STOCKHOLM - It was only one week ago when Per Gessle received a platinum award during his appearance at SVT’s Allsång på Skansen for selling over 60,000 copies of his new solo album “Mazarin”.

  Today we are glad to announce that, precisely two weeks after the album release, 120,000 “Cupcakes” have been sold, meaning Per sums up another platinum award to his collection.

STOCKHOLM - “Opportunity Nox” falls from #11 to #23 today on the official Swedish singles charts, after only two weeks on the charts. Lack of promotion is most probably the key element here. The single is still #2 on the noted radio show “Tracks”.

• GLF at Aftonbladet

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Roxette’s latest single, “Opportunity Nox”, goes straight to the top positions on the Swedish radio show “Tracks” charts.

  “This is great,” says Per to Aftonbladet. “We’ve been around since 1986, which is amazingly long in this business and I’m happy every time something works out like this. It’s especially nice this time, because the song is an honest 3-chord track, a descendant of the songs I wrote when I was a teenager.” Roxette has had over 40 songs on that radio show and is the biggest act ever on “Tracks”.

  The single also enters the sales chart, at #11, which is ten spots below “The Centre of the Heart” which shot straight into #1.

  Currently, Per is writing songs in both English and Swedish. He also says it really looks like there is going to be yet another Gyllene Tider tour in summer 2004, when the band is celebrating their 25th anniversary. Gyllene Tider will have a meeting this fall to discuss further about a possible reunion.

(Daniel_Alv contributed to this article.)

• Aftonbladet article
• The Official Swedish Single Charts at Aftonbladet

LONDON - Roxette continues the crusade of Europe; EMI UK confirms today that the UK version of Roxette’s “The Ballad Hits” has gone silver, which is more than 60,000 units sold.

  Whilst the album still looks to remain on the UK top 40 for another week (somewhere around #35), this is still the most successful Roxette album in the UK since the first greatest hits collection, “Don’t Bore Us - Get to the Chorus!”, in 1995.

LONDON - Roxette’s “Ballad Hits” has rocketed to the dizzy heights of number 11 on the UK album charts. It’s a massive jump of 12 places from last week’s position.

  Most of this success is undoubtedly attributed to the successful Valentine’s Day promotion, which has seen love struck Britons flock en masse to their local music stores in search of that special gift for the special someone in their lives. Some credit also has to be awarded to EMI UK who has uncharacteristically re-invested confidence in the band, not to mention a sizeable amount of money on some very expensive prime-time television advertising. Whatever the reasons, it’s an impressive result, especially when you consider that Per & Marie understandably weren’t able to visit the country in order to assist with the promotion of their release.

  Whether any significant meaning can be drawn from all this is difficult to predict. It will at the very least, however, send all the right signals to the other EMI franchises in other Roxette-deprived countries. Especially coming from a country that is notoriously stubborn in welcoming back what it wrongly perceives to be stars of yesteryear.

BADEN-BADEN - Roxette’s latest single, “Opportunity Nox,” has hit the #1 spot at the radio chart of SWR 3, one of Germany’s biggest radio stations.

(Nik Schönberger contributed to this article.)

• SWR3 (In German)

AMSTERDAM - “The Ballad Hits” has entered the Dutch album Top 10 at number nine this week, jumping from number 39 where the album entered the top 100 last week.


  EMI/Capitol has decided to re-release the single “A Thing About You” in The Netherlands in order to re-create interest in the ballads compilation. The record company also launched a big promotional campaign with commercials on radio and television. In addition, The Netherlands’ most popular radio station - Sky Radio - made “The Ballad Hits” this week’s “Album of the week”.


  The ninth place for “The Ballad Hits” is the best chart position Roxette reaches in The Netherlands since “Crash! Boom! Bang!” in 1994. All the other albums since failed to make the top 10. In November last year, “The Ballad Hits” was first released in The Netherlands but the album didn’t even make to the first 100 positions.

• Megatop100

LONDON - Roxette’s attempt to capitalize on the British’s love affair with Valentine’s Day has got off to an encouraging start. “The Ballad Hits” has entered the UK sales chart at a respectable #23. This is Roxette’s highest position on the chart since “Don’t Bore Us - Get To The Chorus!” went to #5 in November 1995.


  In addition, it is EMI/Capitol’s second highest new album entry and their third highest selling album last week.


  Continuing with the Valentine’s Day tie-in, the excitement continues tomorrow (Monday) with the UK release of the single “A Thing About You.”


(xarrrr and animalkingdom contributed to this article.)

• Album Sales Chart

The latest compilation release “The Ballad Hits” by Roxette has now landed to the Portuguese top 10 album chart at #9. The last time they reached the top 10 was with the Spanish ballad compilation “Baladas en Español” back in 1997.

  The album “Have A Nice Day” in 1999 only managed to reach #12. Two years later “Milk And Toast And Honey” received huge radio airplay and the listeners loved the song but that didn’t allow them to chart with “Room Service”.

STOCKHOLM - After only being on the market a week, “The Ballad Hits” have reached gold status (30,000 copies) in Sweden.

  To promote Gold and Platinum awards in Sweden, the sales limits were lowered a few years ago. The previous limits were 50,000 and 100,000 respectively.

• Dagens skiva (In Swedish)