Roxette’s latest single, “A Thing About You,” scored big in Germany. On Sunday, ATAY came in as #1 on the Jump Radio Chart of the Year. The station is generally considered to be the second largest in Germany. The song was the most requested their weekly Top 20 this year. It was #1 for six weeks.

  Some days ago, in the biggest radio station of Germany, SWR3, ATAY showed up as #3 on their year-end chart.

• Jump Radio (In German)

“A Thing About You,” Roxette’s current single, is a success in Brazil. The song is number eight on “As 10 Mais” (Top 10) on “Transamérica”, the most listened radio station in the country.

  In addition, the single has reached #41 in just six weeks on Brazilian “Top 100.”


  The “A Thing About You” video was released on MTV Brazil on November 27th and “The Ballad Hits” album has just turned gold.

• Transamérica
• Brazilian Top 100

EDITOR’S NOTE - When, a few weeks ago, we contacted the Swedish State Railways for permission to reprint this interview, we had yet to read it. We had no idea that it would be just as as interesting as the exclusive interview we conducted with Per at the very beginning of this recent promotional period. Having now translated the article, we’re delighted to be able to share Mr. Lundmark’s engaging interview with our readers.


STOCKHOLM - Pop addict, father, multi-millionaire, hotel owner, Ferrari fanatic, art collector. You can describe Per Gessle in many different ways. But above all else he’s a songwriter (did you know, by the way, that “Listen To Your Heart” was written to be a parody?). Something you definitely notice now when Roxette collect their hits on not one, but two greatest hits collections.

  The first concert I ever saw was Gyllene Tider. The place was Skellefteå’s Folk Park, the year was 1982, and Per Gessle was my idol (well, I guess one can say that Per Gessle was everyone’s idol back then).

  When Per Gessle almost exactly 20 years later walks into the office at Capitol Records toting his mobile phone it still feels pretty huge (even if my role nowadays is the critic/reporter, not the 10-year-old sitting on his dad’s shoulders…).

  To many, Per Gessle is still an idol - you only need to do a quick Internet search to realize it; there are tons of sites like “Pearls of Per,” “Gessletronic” and “The Daily Roxette” (the latter is Per Gessle’s own start page).

  “The other day it just struck me that I’ve been doing this for a quarter century, for 25 years! It’s nuts!” says Per Gessle as he plops down in the comfortable chair in front of me.

  “We’re outrageously old (about Roxette), we’re over 40 years,” he laughs.

Per Gessle was ready to “work his ass off” this fall. Among other things, there was a two-month long tour planned called “Night of the Proms,” where Roxette were to perform with a symphony orchestra in Germany, Belgium and Holland. This didn’t happen because of Marie Fredriksson’s brain tumor. Per Gessle says that they for now take one thing at a time and that Marie is “as good as one may expect”. The thought is that Roxette, in this case Per, is to keep working as usual though, “then we’ll see what happens.” And carrying on as usual means, among other things, giving interviews.

  “But I can’t lip sync on a German TV-show without Marie, even if it is I who sings on the new single,” Per states with a smile.

  The new single is called “A Thing About You,” and is one of two newly written songs (“Breathe” is the other) on the brand new collection “The Ballad Hits” (and indirectly the reason for Per Gessle and I to sit and talk). This spring it will be followed by another collection named “The Pop Hits,” even if Per Gessle is wondering if it instead should be named “The Powerpop Hits”.

  “Why two collections instead of one?”

  “We’ve released 41 or 42 singles and could’ve released a double CD, but that would’ve felt a bit boring. Besides it’s kind of fun to split it into two sides, Marie and I have two different sides too, maybe it’s mostly the ballads that differentiate us.

  “What do you do best?”

  “It’s harder to write a fast song than a ballad, writing a ‘Joyride’ or ‘The Look’ takes much longer to do. It’s about a simpleness that can’t go wrong, a simpleness that must be smart. Three-chord pop should sound smart.”

  “When I was younger, I never listened to ballads. When I was 20, I listened to T-Rex and punk rock. Maybe it’s an age thing.”

  Gessle picks up speed now.

  “People listened a lot more to music before, pop music meant more. I remember when I saw David Bowie on TV, they showed maybe 20 seconds of ‘Life on Mars.’ It was magical, I had never seen anything like it before,” says Per and compares it to the TV flood of today.

  “When I was small it was a big thing to watch Donald Duck on Christmas Eve. Today there’s the Cartoon Network on 24-hours-a-day.

©2002 SJ. Reprinted with the kind permission of Statens Järnvägar, the Swedish Railway System, and Kupé Magazine. Written by Mårten Lundmark, with translation by TDR News Editor Thomas Evensson. Photos courtesy EMI Sweden.

• SJ - Statens Järnvägar (Swedish State Railways)

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STOCKHOLM - The Daily Roxette has some answers to questions our readers have asked about “The Look For Roxette.”

  The book is written in English and will not be translated into any other language.

  The first edition of the book (3,000 copies) will include a bonus EP, which will feature the songs we previously reported. Should the publisher ever release a second edition of the book, that edition will not include the bonus EP.

  The book is available for purchase from the following places: Premium Publishing, the Roxette Fan Organization, and the International Roxette Fan Club.

  There may be additional outlets later on, and it’s also possible to purchase it directly from the author, Robert Thorselius.

• Premium Publishing
• Roxette Fan Organization
• International Fan Club
• Robert Thorselius
• TLFR buyer’s Guide

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PUURS - Last Friday, November 29th, three Belgian fans and their partners were treated by EMI Belgium and Sweden to a Meet & Greet with Per Gessle at the Polar Studios in Stockholm. Sandra Vets was one of the six winners and invited Cathy Carlier of the Belgian Fanclub to join her.


  Per took his time to talk about the Polar Studios, his work and his family. The winners also heard in sneak preview the upcoming single promoting the Pop Album. It sounds like it could have belonged on the Room Service album, with vocals mainly by Per, supported by Marie.


  “We are looking for the right mix,” the artist explained. “It’s a painstaking job sometimes to do so. I played guitar today and we are adding Marie’s vocals today as well.”


  As to answer the question about the title of the new song, Per diplomatically looked at Li Eriksson from EMI Sweden who stated it was too soon to reveal any titles. In fact, they had not decided yet.


  Many questions were answered, amongst others the one revolving around the K-Otic song.


  “It’s like this,” he explained, “some time ago I was asked to give a couple of songs. This particular song was meant for the Room Service album. I had even made a demo of it – which, to be honest – I found much better sounding than the K-Otic version. But it did not make the final cut so I had it lying around. I have no control over where some of my songs go to. Sometimes it goes to bands like K-Otic.”


  “A Gyllene Tider reunion is definitely possible,” he continued. “It might be a tour next year, but we’ll see what happens. I’m also going into the studios to record some of my solo-work. I’m gathering a band to do that. Of course,” he smiled, “I don’t have a record deal yet.”


  About promoting The Ballad Hits in the UK and US, he stated that it all depends on Marie. “I don’t want to do this promotion alone,” he explained. “But I’m respecting Marie’s wishes. If she feels up to it, we will go there. If not, we won’t. The same goes for the upcoming Pop album.”


  Per was relaxed, witty and funny during this Meet & Greet that nearly lasted an hour. It was a treat for the fans who were there.

• Roxette.be (Full story)

Roxette and love, what a combination, don’t you think! Well VH1 does! The music channel has placed Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” from the “Pretty Woman” soundtrack at #95 of the top 100 love songs of all time, in a program conveniently hosted by Jennifer Love Hewitt.

  On the first installment of this five part show, they showed the entire Roxette music video and included various interview clips with Per and Marie.

  While VH1 did not mention anything about Roxette’s current plans, they did state that the band was not getting any attention in the US before that video was put out and it is truly the one that made Roxette a household name.
Vixter and Geytenbeek contributed to this article.

• VH1’s 100 Greatest Love Songs

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STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - After eight years of hard work, Robert Thorselius’s Roxette and related discography book “The Look For Roxette - The Illustrated Worldwide Discography & Price Guide” will finally be published during the first week of December.


  With a preface written by Per Gessle, the hardcover book has 592 pages. It includes a full worldwide discography and videography of items released by Roxette and Gyllene Tider along with any others related to Per Gessle’s or Marie Fredriksson’s work. Extensive biographical information is also included, as well as a ’tourography’ that covers all solo and Roxette tours, plus specific single performances. The text portion of “The Look For Roxette” is written in English.



Where did the title come from?

  “The publisher wanted something that was both catchy and sounded like a Roxette title. So I came up with ’The Look For Roxette’ as the title. as it’s sort of a word play on ’The Look’ as a single… and looking for Roxette records. I do realize that it’s not totally correct English,” Robert says with a smile.


  As Per revealed to The Daily Roxette during our exclusive interview with him, the first edition of the book (3,000 copies) will include an EP with the four previously unreleased tracks listed below:

   1. Stay (At Home, At Work, At Play) - demo recorded at Tits & Ass, Halmstad, July 1995. Micke Syd on “live drums”!

   2. I Do Believe - demo recorded at Tits & Ass, Halmstad, July 24th, 1999.

   3. Looking for Jane - demo recorded at Tits & Ass, Halmstad, February 15th, 2000.

   4. Waiting for the Rain - demo recorded at Studio Vinden, Djursholm, 1997. Recorded by “Marie and friends”.

  “When the idea for a bonus EP came up, I talked to Per to see if this would be possible,” Robert grins, “and to my surprise he was all for it!” So when the first suggestion came from Per the EP contained Gyllene Tider’s “Henry, Dansa Inte Disco!” and Roxette’s “7Twenty7” demo, among others. “Of course, ’7Twenty7’ was already published as a B-side of ’Stars’… Then Per came up with this suggestion. I think it’s a pretty decent EP, wouldn’t you say?” The important thing about the EP, according to Robert, is that the material was previously unreleased and new to all fans.

• Premium Publishing’s website
• Pre-order the book here

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OSLO - Continuing on with his promotion tour for the upcoming compilation album, Per Gessle will be in Norway tomorrow, November 15th.

  In addition to meeting with various journalists including a reporter from Aftenposten, he will be a guest on Norwegian TV channel NRK1’s program “Først & sist.” The program is shown between 21:25 and 22:15 CET.

  Marius Ellingsen contributed to this article.

• NRK’s website

Continuing to visit European locations in support of the “Ballad Hits” release, Per Gessle will be doing promo in Helsinki this Thursday, November 14th, and in Oslo on Friday, November 15th.

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle was the featured guest on Swedish TV4’s “Nyhetsmorgon” program this past Saturday, November 9th.


 The interview segment, which was really personal, started by showing shots from old Gyllene Tider videos, followed by Roxette ones, from older to newest; of course, Per and the program host, couldn’t help laughing about the look both Per and Marie had 15 years ago. When asked about how long he will keep on doing his thing Per says “I’ll be standing on a stage in Gävle when I’m 75, singing ’Flickorna på TV2’!”


 They went on talking about Marie’s illness, life and future. “I can’t really say now what the future will bring,” he says, “we have to wait some months and see what Marie will decide for her future”. In the last part of the interview, Per talked mostly about two of his favorite vinyl albums and about the music business world. “It certainly has changed a lot during my 20 or so years in the business,” he says. He also mentions that “The Look” is still his favorite Roxette song. “It’s hard to write something that sounds so simple.”

Despite Roxette’s the successful career, Per is a bit disappointed with the fact that they never got the kind of acknowledgement they would deserve from the Swedish media: Roxette has only won one Grammy (’Grammis’), and so has Per, as best songwriter, but Clarence hasn’t even been nominated, “I believe that if we would have been an English band, the treatment would have been different, and Clarence would be Sir Clarence by now,” adds Per, half serious.


 Per is also sorry that they had to cancel the Night of the Proms. The host asked if millions of kronor wouldn’t have to be paid back to disappointed fans. Per replied that he assumes so, but that Roxette has been replaced by another act, as TDR previously reported.


 The TV channel has made the interview partly available in stream format on their website. To watch it click the links below.



Vivien contributed to this article

• Listen to the interview - Part I
• Listen to the interview - Part II (In Swedish - Real Audio required)