Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are back with the March edition of Nordic Rox and ready to continue the Swedish ’80s countdown list that they started in the previous show. They continue with five songs occupying positions 25 to 21. Per says it’s going to be exciting.

Sven informs that he managed to catch Per just before he headed off to South Africa. Per explains he is going on a tour with Roxette, which is going to be so exciting, because they have a brand new singer, Lena Philipsson. They are in the middle of rehearsals at the moment and it’s going to be really cool. Sven is curious about how it sounds. PG thinks it sounds amazing. Lena is an outstanding singer and a great person on stage as well. So he is sure it’s going to be a success. They are doing a couple of shows in South Africa, and then they go to Australia for a couple of weeks. Ticket sales are going very well and Mr. G is very happy.

Here the guys kick off the show with a song from the north of Sweden, from the late ’90s. Boogie Woogie/Rock ‘n’ Roll by Komeda is played first. Per loves that song, he thinks it’s a crazy one. Insane pop music from 1996. It’s the sound of Northern Sweden. Umeå, to be precise, Sven adds. These guys in Komeda are interesting. Sven read somewhere that their original name was Cosma Komeda and that was from a French-Romanian composer Vladimir Cosma and Polish composer and jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda. Sven jokes that maybe the record company said two names might be too much, choose one. Haha.

Then comes Norwegian singer Emma Jensen with her brand new single Now And Then. The guys think it sounds good.

The third song on the show is Church Of Your Heart by Roxette, taken from their 1991 album Joyride. Sven asks a burning question regarding the upcoming tour in South Africa and Australia: is Church Of Your Heart going to be on the setlist? Per says they have rehearsed it and they are not sure yet. Maybe. They have done that song in so many different varieties: acoustic, unplugged and with a full band. It’s like a 12-string electric thing to begin with. So they don’t know yet.

Sven and Per get down to the ’80s list. Per says they have a wonderful little band on position No. 25, Commando M. Pigg. The year is 1982, a long time ago. Baby Doll is from their second album and it’s a very typical song for Commando M. Pigg. They had two guys from Southern Sweden and they played in a band called TT Reuter before that. They came out of the new wave scene in the late ’70s. The guitarist  was Peter Puders. He sounded like a post-punk guitar hero.

A big hit from 1987 is No. 24. Jag blir hellre jagad av vargar (I’d rather be chased by wolves) is by a guy called Orup, who came from a band Per can’t remember the name of. Orup started a solo career and he actually went on tour in 1987 as a support act to Roxette. The first tour ever for Roxette was in Sweden and they toured together with two other artists. There were three headliners and the support act was Orup on his debut tour. Sven was there. This song turned out to be a monster hit for Orup. It was all over Swedish radio that year. It’s taken from his debut album and it launched a very successful career. He is still active and still performing. The guy who produced this song, Anders Glenmark, was a very successful producer in the ’80s. He managed to make Orup’s quirkiness just right. He’s got a very special sound to all his productions, including this one.

At position 23, the guys check out one of the Swedish forefathers of modern rock music, Pugh Rogefeldt, one of Per’s big favourites. PG loved him and he always liked Pugh’s stuff. He started out in the ’60s and he was actually one of the very first ones to sing in Swedish. And he even invented Pughish, his own language. He made an album in his own language that nobody understood. But it sounded cool. He was really innovative, heavily influenced by Captain Beefheart. He had a great trio, a guitar player who also played bass and a great drummer and himself. It was so homegrown music, but it sounded really cool. He could go from the sort of weird stuff, slightly experimental, far out to the super commercial pop stuff as well. He was all over the place. Två lika är ett is from 1986 when he changed record label. This particular song became a big hit for him in 1986. It’s produced by Anders Burman, who used to produce his old stuff in the ’60s and early ’70s, but also together with Thomas Ledin, who is an artist in his own right, a very big artist in Sweden. He was also the producer of this song. It sounds like easy listening coming from Pugh Rogefeldt. A classic summer pop hit. Per thinks it’s a wonderful song.

The guys go down to Malmö in the south of Sweden. Sven says we will hear some southern Swedish language. He is not sure we are going to hear the difference, but they do. Haha. A big, big, big artist and band in the ’80s, Dan Hylander is next. With his girlfriend Py Bäckman, they formed a band called Raj Montana Band. Per says he was listening to them. They were touring all the time. Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman was a keyboard player in Raj Montana Band and Roxette drummer Pelle Alsing also played with them. Sven says there is a Roxette connection everywhere. Per wishes there was. Haha. They had lots of friends in common. Every time they came to Per’s hometown on the west coast, he went to see them, hung out and had a lot of beers. Dan’s lyrics were very special, because he never rhymed. He just wrote lyrics, stories, poems and there was no rhyming involved. He always said that it was always the last thing he did. The music was finished, then he wrote the lyrics and it never rhymed. Per was so confused by that, being a songwriter himself. Sven says the funny thing is that you sort of got used to it. PG agrees, it fits Dan’s style. Sven laughs, he got the free non-rhyming ticket. To Sven, his music always sounded a bit like Jackson Brown-ish. Per says the whole band was very much influenced by Jackson Brown, David Lindley and all those people. Farväl till Katalonien is probably the most commercial song that Dan ever did. It was a big hit, even though it’s over five minutes long. They would have done a radio edit, if it was today. It was all over the radio in 1981.

From 1981 the guys move up to 1988, but they stick in the south of Sweden, close to Malmö. There is this university town called Lund and there is a band called The Sinners. Per thinks they always sound amazing, he loves their guitar sound. It’s just so cool. When She Lies was one of their earliest singles from the album From The Heart Down. Sven knows Michael Sellers, he had an English father, moved to Sweden and grew up there in Lund. He was a big fan of Wilko Johnson in Dr. Feelgood. Per says you could tell. Sven says there is a Roxette connection everywhere. Roxette’s name came from the Dr. Feelgood song, Roxette.

That sums up the ’80s chart in this episode. The guys are back next month with five more songs and the tension rises and the excitement and the ticket prices go up, sky high. The guys are joking.

The last two songs on the program are Lick The Bag by the Viagra Boys and Down In The Past by Mando Diao.

The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!