Sven Lindström and Per Gessle continued their countdown of the Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden in the January episode of Nordic Rox. Positions from No. 20 to 16 are on the program.

The guys are sitting in beautiful sunny weather in Halmstad. They welcome 2026 and remember that Nordic Rox started 20 years ago. Sven asks Per where he was in 2006. PG has to think about it, but he probably spent most of his time in the studio working, recording. As always. Another year in the studio. Sven invites us to join them for 20 more years.

Before the countdown, they play some stinging new rock sounds from The Hives. Roll Out The Red Carpet is taken from their latest album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, with the band dressed as medieval kings on the cover. Why not.

Always Like This, a new single by Sahara Hotnights is next. They got a new album coming out in February, called No One Really Changes. Then comes Waste Of Time by Smith & Thell, a wonderful song from November 2024, taken from their last album Chosen Family.

A band from Stockholm you might have heard of is next. Sven is teasing Per: it’s beginning with A and it ends with an A. Per joins in, he is wondering what that can be. ABBA, of course. For a brief period, they were into disco in the late ’70s and they did it very well. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! is actually one of Per’s favourite ABBA tracks. It was a single, but it wasn’t on any album. It just blew his mind when he heard it when he was really young. It’s got one of the greatest intros in the world. They released this single just before they went on their big world tour. A reasonable good kick-off to the tour.

Ifrån mej själv, some Swedish lyrics by Dundertåget or Thunder Express as they call themselves when they play in English. Per likes this song a lot, he thinks it’s a great track. The band is not around anymore, unfortunately. They packed in a few years ago, but their tracks are still available.

The guys get down to their ’90s list. They go to a town in Sven’s home county Småland, neighbouring to Halmstad in the middle of Sweden and a little town called Älmhult, famous throughout the world for IKEA. The Creeps are also from that town. They were a great band according to PG. They were supporting Roxette on a tour in the ’80s. Their Blue Tomato album is produced by Clarence Öfwerman, who is the Roxette producer. It was a big album for them. It came out in 1990 and here on position No. 20 Per and Sven play Ooh – I Like It! from this record. For a second, Sven thought Per was going to say ooh, I didn’t like it. Haha. Per says ooh, he did like it. He likes The Creeps a lot and it’s a really cool track. They were a fantastic live band and they had a great singer, Robert Jelinek.

No. 19 is Meja, a girl who had a breakthrough with this song, All ‘Bout The Money, and she made it big in Japan. Her debut album came out in 1996 and she wrote most of the songs with Billy Steinberg. Steinberg wrote a lot of songs with Tom Kelly, e.g. Like A Virgin for Madonna, Eternal Flame for The Bangles, I Touch Myself for Divinyls and True Colors for Cyndi Lauper. He is a fantastic songwriter. For her second album, Meja teamed up with a Swedish guy called Douglas Carr and this became a big song for her. Sven is not sure about how her name is pronounced internationally. Per says she is always going to be Meja for him – pronounced in the Swedish way.

Coming up at position No. 18 is a joint venture between Sweden and Denmark. Gör mig lycklig nu is a great song, one of Per’s favourite tracks from the ’90s. It’s a collaboration between Mats Ronander and Kim Larsen from Denmark. Kim Larsen was in one of Denmark’s biggest bands, Gasolin, but they never really made it outside Scandinavia. They sang in Danish, but they had a few songs in sort of Danish-English. Mats Ronander was connected with ABBA for a while. He was in the ABBA live band and he is a legendary musician in Sweden. He is a great guitarist and a fantastic harmonica player. He had some hit singles and this is one of the biggest ones, taking us back to 1992. Gör mig lycklig nu (translated into Make Me Happy Now). Per says this song certainly made him happy. Sven adds it put a smile on their faces in the Nordic Rox camp.

The guys are moving forward towards a group that really, really made it big in the ’90s. Somewhat unexpectedly, from basically nowhere to the top of the charts in the States. Ace of Base was in good hands, Per says. They started out early working with Max Martin and they had several big hits. The Sign was No. 1, their breakthrough song was All That She Wants, but Per’s favourite song from Ace of Base came a couple of years later. Sven would have voted for either All That She Wants or The Sign, but then Per having had four US No. 1 hits has the final say, the veto. The Hot 100 veto. Haha. Per says sorry about that. Life Is A Flower is his favourite. Mr. G doesn’t know if this song ever entered any charts in the States. Sven confirms it didn’t, but it was a big hit in Europe. Per just liked it from the first time he heard it. He likes this sort of music. First he says it was produced and co-written by Tommy Ekman, who was a member of the Swedish band Freestyle in the ’80s, a great musician and a great producer. After the song is played, Per makes a correction. Tommy Ekman was not the writer. The song is written by Jonas Berggren from Ace of Base. Tommy, however, was the producer. Per says he is sorry about that. Sven says everyone can make a mistake. He made ONE a long time ago, he laughs, so he knows how it feels. Anyway, since it wasn’t a big hit in the States, some of the listeners might not have even heard it. Now it’s No. 17 on the guy’s chart.

For the last song on today’s ’90s list, PG and Sven go down to the south of Sweden again. Against The Sun by Eggstone is No. 16. They guys think it’s a great band. Sven says the band set up the Tambourine Studios in Malmö where a lot of bands – e.g. The Cardigans – would record quite many hits. They brought English bands like Saint Etienne, even Tom Jones came to the studios in the late ’90s. He made a duet with Nina from The Cardigans, Burning Down The House, a Talking Heads song. It was the opening track on his Reload album. In those days you actually had a lot of young Japanese tourists in town and you wondered what they were doing there, but they all went up to Tambourine Studios to have a look and see if The Cardigans was there.

Here comes some more good-looking music. Good Vibrations by The Facer is next. Then Do You Feel Normal by The Hellacopters is played.

(Do You Get) Excited? by Roxette wraps up today’s Nordic Rox. It’s a track from the Joyride album. It was supposed to be a single, but it never was. However, they did a very nice video for it. You can check it out on YouTube if you are interested. Brilliant vocals as always by Marie Fredriksson. She was amazing on this one.

Sven and PG thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. 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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle continued their Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden series in the December episode of Nordic Rox.

The guys are counting down from position No. 25 to 21. Sven mentions at the beginning of the show that Per has a brand new single. It’s released by a duo called Per and Lena. PG confirms, but Sven keeps the listeners waiting. Good things come to those who wait, he says.

They kick off the program with some garage rock from Stockholm. Ain’t Coming Home by The Sewergrooves is played. Hemingway by Girl In Red is next. Then comes I’m Gonna Dance by The Mo and l.o.v.e by SHY Martin.

Woman & A Child by Mikael Rickfors, taken from the Judas River album in 1991, kicks off the five songs on the ’90s countdown.

The guys are moving on to a great song that Per really likes. It’s by Andreas Johnson. He used to sing and write songs in the band called Planet Waves. Sven asks Per who made an album called Planet Waves. First Per doesn’t realize what the question was referring to, but after he got it, he says it was Bob Dylan. Sven smiles and says it was just some quick pop quiz here. Mr. G continues that Andreas Johnson had a big solo career starting off with this particular album called Liebling in 1999, just in the final hours of the ’90s. This song that the guys chose was a big international hit for him in Europe. In France, for instance and in England as well. It’s called Glorious produced by Peter Kvint, a great Swedish producer. The song has a chorus you just can’t forget, according to Sven. Per thinks it’s wonderful, it stood the test of time. Sven says Per thinks that the chorus takes over everything and the verse is rather… not bland, but… Per tries to put it into words and explains that you need a neutral verse to get a chorus like that. He thinks it’s an amazing chorus. No wonder it became a major hit.

Sven and Per go into some Swedish lyric songs. Coming up first is a song called Lilla fågel blå (Little Bird Blue) by a songwriter and artist called Staffan Hellstrand. It was a big song for him, his biggest hit so far. Sven adds that it was backed by Swedish garage rock kings, The Nomads, which gave it an edge as well. PG thinks it’s a great song.

The tension rises, the guys are heading for No. 22. They picked Broken Promise Land by Weeping Willows. It sounds a bit of melancholy and that’s basically what it is, Sven says. Per agrees. It was their breakthrough song in 1997. They are still around, making new records, touring. Sven saw the lead singer Magnus Carlson on Swedish television a couple of days ago, so they are very much active.

No. 21 is a song by Marie Fredriksson. It’s another Swedish lyric song, a beautiful ballad called Tro. It can be translated into „faith” or „belief”. Marie made a solo album in 1996 when Roxette took a break. They took a four-year break after 1995, when they finished touring and Marie had her second child. She made a solo album and Tro was the first single. It was also part of a film and it was a really big hit for Marie. It’s a really wonderful song, an amazing song, Per thinks. Sven agrees and he says Marie tried to squeeze in a Swedish solo career between all the Roxette commitments, which were basically taken up all the time otherwise. Per adds that she wrote Swedish stuff that was not really in the pop style. She wanted to do things in Swedish as well. She never felt comfortable writing English lyrics anyway. She had lots of other things on her mind, which was great.

And that wraps up the Swedish ’90s list for this time. On the next show the guys are entering the top 20. So it’s going to be exciting further on.

James by Ex Cops, I Believed by Maria Jane Smith and Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy are played.

Then comes Bad Blood by Per + Lena. It’s the new single by Per and Lena Philipsson, who is singing with Roxette these days. It’s a little new piece of music that they put together over the summer season. Mr. G thinks it’s cool. Sven thinks it’s a great track and it sounds very inspired. Per says they were inspired and it was great fun making it. He co-wrote it together with a guy called Alex Shield. PG has been working with him a bit in the past on different projects. It’s got a sort of a Stonesy vibe to it. Per likes it and he also likes how Lena is singing on it. She is really cool, Sven thinks. He promises to sit down with Per and Lena to discuss the current tour and next year’s activities, which will be quite a lot. They will still be touring. It’s a big world, Per adds.

Sven and PG thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. 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!