, producers’ fees and studio time, not to mention the artists and songwriters who need to be paid.”

  On the subject of the Internet and music piracy, he was equally frank. “Whatever any of us feel about the price of anything, that doesn’t justify stealing. Illegal file-sharing is theft under copyright law. Is it okay to shoplift if you disagree with the prices a shop charges? Would you steal a Mercedes and justify it by saying it was because you couldn’t afford one?”

  In a related story, the day after a report suggested the compact disc is heading the way of the 8-track tape, the world’s largest music label conglomerate promised a steep cut in CD pricing.
  Universal Music Group on Wednesday said it will cut its wholesale prices and reduce its suggested retail pricing for CDs to $13, from between $17 and $19. The company, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, is home to a number of record labels, including Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Interscope, Geffen, Island Def Jam, and Philips.

• BBC’s story
• c|net’s story

Read more…