Last year, Per paid 5,148,205 SEK (approx. 634,000 USD) taxes. His capital was 345,000,000 SEK (42 mill. USD). This makes him #1 tax payer of Swedish musicians. However, he doesn’t get to Top 100 list of Swedish tax payers.

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article

EMI Canada has put online their own Roxette page to promote the release of “Have A Nice Day”. According to EMI, Canada is “Roxette’s #1 territory in the world per capita”. They have also released some chart info on “Wish I Could Fly”.

“Have A Nice Day” will be released in Canada on June 29.

• Roxette @ EMI Canada

Once again someone has been spreading false rumours about Roxette splitting up. Per has sent the fanclub a message where he tells that Roxette is NOT splitting up. They have been shooting “Stars” video today and yesterday, and Per thinks there will still be several single releases after that one. He and Marie are “quite happy” with the album sales so far (1.4 million copies).

According to Official Roxette Fanclub, at least MTV Germany won’t show “Anyone” video at all. The reason is that the theme of the video is suicide and therefore showing the video would be against their TV channel license.

MTV Nordic has only shown censored version of the video, in which all the references to suicide have been removed (thus making the video quite pointless…).

The Swedish division of Official Roxette Fanclub is going to organize two fanmeetings in Halmstad in the end of July. On July 30 there will be a Swedish-only fanmeeting as a picnic to Harplinge. Next day, July 31, there will be a international fanmeeting. This time the group will go and see Leif’s Lounge in Tylösand. E-mail [email protected] for more information.

The end of July is going to be a good time to visit Halmstad: MTV will be recording their show on July 28.

Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has a weekly extra called Nyt (“Now” in English). Nyt contains a column called “Identical Twins” in which they every week have pictures of two persons who look alike. This week they had pictures of Marie Fredriksson and Minister at the Ministry of Finance of Finland Suvi-Anne Siimes.

Roxette fan Stephen Shelton asked EMI Canada about the US release. Here’s the reply he got: (He posted it to the Roxette Mailing List)

I’ll try to clarify the situation for you. Whenever any territory (country) releases a title, all other territories have a choice whether they release it or not (depending on their market, previous album sales, promotional activities, tour dates etc). We often try to release simultaneously with the US, but there are A LOT of titles released in Canada that are not released in the States(our markets are very different), and sometimes, it’s just that our release schedules are different, for various internal reasons. In this particular case, the US might release a greatest hits package which would include 2 tracks from the new album, we (in Canada,) preferred releasing the full album.

A greatest hits album with two HAND tracks?!! Sounds interesting. However, I guess many of the American fans would prefer releasing “Have A Nice Day”!

According to Hallandsposten, MTV Europe will be visiting Sweden in July. On the last Wednesday of the month (that makes it July 28) they are going to shoot in Hotel Tylösand, Halmstad. The hotel is partly owned by Per. Jennifer Brown will be one of the artists performing live in MTV’s show.

Official Roxette Fanclub tells that “Have A Nice Day” album will probably be released in the States in September or October. The US record deal has been delayed and one of the reasons was Roxette’s lawyer Robert Thorne who was hospitalized because of severe illness. Fortunately, the lethal disease was diagnosed soon enough.

There won’t be a tour before the album has been released in the USA, but if/when it is released, the tour is likely to go also to North America.

According to the Official Roxette Fanclub, Roxette has finally recorded three HAND ballads in Spanish. The songs are:

• Wish I Could Fly - Echarse a volar (Start To Fly)
  
• Anyone - Cualquiera que pueda amar (Anyone Who Could Love)
  
• Salvation - Redención (Salvation)
  

Translations are made by Luis G. Escolar, the same guy who did the lyrics for “Baladas En Espanol”. The tracks were recorded in Stockholm and they will be released “before the end of the year”.