LONDON - UK based file sharing network Wippit.com has signed a deal with EMI to legally offer its entire music back catalogue on-line. Subscription to the London based Wippit.com is available for annual fee of £30 per year or £3.99 per month. For this amount they can potentially, legally download about 100,000 songs from EMI’s vast back catalogue, which also includes Pink Floyd, Radiohead and of course Roxette.

  Wippit said it was “delighted” with the deal, which will take effect from the middle of November. They added “We are determined to become the number one in the UK and Europe.”

  Wippit already offers its 5,000 subscribers 60,000 tracks from 200 independent labels, including Richard Branson’s V2, Telstar, Domino and Grand Central.

  Wippit now faces stiff competition from Apple’s iTunes which last week launched a Windows version of their rapidly growing Apple based download service. Wippit’s service is only available to users of Windows operating system.

• BBC News article
• Wippit

STOCKHOLM - Swedish artists Miio will release their first album, “På vårt sätt” (In our way), soon. The tracklisting reveals that they have made two more covers of Gyllene Tider songs. The CD will include their first single, the Gold Awarded cover of “När vi två blir en” (Aka “Beating Heart”). The other Gyllene Tider covers are “När alla vännerna gått hem” and “Det hjärta som brinner”.

  In addition to Gyllene they have also recorded Tomas Ledin, Orup and Lasse Lindbom Band material, among others.

• CDon

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish broadcasting company SVT has published a list of entrants in the national selection to the Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The list has 28 songs, but four more will be named later. These four will come from specially invited song writers and among them is Per Gessle.

 Per has contributed to the contest before. In 1980, he wrote the song “För dina bruna ögons skull” (“Because of your brown eyes”) together with Mats MP Persson. The song was performed by Lasse Lindbom Band. It finished last. Per also wrote the lyrics to Lena Philipsson’s song “Kärleken är evig” in 1986, and in 2000 he wrote the song “Högt i det blå” for Sven-Ingvars, but the fact that Per had written the song was leaked to the public so the song was cut. This time, however, Per may be a stronger candidate, but that’s only if he decides to take part.

 The Swedish contest, also called Melodifestivalen, will take place in February. The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, in May.

Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article.

• Expressen article (in Swedish)
• List of selected songs

STOCKHOLM - There will most likely be a Gyllene Tider reunion tour in Sweden next summer, according to newspaper reports published today and The Daily Roxette’s own sources.

  The Swedish news agency TT Spektra writes today that plans for such a tour are becoming much more concrete.

  Band members have begun discussing detailed plans of a possible new album release – and a tour – with EMI/Capitol, their record company. Members of Gyllene Tider have for a long time now talked about a tour next summer to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

  “Of course I feel this would be great. I remember ’Återtåget’ and few 43 year-olds get to tour and both give and receive happiness,” says Micke “Syd” Andersson, drummer of Gyllene Tider. Micke gives the tour a 50/50 chance of happening.

Daniel Alvedahl and Thomas Evensson contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - This week “Här kommer alla känslorna” is still at #1 on Svensktoppen, a very long-running and popular show where listeners vote.

  This means that – with 18 weeks in a row now at the top – Per has entered Svensktoppen’s record list. He is now #5 together with Arvingarna on the list of longest-lasting #1s.

  As the song this week has nearly 200 points more than the one at #2, chances are Per Gessle will advance to #4 on the record list next week.

• Sveriges Radio (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish collection series Absolute will include both “Opportunity Nox” and “Här kommer alla känslorna (På en och samma gång)” on their upcoming collection “Absolute Hits 2003.” The release is scheduled for November 12. On the DVD version, only “Opportunity Nox” is included (as it had a video).

  Both the CD and the DVD will include Miio’s version of the Gyllene Tider song “När vi två blir en.”

• CDON
• Absolute (In Swedish)

Although there’s almost one year since their releases, the Roxette compilations are still selling very well in Brazil. Since two weeks ago, two big virtual shops have done discounts in various titles, and the Roxette ones became some of the most sold.

  On the virtual shop “Submarino”, which is one of the biggest virtual shops in Latin America, “The Ballad Hits” is the #1 on the Pop Internacional’s category. “The Pop Hits”, “Roxette’s Greatest Hits 2000” and even “Tourism” are best selling right now too.

• RoxOn (In Brazilian)
• Submarino (In Brazilian)

World famous director Jonas Åkerlund, who has directed videos for Roxette, Madonna, Metallica, U2 among many others, will direct a new thriller based on Mo Hayder’s novel “Birdman”. The movie will be shot in L.A. next year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

  No actors are cast yet.

While using the file swapping services such as Kazaa is decreasing, more and more legitimate online music stores are launched. One of the first was Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store which sells songs in AAC format 99¢ per piece. Apple reported in September selling over 10 million songs through their store in just four months - even though it’s only available for customers using Mac OS X software and located in the USA. However, Apple has said they are creating a Windows version of the iTunes software and the rumor has it that it would be released as soon as next week. Apple is also working hard to get the store opened in Europe, but contract negotiations with record companies have delayed the opening.

  Apple’s biggest rival in music store business is BuyMusic.com. Their store is available for only Windows users and the songs are sold in Windows Media Player 9 format, also 99¢ per song. Both iTunes and BuyMusic.com are going to get new competition as Roxio launches their store, Napster, on October 29th. Roxio bought the rights to the name after the free file swapping service was closed.

  For Roxette fans these online music stores don’t have much to offer. BuyMusic.com doesn’t have any Roxette songs in their 315,000 song catalog and iTunes didn’t have any until recently, when they added several, but not all, songs from the “Look Sharp!” and “Tourism” albums.

STOCKHOLM - “Mazarin” falls back to #3 and “Här kommer alla känslorna” falls to #11 from #7, while “På promenad…” climbs to #25 from last week’s #28.

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle is one of the artists that will perform at ZTV’s and TV3’s music awards gala “Swedish Hit Music Awards” on November 9th at Hovet in Stockholm. More artists will be confirmed shortly. Currently the only confirmed, besides Per, are Black Eyed Peas, Atomic Kitten and The Rasmus.

  The artists nominated in the 11 categories are chosen by ZTV’s music staff, and by the viewers’ choice, who will take the three-kilo award “Guldälgen” (“Golden moose”). Per Gessle is nominated in the “best Swedish song” category with “Här kommer alla känslorna”.

  The gala will be broadcast live on ZTV between 17:30 and 22:00 CET and partially on TV3 between 18:00 and 20:00 CET.

• ST’s article
• ZTV (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle’s successful album “Mazarin” climbs to #2 from #3 on the Swedish album charts today, Friday. The top spot is held by Bo Kaspers Orkester, while previous champion Iron Maiden falls to #5.

  The older single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” falls one position, to #7, while the latest single “På promenad genom stan” falls to #28 from #20.