NEW YORK (UPDATED) - On Billboard’s Dance Radio Airplay chart, the cover version of “Listen To Your Heart” by D.H.T. reached the #1 position this week, leaving behind acts like Gwen Stefani with “Hollaback Girl” and Kelly Osbourne with her latest single, “One Word.”

  Meanwhile, the song rises another six places up to #30 on its sixth week on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single is still highlighted with a gold tint, meaning that it is still expected to climb more.

  “I think their version is totally OK,” Per says to The Daily Roxette when asked what he thinks of D.H.T.’s covers. “There’s an ’unplugged’ version that is ummm, sort of good. It feels like they like the original because they are very true to our version, except for the techno part of course! But it’s sort of the same vocals… nice and open,” Per tells TDR. “So, go D.H.T.!, Per cheers. “Let’s hope it goes to #1 on the ’big chart’ as well!”

  Robbins Entertainment, the duo’s US record label, continues to invest money in promotion. An industry publicist was hired last Friday and a new music video was shot in a studio here in New York on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Thomas Evensson, William Navarro and Lars-Erik Olson.

• Billboard’s Hot 100 chart
• Billboard’s Dance Radio Airplay chart

HALMSTAD (UPDATED) - This week Göran Fritzon -Fritte - keyboardist of Gyllene Tider, will auction out two of his cars, one ’97 BMW 523i (lot 93) and one ’88 Mercedes 230CE (lot 94) at local auction-house Hallands Auktionsverk - the same that held the Gyllene Tider auction last year.

  More info available at Auktionsverket’s site, some in English and some in Swedish.

  Update Jul 1: According to Auktionverket’s site the cars weren’t sold.

• Hallands Auktionsverk

NEW YORK - Sixteen years after Roxette climbed all the way to the top of the charts with “Listen to Your Heart,” the song has made a spectacular return and – this week – broke into a coveted Top 40 position on the the Billboard “Hot 100” chart.

  The Belgian duo D.H.T.’s dance remake of LTYH climbs a dramatic 19 places up to #36 this week, raising the question of just how much higher it can go.

  “It’s reacted very well on radio,” a spokeswoman at Robbins Entertainment, the group’s U.S. record label, told The Daily Roxette.

  Their Roxette cover was previously released in Europe, and appeared on various compilation albums there as well. Robbins, primarily a dance label, is a joint-venture with BMG North America. Here in the States, it’s available as a Maxi-CD, on 12” vinyl, and as a legitimate download. These sales numbers are factored into this Billboard chart. A spot check yesterday showed that Virgin Megastore in NYC’s Times Square (where Roxette performed the song live in 2000) had a dozen copies on display.


  So far, there hasn’t been a music video to help promote the single. “We didn’t like the one they already had,” she said, implying that it wouldn’t be of much help here. That will soon change, as the label – excited about the success they’ve had so far and preparing for a July 19 release of a full CD (see cover art above) – is flying D.H.T. back to New York to shoot a brand new one this weekend.

  “Anytime I spin ’Listen To Your Heart,’ the club goes wild,” says “DJ Eric” on the Robbins site’s message board. As previously reported on TDR, the song is getting heavy airplay on major U.S. radio stations.

   This is the first cover version of a Roxette song to appear on the Billboard chart, and the first entry credited to Per Gessle since Roxette’s “Sleeping in My Car” went to #50 in July 1994.

  Roxette’s original recording of “Listen to Your Heart” reached the #1 slot the week of November 4, 1989.

Roxryder-V2002 contributed to this article.

• Billboard’s Hot 100 chart
• Robbins Entertainment
• Audio Snippets
• Video of “Unplugged” version (Not being used in U.S.)

Dancin’ DJs v. Roxette’s single “Fading Like a Flower” will be released July 25 and TDR can show you pictures from the video and the single sleeve. Roxette and EMI have approved the usage of Roxette’s original recordings and you can also see the video in the background of Dancin’ DJs’ video.

  Roxette’s original version of “Fading Like a Flower”, off the “Joyride” album, was a hit back in 1991 where it ended up on #2 in the US for instance. The video was mainly shot in the old part of Stockholm named Gamla stan (Old town).

• AATW and Dancin’ DJs
• The single sleeve

HALMSTAD - SweMD, the Halmstad-based company owned by Gyllene Tider’s Göran Fritzon and MP Persson among others, started their web-based audiobook store in October last year. Their idea was to sell books in MP3 format. Seems they were correct as many major companies in Sweden, like CDON and AdLibris, have since entered the market.

  Now SweMD has taken the next step with a stand-alone audiobook downloading machine for libraries. Using their machine, people can borrow audiobooks for free.

  The first one to get a prototype of the machine will be the city library of Skövde. It will be installed and opened tomorrow by Göran. If all goes according to SweMD’s plans, libraries all over Sweden can become their customers.

• SweMD (in Swedish)

Swedish blues and folk singer Totta Näslund, 60, passed away Sunday morning after a long illness.
  Marie, in 2001, collaborated in the recording of two of the songs on his album "Duetterna" (The Duets): "Ett Minne Bättre Glömt" (A memory better forgotten) and "Sommarens sista servitris" (Summer's last waitress).

• DN article (in Swedish, with photos)

(UPDATED) - After a long, long time a Roxette song enters the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. “Listen to Your Heart” by D.H.T. lands on #87.

  The original - Roxette’s second US #1 - charted at #1 in 1989, and was the first Roxette single only available on cassette in the US.

  Update Jun 3: The single climbs to #71 this week.

  Update Jun 10: The single takes another jump upwards, six steps this time, to #65.

Yet another update; Jun 16: It keeps climbing, another ten steps up to #55! Will it break top 50?

• Billboard

Frida, the brunette of ABBA, will re-release her 1982 album “Something’s Going On” June 20, at least in the UK. The album was originally produced by Phil Collins, who kept Per Gessle’s arrangement of the song “Threnody,” which is featured on the album. It was also the flip side of the lead single off the album.

  “Threnody” is a poem by American poet Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) that Per Gessle used as lyrics for music he wrote. The new album release contains two bonus tracks.

  Frida has kept quiet the last few years, the last thing heard from her was “Djupa Andetag,” released in 1996, where Marie Fredriksson appeared as a collaborator.

  “Threnody” was once written for the mystical group Modern Times (Gyllene Tider’s first name for a hesitant international career), but was sent to Frida instead. Later it was released by Gyllene Tider on an EMI compilation: “Radio Parlophone 2.”

• Eil.com

HALMSTAD - The record label Westcoast Studios in Halmstad wants to show the politicians and record company moguls that you can get a big hit without marketing budgets in the million krona range. Therefore they have recorded a summer hit (?), with the band Solsting (Sun Stroke) called “Nu är sommarn här igen” (“Now Summer is Here Again”). The song is available for download at the homepage, in two versions, all for free. The lyrics and the chords are also available on the site “for your bar-b-que parties.”

  TDR has listened to the song and finds it very Halmstad, very summery and it even has a little Gyllene Tider feel to it.

• Solsting’s homepage (In Swedish)