NEW YORK - What color is Roxette?!?

  According to a U.S. cosmetics firm based in California, Roxette is in the “red” family. As part of their “Wet ’n’ Wild” line, Markwins Beauty Products is marketing a shade of nail polish called “Roxette.” The shade could perhaps best be described as a raspberry-red (think “Ballad Hits”) color.

  Tina Perez, the Wet ’n’ Wild brand manager at Markwins, tells The Daily Roxette that “it’s one of our more popular colors… it’s actually been around for several years now. Roxette is a ’hot’ name and the color is a ’hot’ red.”

  The crystalic, calcium-enriched nail color sells for around $2 USD a bottle, and is available at many retail locations in the United States – both in-store and online.

  Meanwhile, the designers at fashion house XOXO have given the name “Roxette” to a pump-type, Mary Jane-style shoe in their collection.

  Making the connection to the musical group Roxette, the copywriter at Amazon.com writes “Look sharp! These dressy, sporty mary jane pumps from XOXO have a great hybrid style.”

  The shoes sell for around $72 USD.

Scoll contributed to this article.

• Shoes on Amazon
• Shoes on Zappos (View the three colors)
• Nail color on ULTA
• Nail color on Walgreens

HALMSTAD - Mats “MP” Persson – guitarist in Gyllene Tider, drummer in Back on Stage, owner of studio Tits & Ass, et cetera – received a platinum award for his and Christer Schill’s song “On the Night of a Black Out,” recorded by Japanese boy band Kinki Kids.

  Kinki Kids has sold over 22 million records in Japan so far, with their albums being named “A,” “B,” “C” and so on.

  “On the Night of a Black Out” is taken from the hit album “G Album 24/7”. From what The Daily Roxette has learned, platinum in Japan means 200,000 units sold.

• G Album 24/7

NEW YORK - Laura Branigan, a Grammy-nominated pop singer who recorded a Roxette cover but is best known for her 1982 platinum hit “Gloria,” has died. She was 47.

  Branigan died of a brain anuerysm Thursday in her sleep said her brother Mark Branigan. He said she had complained to a friend of a headache for about two weeks before she died, but had not sought medical attention.

  “Gloria,” a signature song from her debut album “Branigan,” stayed atop the pop charts for 36 weeks and earned her a Grammy nomination for best female pop vocalist, the first of four nominations in her career.

  Laura was also known for her recording of Roxette’s “The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye.” Her cover of the song appeared on her “Over My Heart” album released in 1993. It’s been said that Laura also wanted to record a cover of “Queen of Rain.”

  After the death of her husband in 1996, Branigan stopped performing but returned to the stage in 2001. In 2002 she starred as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical “Love, Janis,” which earned her rave reviews.

  Funeral services are scheduled for Monday.

• Laura Branigan website

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider performed last night at Swedish phone operator Comviq/Tele2’s kick-off event in Alvik outside of Stockholm. About 650 employees from Comviq attended. “This has been planned for a while,” Göran Fritzon, keyboards, explained to Aftonbladet.

  Comviq have been trying to get Gyllene Tider to play at one of their kick-off events for years. They succeeded this time because they were a major sponsor of the GT25 tour.

  hstd99 contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet’s story (In Swedish)
• Expressen’s story (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Canadian rocker Bryan Adams’s new album “Room Service” will be released later this fall. Not only is the title Roxette-ish, but the album itself is like Roxette’s “Tourism” – songs recorded in hotel rooms and such.

  When Expressen tells Bryan this he replies “I had no idea Roxette had done this before. It certainly wasn’t my intention to steal anything! Tell Per and Marie that I’m sorry. I just thought it was a really neat idea.”

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)
• Bryan Adams

HALMSTAD - The weather wasn’t exactly the best in the Halland area this summer and it affected many of the happenings in Halmstad and nearby cities. Except for Gyllene Tider: their three concerts in Halmstad were seen by 75,000 people, not counting the 10,000 to 20,000 people watching the final concert at Stora Torg.

  Björn Nohlgren of Nöjet AB worked as a producer for many of the summer’s successes. In addition to Gyllene Tider’s summer tour, he worked on Tältprojektet (“The Tent Project”, a tour with Magnus Uggla, Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest winner Lena Philipsson, Robert Gustafsson, Cecilia Frode and Johan Rheborg) and Rhapsody in Rock (a special combination of classical music and rock arranged by pianist Robert Wells). Tältprojektet had four shows in Varberg and Rhapsody in Rock one in Falkenberg. All concerts were sold out, but the number of attendees were far from Gyllene Tider concerts.

  “Gyllene Tider’s summer tour is not on the map. Nothing like it has ever happened in Sweden and nothing like it is likely to ever happen again,” Nohlgren said to the local newspaper Hallands Nyheter.

• Hallands Nyheter article (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider thanks all the people that attended the GT25 tour, all 492,252 of them. A post-tour advertisement appearing in several newspapers reads “Thank you all who made GT25 the biggest tour in Sweden through all time!”

  The ad goes on to proclaim a sold-out tour, and that “Finn 5 fel!” has sold more than 210,000 copies so far, and “GT25” (Greatest Hits) more than 65,000.

  The photo in the ad, featured both in Expressen and Aftonbladet, bears a striking similarity to the one published in ’96 after Återtåget, also used on the “Återtåget” VHS/DVD sleeve.

HALMSTAD - This is it, this is “The End.” “The End” is what the last concert was called at Örjans Vall in Halmstad, Gyllene Tider’s final concert this tour. In total, over 492,000 (499,000 according to some sources) people have seen GT this summer during their 21-gig-long tour. This reporter assumes that the Gyllene boys are tired, because it was damn hard covering the tour!

  When The Daily Roxette came to Örjans Vall it was pouring cats and dogs, the rain started trickling at 5 and escalated to a downpour at 7, when The Latin Kings entered the stage. TDR had a little talk with Per Gessle at 7:45 (see below). During the interview, Mats “MP” Persson allegedly got sick of the rain and told the others that he would stop it. So MP sticks his hands in the air and shouts. The rain stops immediately. When TDR comes out from the interview at 8 the rain is gone!
  While the setlist didn’t contain any surprises, the concert itself did. Gyllene Tider’s members became “honorary citizens” of Halmstad 2004 for being such great ambassadors for the town for so long. Another amazing thing that happened was that Micke “Syd” Andersson confessed that he’s been lying the whole tour through…

  The lie? He has been telling each and everyone that he’s been traveling with his wife. Now he came clean and told us that she merely was his girlfriend! So Micke brought Helena on stage and proposed to her. Helena said yes! After that they sang “Min tjej och jag” together, although renamed “Min fru och jag” (“My Wife and I”), the proposal was a huge success.

  After the concert Sweden’s Princess Madeleine came backstage and congratulated Gyllene Tider on a great show. Then the Golden Lads entered the semi torn down stage and had cake and champagne before the press. Anders sprayed the photographers with champagne…

  All in all… a great end to a great tour, by a great band.

HALMSTAD (UPDATED) - While The Daily Roxette waits to see Per Gessle before the final Gyllene Tider concert, it rained, rained, rained… I don’t think there has been more rain in Halmstad ever.

  When we finally get backstage, Per greets us with a smile – he has just met a bunch of foreign fans. TDR gets right down to business and asks Per about the “end of Roxette” story in Aftonbladet.

  “The rumors are not true. My sentences were taken out of context totally. If Marie wants – and can – we will certainly continue with Roxette,” Per says. “Of course, we won’t aim to conquer the US again… but why not a smaller tour, like the one in 2001, that one wasn’t longer than this tour for instance,” he continues. “We also still have a contract with EMI, I don’t remember how many records, but…”

  How about the time out? “I haven’t said that either, I will disappear from the limelight, but I won’t stop doing things, as per usual… all I want right now is to get out of sight for a while. ”

  The Daily Roxette inquires carefully about Marie Fredriksson’s condition. “There’s not much to say really, it’s more or less the same, she has her good periods and her bad ones. She needs time. It’s also a lot about how motivated she is about moving around. She’s been recording her album for a long time now, but I really don’t know much about it.”

  That said we go on to other business. The new Gyllene Tider single, “Solsken,” will likely be out in September, with some “Finn 5 fel!” demos as b-sides. The song “Choklad, vanilj, jordgubb” is not yet finished so it won’t be used. In connection to this, The Daily Roxette inquired about other future releases. “There will be the DVD, hopefully out before Christmas. The footage is shot mainly in Gothenburg, and the sound will be the best possible. We recorded all the concerts,” says Per. “In addition we may release a new live CD, but that hasn’t been decided yet.” Per also mentions that the old remastered albums will be released without the bonus tracks (as single CDs) mid-priced, and they are thinking about releasing a b-sides CD with unreleased demos. “I’m really against releasing these demos, but on the other hand, they are a part of our past so why not,” Per tells The Daily Roxette.

  SF (Svensk Filmindustri), is at the moment restoring the original 16mm film of Parkliv manually, frame by frame, so it can look its best on DVD when it finally is released.

MALMÖ -   Brainpool’s latest project “Junk: a Rock Opera” will be out in the stores this Thursday, August 19th. The double CD – which will also be presented live with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (MSO) during the Malmö Music Festival on the same day – contains a total of 28 songs in English.


  The band, consisting of Jens Jansson, David Birde and Christoffer Lundquist, celebrates its 10th anniversary with this release, which is the first since 1999 when they released “You Are Here.”


  The live version of Junk with the MSO will naturally differ considerably from Brainpools CD-version, which is being released by Playground Music. The group has worked on the recording off-an-on for about four years, in between other projects. Most recently, Lundquist – who has played with Roxette – co-produced Gyllene Tider’s “Finn 5 Fel” album.

  Some of the songs from “Junk” are available to listen to on the band’s official website.

• Brainpool’s official website
• Malmö Festival (in English and Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - According to Aftonbladet, Per Gessle says he doesn’t have the fire that’s needed to keep Roxette running.

  Although Per doesn’t specifically say that Roxette is over, he gives very little to hang your hope on.

  “I don’t feel the urge to go out in the world anymore, back then it was an enormous force to make it abroad,” says Per. Even if Marie Fredriksson gets well enough to continue, Per is doubtful.


  andersb contibuted to this article.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

SUNDSVALL - Next year Per Gessle will disappear from the limelight. “It’s a promise I’ve given my wife, Åsa. That’s all there is to it,” Per states in Expressen. He will be gone at least a year, during which he will be doing “absolutely nothing.” This is not due to Per being worn out, he claims. “Last year I did my solo tour and I was everywhere. This summer has been absolutely crazy with Gyllene. I can feel a fear that people might get sick of Per Gessle. Hence it’s better to stop and step off for a while.”

  One thing he’s planned for the leave though… he wants to see Madonna’s European tour, either in London or in Paris. “She’s a great performer!” Per says to Expressen.

• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

HALMSTAD - The last concert of Gyllene Tider’s tour this summer will be in Halmstad on August 18. The concert was sold out but now another 2,000 tickets have been released. But that’s not enough. Gyllene Tider wants everyone in Halmstad to be able to see the local boys live on stage.

  “Seldom – if ever – has there been such positive energy and excessive love that Gyllene Tider has met around the country during this fantastic summer. We in the band thought that we should do something as generous in the last concert,” Per says in a press release issued today. “The idea is to get the whole town to take part in the concert and that’s why we’ll build a giant screen at Stora Torg (the city’s central square and marketplace) where everyone can come and enjoy our concert for free!”

  The press release also reveals that the screen will be 40 square meters and it weighs 29 tons.

  So far, there have been 424,458 people at Gyllene Tider’s concerts. The number will go to almost half-a-million as the tour ends in Halmstad. Today the tour organizers released extra tickets for the Sundsvall (1,000 tickets) and Oxelösund (2,000) concerts on August 13 and 17 respectively. The Skellefteå concert on August 14 is not yet sold out.

• TicNet/Biljett Direkt

GÖTEBORG - “And all year long I’ve been waiting for… June, July and August!”

  You can catch an interesting streamed video of Gyllene Tider performing “Juni, Juli, Augusti!” at their recent Ullevi concert in Göteborg. It’s available in both Real Media and Windows Media formats and includes the crowd’s reaction following the concert.

  In addition, on Aftonbladet’s site, you can see the same song – which is second on the set list – being performed at the Stadium in Stockholm.

• GP’s Video and Photo Album (Scroll down to Gyllene Tider and Web-TV)
• Aftonbladet’s Stockholm version (Look for Webb-TV)

GOTHENBURG - Roxette’s female half, Marie Fredriksson, attended Gyllene Tider’s record breaking concert Saturday. Marie told Per that she thought the concert was “fantastic,” according to a report in Aftonbladet.

  This was Marie’s first public appearance in months.

GOTHENBURG - Gyllene Tider tried hard to beat Bruce Springsteen’s attendance record at Ullevi and they did! Over 58,900 fans (58,954 according to Expressen; 58,984 according to Aftonbladet) sang along with the band yesterday night.


  And all the feelings came all at once. “This is the biggest thing that ever happened in my life, after my children being born” said Göran Fritzon to Aftonbladet. “I don’t really know what to say. I’m speechless,” added Per Gessle. “It was really hard to keep the tears in the first couple of songs,” confessed Micke “Syd” Andersson, “my voice trembled when I sang the backing vocals.”


  After the show the band went to the VIP area to celebrate the record with their families and friends who had come to support the band. Among these friends were Marie Fredriksson and Mikael Bolyos. “It was great that Marie could come,” told Per to Aftonbladet, “she said the concert was fantastic, but she is actually a big GT-fan,” added a laughing Per.

  Photos: Thomas Evensson/TDR

• Aftonbladet’s article
• Aftonbladet’s article II

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Gyllene Tider will try to beat Bruce Springsteen’s [new] attendance record at Ullevi on Saturday, according to an article published today in Aftonbladet.


  The Boss gathered 58,310 people at Ullevi last summer and Gyllene Tider has so far sold 58,000 tickets, including the 600 that were put on sale yesterday. So, there are only 311 – to be exact – tickets left to sell to beat the record.


  The stage will be built today and once it is up, the concert organizers will see if they can fit more people in the stadium.


  “It would be fantastic to beat The Boss,” Per Gessle told Aftonbladet’s reporter Linda Hjertén. “I think beating such a record would go along with the whole tour experience.” Per added that he would pinch himself “to make sure I’m not dreaming.”


  Update: 500 tickets have been released today. They are available at Ticnet’s local ticket offices and at ATG’s offices.

• Aftonbladet’s article
• Ticnet.se

STOCKHOLM - After some The Hives hype, Gyllene Tider reclaims the #1 spot with “Finn 5 fel!” (3x platinum) on the album charts, while “GT25!” (gold) falls to #6 and “Mazarin” (5x platinum) to #27, after merely 59 weeks on the charts. “Tuffa tider”/”En sten…” falls to #12, but has acheived gold status (15,000).

HALMSTAD - With the kind permission of Hallandsposten, the daily newspaper serving this city and the surrounding region, The Daily Roxette has translated most of the content published in a special Summer 2004 supplement entitled “Gyllene Tider - Back Again.”

  Written by Jan-Owe Wikström, a sports reporter whose interest in music made him the paper’s “Per, GT, and Roxette” reporter as well, the articles have been translated by TDR News Editor Thomas Evensson and appear – along with our own account of this golden Swedish summer – on our newly launched Features page.

  To access this section, click on the “Features” tab above.

• TDR Features

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish tabloid Expressen published a short interview with Bengt Gessle, Per’s older brother, today. According to Bengt, Per writes poor, uninteresting lyrics and Per admits it himself.

  “I mentioned this to him last year and he simply said that he can’t write any other way, so he sticks to what he can write,” explained Bengt to Expressen’s reporter Tony Kaplan. On the other hand, Per’s brother, who is a lawyer in Helsingborg, believes that Per has improved - a lot! - as an artist throughout the years. “He has learnt his routine on stage and that makes him more confident.”


  “I’ve seen Gyllene Tider twice this summer and will see them again in Göteborg,” Bengt said, “but I am not a real Gyllene Tider fan.” Bengt revealed his favourite artists are Tommy Körberg, Eva Dahlgren and Helen Sjöholm with Benny Andersson’s orchestra. “And among the international artists, my favorites are John Lennon, the Beatles and the Stones.”

• Expressen’s article (in Swedish)
• Tommy Körberg
• Eva Dahlgren
• Helen Sjöholm

GÖTEBORG - “Sweden’s Biggest Boyband is in Town,” proclaims a full-page advertisement that’s been appearing for several weeks now in newspapers here in Göteborg. The circus-like display font used in the ad is unmistakable, given the success of “Finn 5 Fel!” and the advertising surrounding the release of that album. It’s the same font… so it’s obviously Gyllene Tider’s upcoming appearance at Ullevi this Saturday evening that’s being hyped, right?

  But having captured our attention, the ad continues by saying “Or more accurately, we’re almost always in town.” It turns out this clever ad is actually promoting the Göteborg Boys Choir (Göteborgs Gosskör), a group with members between the ages of 7 and 24 years old.

  It’s one more example of how pervasive the Gyllene Tider phenomenon is in Sweden this summer.

  Ulf Sollin, a spokesperson for the choir, tells TDR that the ad was created by Inform Reklambyrå and is one of a series of pro-bono ads the agency has produced recently to promote the choir and attract new members. Göteborgs-Posten, in turn, donated the space in their newspaper.

• Gothenburg Boys Choir