STOCKHOLM - The Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF) had their annual Swedish songwriter awards in Nalen, Stockholm on Thursday. Per Gessle received two awards, for the composer of the year and for the lyricist of the year. Povel Ramel received the lifetime achievement award, a hefty 10.8-kilo glass statue.

• Sundsvalls Tidning article (in Swedish)
• Swedish Music Publishers Association

STOCKHOLM - As previously reported by The Daily Roxette, Gyllene Tider will release a live DVD, and live CD this fall - “En scen vid en plats i en stad.” What’s new is that the CD is now mixed and ready. “It sounds like overkill [releasing both a CD and a DVD], but it isn’t,” Per Gessle says. “For the album we sat down and listened to the ten best gigs this summer. Then we chose the best songs from these, and removed all ballads. It will be a real power-pop bomb!” he says laughing.

  From what The Daily Roxette remembers there weren’t really any ballads this summer so we’ll see how it looks like…

STOCKHOLM - In conjunction with the release of “The Change,” Marie Fredriksson has started a new publishing company together with her husband Micke Bolyos. MaryJane Music was mainly created “as a home for Marie’s solo albums,” states the label’s website, “but as the musical collaboration between Marie and Mikael continues and expands, don’t be surprised if you find other exciting projects with some of their musical friends released on this label.”

  The website features information about Marie’s new release as well as pictures taken at Vinden Studios and Polar Studios during the recording of “The Change” and the documentary that will be shown on Swedish TV4 on November 24th.

• MaryJane Music

Various Swedish newspapers have published reviews today of Marie’s new album, “The Change”.


  Hallandsposten’s Jan-Owe Wikström gives the album 4 out of 5. Wikström believes that Marie doesn’t really care about the album’s position in the charts or about sold units, “she has already won the biggest victory by releasing the album,” Wikström writes, “there must have been many moments of despair and doubt in these past two years.” The album, which has worked as a therapy for Marie, is a step back to her roots, to blues, r&b and gospel. “That’s why ’The Change’ is different to her other albums, this is more what she used to do every summer with her husband’s band Sugarcane in the basement of Penny Lane in Halmstad.”


  Aftonbladet’s Per Bjurman joins Wikström by giving 4 out of 5 to the album. After stating that he doesn’t make this review “out of pity or to escape being mean,” he goes on writing Marie’s come back is a triumph and that the album is very strong, “too strong sometimes.” Bjurman points out that the album isn’t as dark as one might think, “often one can feel the anger, the lust for life, the gratitude for love and for the fact that the day actually starts.” He also compares the naked feelings in “Mother” with John Lennon’s song by the same title and ends his review by telling that the album is totally private, “till such an extent that one has to hold the breath in order to listen to the album some times.”


  On the other hand, Göteborgsposten gives the album 3 out of 5. Lindqvist compares the album with a diary made with music and thinks Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” or Ulf Lundell’s “Den vassa eggen” have one thing in common with “The Change”: the fact that one’s creativity and inspiration becomes strong when one goes through a crisis, as Marie has in the past two years fighting against brain cancer. According to Lindqvist it’s hard to criticize music this personal and even private. “What I can say after all is that Marie Fredriksson’s singing has never been this frank. She’s always had the ambition to put her soul into her songs, and on occation she has succeeded.” But on these songs she just sings, “from the inside and out.” “The Lenny Kravitz rock that takes a lot of space is not really fresh. On the other hand the single ’2:nd Chance’ is nice, and ’All about you’ is a tender love song full of soul,” Lindqvist feels.
He concludes writing the album is a “very brave album. A letter signed from the couple Fredriksson/Bolyos who has one message: love conquers all.”


  Many other Swedish newspapers report about the fact that “The Change” will be released internationally, “it will be released, more or less, in countries where Roxette has released some albums. South America, South Africa, Europe, Japan, Indonesia and so on,” tells Li Lindebäck from EMI to TT Spektra. Lindebäck also reveals that the album has already shipped in 30,000 copies, which means gold in Sweden.

• Hallandsposten
• Aftonbladet
• Göteborgsposten
• Article in Norrköpings Tidning

Here we are, three TDR news editors sitting around the table (virtually, at least) discussing the new Marie Fredriksson album “The Change.” It’s her first all-new album in eight years and the first one since her severe illness that took her away from the limelight for two years.

Visa Kopu: Without even hearing the songs, you can really see that this album speaks about her recovery. The titles like “2:nd Chance,” “Love 2 Live” and “The Good Life” are just that. After I heard “2:nd Chance” for the first time, I was a little disappointed. It was so unsurprising.

Judith Seuma: When Eva Dahlgren released “Lai Lai” people criticized the album as being nothing but her comeback and coming out with her love for Efva Attling. But well… what else should it have been, in that situation? But what surprises me is that [Marie’s husband] Micke has written five of the twelve songs.

Thomas Evensson: As you probably know, I’m not a typical Marie fan. She’s always been too dull and sad, musically, for my taste. So when I got “The Change” in my hands, I was less than enthused, to say the least. I was also surprised about Micke’s big role, but even more by the fact that this album has been recorded over such a long time, even before her sickness. Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson’s new album “The Change” will be available in the Swedish stores on Wednesday. Everybody seems to be awaiting and getting ready for this day: one can read many “I cannot wait any longer!” messages in any Roxette & co forum; today Aftonbladet started its own countdown with streaming two snippets off the album and Capitol Records Sweden has made two more promotion pictures of Marie available, which you can find to the left and right of this article [click to enlarge].



Dates to remember:


- October 27th: release in Sweden and Hungary

- October 29th: release in South Africa

- November 15th: release in Germany

- November 22nd: release in Japan, Poland and Russia

- November 29th: release in Austria



More dates to be added soon.

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet will stream snippets off Marie Fredriksson’s new album “The Change” starting today and until Wednesday 27th, when the album is released in Sweden. In addition to the snippets, you will be able to read Marie’s comments about the songs.

  Today Aftonbladet streams “April Snow” and “All About You”. Marie explains that she wrote “April Snow” long ago when two good friends of her broke up. “One gets inspiration from many things in life, not only one’s own life,” she tells Aftonbladet.


  On the other hand, “All about you” is a love song written by Micke for Marie. “Everybody should have a love song dedicated…”


  Tomorrow Aftonbladet will stream two more songs.

  Aftonbladet also published an article about the documentary and the recording of “The Change” yesterday. Marie explained that they started to work with the album a year before she was diagnosed with cancer. They went on with the recording afterwards. “We could play for three days and then stop for three-five months,” says Nicci Notini (drums) to Aftonbladet. The documentary will show these recordings, tough moments, but also funny parts like when Marie and Micke’s kids joke in front of the cameras. “This isn’t a dark documentary but bright and forward-looking,” says the producer of the documentary, Anette Beijer.


  Kiwein1 and SparvogaMarie contributed to this article

• Listen to “The Change” in Aftonbladet
• Aftonbladet’s article

(UPDATED) - The international release plans of Marie Fredriksson’s forthcoming album “The Change” continue to take form. One of The Daily Roxette’s reporters contacted EMI South Africa and found out that the single “2:nd Chance” has been rejected by all South African radio stations and will therefore not be released. But on the other hand, the album will be released only two days after the Swedish release, namely Friday Oct 29, with albums in the stores on Monday.

  There will, however, not be any kind of promotion around this release, since it’s a low priority release for EMI South Africa.

  In Germany, Amazon and other Internet retailers have listed “The Change” scheduled for release November 15, while in Hungary, the release date is the same as in Sweden; October 27. Japan releases it November 22.

sleepingSingle and Pietro contributed to this article.

• Amazon.de (In German)

OSLO - Gyllene Tider won Best Swedish Artist at the Nordic Music Awards. Anders Herrlin was there to pick the prize up.

  Best Swedish Newcomer was Jimmy Jansson and Best Summer Hit “Ingen vill veta vart du köpt din tröja” by Raymond & Maria.

• TV2 Norway (In Norwegian)
• Nordic Music Awards (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson’s latest single falls to #12 after only one week on the charts. It entered the charts last week at #8.

  Gyllene Tider’s “Solsken” falls to #25 from #20 after three weeks on the charts.

• Hitlistan

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Capitol Records reports that Gyllene Tider will release a live DVD on November 24 - “En scen vid en plats i en stad” (“A Stage at a Place in a City”), later this fall a live CD with the same name will be available in the stores as well. When The Daily Roxette met Per Gessle this summer he hinted at the possibility of releasing a live CD.


  While the DVD will feature the concert at Ullevi in full along with some nice extras, the album – a double-CD – will cover the whole tour. “We knew the tour would be a success so we recorded all the concerts. Anything else would have been stupid,” explains Anders Herrlin.


  Right now Per Gessle, Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist and Anders are mixing the songs for the live album. “We have mixed two songs so far. It is a total nightmare because there are so many concerts to go through,” explains Anders. The plan is to include the songs in the same order they were played during the tour, including Per Gessle’s solo song “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång).”

  “Find 5 errors!” the band demanded in June. With 492,252 people attending the concerts it became the second biggest summer tour in Europe. Seems there weren’t so many errors after all…

• Östersunds Posten’s article

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson’s ongoing battle with the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen will have its day in court. Journalisten, a website for Swedish journalists, said in a report today that the lawsuit between Marie Fredriksson and Expressen will be heard early next year.

  According to Journalisten, the court looked at the possibility of setting a new date for the hearing in the past months and now Marie’s lawyer, Leif Silbersky, has requested – considering Marie’s undergoing rehabilitation – a new date on the court’s calendar for the beginning of 2005. Expressen’s legal team didn’t opose the request.


  The lawsuit was postponed in August 2003 due to Marie’s state of health and because Expressen suddenly claimed that their story was accurate before the case was to go to trial.

• Journalisten.nu

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Swedish production company Titan Television has yet to come up with a final name for their forthcoming television documentary about Marie Fredriksson, and her fight against cancer.

  “This one-hour documentary is a detailed portrait of one of our [Sweden’s] biggest artists,” states Titan on their website, where the working title “The Look” had been on display since Friday. This, however, will definitely not be actual name given to the program once it is ready for broadcast.

  “They put up a test page that wasn’t supposed to appear until today – but without a title – as it was never intended that [the program] would be called “The Look,” explains their publicist to The Daily Roxette. “The documentary is still untitled… simply ’Marie Fredriksson’ at the moment.”

  Titan’s site says “this is the story about when life suddenly and alarmingly changes… and about the meaning of music and songs in order to come back.”

  The documentary – like music on the album itself – is expected to depict not only the pain and suffering she has endured the past two years, but also Marie’s energy, lust for life and fighting spirit.

  Industry sources tell TDR that Titan is attempting to sell the documentary to television channels in other countries where Roxette – and thereby Marie Fredriksson – are well known. This is in line with Capitol Record’s own efforts to make the album available in as many countries as possible.


  The program will first be shown on Sweden’s TV4 on November 24 at 21:00 CET.


  Lars-Erik Olson contributed to this article

• Titan Television

STOCKHOLM - Marie Fredriksson’s single “2:nd Chance” enters the Swedish official single chart at #8 this week.


  “2:nd Chance” is the first single off Marie’s new solo album in English, “The Change”, which will be released in Scandinavia on October 27th and in some additional European countries around a month later.


  On a sidenote, Gyllene Tider’s “Solsken” climbs up two positions to the #20 in its second week on the list.


Kiwein1 contributed to this article

• HitListan.se
• Charts in Aftonbladet

VIENNA - EMI Capitol Sweden’s plans to faciliate the international release of Marie Fredriksson’s new album “The Change” are well underway.

  Here along the Danube – perhaps proving that there’s more than just classical music in the air – one of the first real indications of their success is that EMI Music Austria has announced that fans here will be able to purchase the album starting on November 29th. The single “2:nd Chance” will begin airplay by the end of October. In addition, at least one German online retailer is also announcing the November 30th availablity of the album while EMI Czech Republic has November album release information on their site.

  As indicated in The Daily Roxette’s previously reports, releases by EMI units in additional countries are expected – enough to truly qualify this album as an “international release.” For marketing reasons, many of these release dates will be scheduled for early next year.

  While the EMI plant in the Netherlands actually produces most of the CDs for Continental Europe (including Sweden), there will be pressings elsewhere around the world, when it is more cost-effective to do so. An example of this would be Japan, where Marie’s last two studio albums have been released. They will avoid the cost of shipping from Europe by using their own duplication plant.

  Assuming that the made-for-TV documentary is picked up by networks outside of Sweden, it’s reasonable to expect that marketing efforts (and release dates) will be adjusted to coincide with that.


NeverendingRoxette, Mike76, Abysmo and Lars-Erik Olson contributed to this article.

• EMI Music Austria
• WOM
• EMI Czech Republic (inc. several “The Chance” typos)

HALMSTAD - Göran Fritzon and Mats “MP” Persson have together with Henrik Johansson, Staffan Karlsson and Martin Franzén started the company SweMD.com which will sell downloadable books in mp3-format.

  Many famous authors are represented on SweMD.com, for instance Eva Dahlgren, Liza Marklund and Henning Mankell. The prices will be about 50% less than what you pay buying the audio CD.

  If things start off well, SweMD.com will start offering downloadable music as well. Initially SweMD.com will be availaible in Sweden, but before long it will be available also in other parts of the world.

• SweMD (In Swedish)
• Eva Dahlgren
• Liza Marklund
• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

Capitol has released an 8-track promotional CD sampler of Marie’s “The Change” album. A small booklet with pictures is included.

  The promo CD contains previews of these songs: “The Change,” “2:nd Chance,” “All You’ve Gotta Do Is Feel,” “April Snow,” “All About You,” “Bad Moon,” “A Table In The Sun” and finally an instrumental version of “The Change.”

  Despite the fact that these “promotional use only” items are not intended to be sold, copies of the CD have already appeared on several online auction sites.

  New information is also that Capitol is releasing the full album in two different editions: in a normal CD jewelbox (call number 7243 8631812) and in a Digipak (call number 7243 8636752).

  Marie has drawn herself the cover pictures of all the “The Change” releases, including the single “2:nd Chance.”

LONDON - The record industry trade group IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) has recently filed 459 lawsuits against users of file sharing networks in Europe. IFPI claims that they have specifically targeted their actions to “uploaders” or users who don’t just download music for their own but share large collections of copyrighted music. The lawsuits were filed against Kazaa, eDonkey, and Gnutella users in the UK, France, Austria, Germany, Italy and Denmark.

  “We are taking this action as a last resort and we are doing it after a very long public awareness campaign,” says IFPI chairman Jay Berman in a Reuters article. He adds that their own statistics show 15 percent of file sharers are responsible for supplying 75 percent of the illicit files to these networks.

  The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed thousands of similar lawsuits in the US during the past year. RIAA’s methods have had little or no effect to the popularity of the file sharing networks, but have caused a large movement against the music industry.

• Reuters article

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - The artwork that will appear on the cover of Marie Fredriksson’s forthcoming album, “The Change,” was revealed today by Capitol Records, who will be releasing the album on Oct. 27 in Sweden.


  The lead single off “The Change” is “2:nd Chance” which hit the stores in Sweden this week. “It feels like a victory having made ’The Change’,” Marie comments.

  The documentary The Daily Roxette mentioned previously will be aired on TV4 November 24 at 21:00 CET. The one-hour long documentary, produced by Anette Beijer, will show images of the recording of the album in her studio at home, private recordings shot by Micke Bolyos, exclusive performances of some of the new tracks, as well as an interview with Marie done in late summer, where Marie explains, among other things, how much her life has changed since she was diagnosed with cancer.



  The tracklist of “The Change”:



1. The Change

2. 2:nd Chance

3. All You’ve Gotta Do Is Feel

4. April Snow

5. Love 2 Live

6. Mother

7. Many Times

8. All About You

9. The Good Life

10. Bad Moon

11. A Table in the Sun

12. The Change (orchestral version)



Judith contributed to this article.

STOCKHOLM - Reading yesterday’s Aftonbladet made Thomas Hall, project leader for Melodifestivalen song contest at SVT, bounce with excitement. “It would be a breach of duty not calling Gessle,” Hall says to Aftonbladet. Gessle’s song would in that case be one of the four “jokers” - songs that don’t have to be selected by the jury.

  “It’s important to point out that the song is the crucial thing, not the fame of the songwriter,” Hall states. “We will contact Per and have a constructive meeting. It would certainly be a feather in our cap to have him participate.”

• Aftonbladet article (In Swedish)
• Eurovision Song Contest

GÖTEBORG - “Maybe the concert at Ullevi wasn’t our best one, but it had everything else: a complete experience, a fantastic audience. With some distance now, and having monitored the editing of the film, I start realizing… how big that was,” Gessle says in an inteview with Göteborgsposten.


  “We’ve found some old, very funny, odd and unique footage – like from the recordings of Teaser Japanese, for instance,” says Gessle. This will be added to the DVD.
The fans don’t have to wait until spring. One of the big TV channels will show part of the documentary (about 30 minutes worth) around Christmas/New Year’s Eve.


  Asked if there will be a live-CD, Gessle says: “There are different points of views. I think that people would like that, but not everybody owns a DVD-player. Other people say that it’s old-fashioned to release a live CD. But hey… we are old. Don’t rule it out though.”


  Over the last couple of months, Per has followed the work of his Roxette colleague Marie Fredriksson. “Her solo album sounds extremely good. Marie is a fighter. I am glad that she is active again, I know that it means much to her after all this cruelty.”
  But he can’t say what her comeback means for the future of Roxette. “Marie and I are very good friends. Roxette is our little baby. Nothing is happening at the moment and we will see if something is going to happen in the future.”

  Next year will be a quiet one for Per Gessle. “I continue to write songs, but there will be no recordings. I mean, you have to stay away for a while to be missed. So, we will see… maybe a ’Mazarin II’ in summer of 2006?”

• Göteborgsposten’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - According to an interview with Aftonbladet, Per Gessle might be interested in writing a song for next year’s Swedish leg of the Eurovision Song Contest. “Have them [SVT] call me and we’ll work something out,” Per grins. Per has changed his mind about the Song Contest as it’s more pop now, before it was just strange, Per thinks.


  Also, Per is currently working on not one, but two Gyllene Tider DVDs! The first DVD is a live recording from this year’s summer tour and it will be released in the beginning of December. The second DVD is a documentary about Gyllene Tider’s tours and it will be released in January, 2005.


  Aftonbladet meets Per at his studio/office in Stockholm. They notice that the door to Per’s apartment is barred by a locked gate. “We had to do that because German Roxette fans slept here,” Per says. He mentions that he’s writing new material, in English, and that Roxette may well use these songs if possible. “It’s all up to Marie, I don’t know if she has what it takes anymore, or if she wants to. It’s a big machine releasing an album abroad. We haven’t discussed it.”

• Aftonbladet article (In Swedish)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider was the second biggest act in Europe this summer. 492,252 people saw Gyllene, which makes 23,440 per concert. Gyllene Tider surpassed artists like Madonna, Eros Ramazotti and Shania Twain, who - to be fair - didn’t play as many gigs as Gyllene.

  The only act to outperform Gyllene Tider was the Italian rock singer Vasco Rossi who reached the phenomenal number of 973,709 (!) people on his summertour.

• ST (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The award season hasn’t even really started yet and Per Gessle still can add two more nominations to his ever-growing list: one as “Lyricist and/or Composer of the year” at the Musikförläggarnas Pris (Music Publishers Prize) and another as “Best Nordic Male Artist” at the first Swedish version of the popular Kids Choice Awards.

  Both awards will be given out in Stockholm within less than a week of each other, on October 28th and November 1st, respectively. The Kids Choice Awards program will be shown on both Swedish TV4 and Nickelodeon.

Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article

• Kids Choice Awards (in Swedish)
• Swedish Music Publishers Association (in Swedish)

GOTHENBURG - According to an article published today in Göteborgs Posten (GP), the production company Titan Media will produce an exclusive film about Marie Fredriksson for TV.


  This will be the only interview Marie will give together with the release of her new album “The Change.” It is still unknown what kind of film it will result in. “It can be an interview or a documentary. We are looking at different possibilities,” explains Marie’s manager Marie Dimberg to GP.

• Göteborgs Posten article (in Swedish)
• Titan Television
• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)