New Roxette album to be released on March 30

Update January 24:

Here’s the intial cover for T2 – Tourism 2 release. CDON.com also changed Unviersal reference – the album will be out on EMI label.

Swedish base online shop CDON.com published intial date for the T2 – Tourism 2 album release. According to the website the new Roxette album goes out on March 30 and will cost around EUR 17.95. The name is still unknown.

The interesting fact is that it’s the first Roxette’s album to be released under Universal Music label.

Thanks to Daniel Kuhn for finding this and RoxetteCafe.com for informing about the cover.

Jonas Isacsson responds to Roxette fans

Since Roxette’s longterm guitar player Jonas Isacsson didn’t participate on the latest album “Charm School” and the current World Tour, many fans wondered why they stopped to work together and wished him to reappear on new projects like the “Tourism 2” (working title) album. Jonas now responded to fans on Facebook in sort of an open letter:

Dear friends!
I’m honored and happy that you enjoy my
guitarplaying so much.
But let Roxette do their new stuff as they want.
It took some time for me to get rid of the ghost and
… grasp that I don’t work with them anymore.
I was sad but now I’m getting over it.
The old records are still there for all to hear and I’m
proud of my work. But that was then!
This is now and Rox are doing fine without me.
And I’m doing fine without them.
Let us carry on just like that.

Take care!
Jonas Isacsson

His last appearance with Roxette was the “Night Of The Proms” tour 2009 and the performance for Princess Victoria’s wedding in June 2010.

Good luck with your new projects, Jonas!

Thanks to Roland for the Info!

Update: Roxette comment this article via Facebook:

We all love Jonas dearly + are sure we’ll work together again.

New interview: Roxette to triumph over the world

Per Gessle gave a fresh interview regarding Roxette’s present and future to TT Spektra, appearing here and there. Some interesting bits:

  • The tour album under the working title “Tourism 2” or “2rism” is still planned for release in Spring 2012 and will include several entirely new songs. Per is not keen on a project that is only retrospective, the same goes for a possible future Gyllene Tider project.
  • He is writing new songs all the time, but with no specific project in mind. Now it’s Roxette, but he would like to do more solo and GT in the future.
  • Roxette are producing a live documentary which may be released alongside the new album next year.
  • In Sweden the situation is a bit difficult for Roxette. It’s much easier to sell GT tickets there.
  • Roxette’s World Tour is running until August 2012. Maybe with additional Canada dates in the Fall. In the end they will have played 130 concerts for around 1.3 million people. So far they count 53 concerts for 750,000 fans.
  • Per is well aware that the nostalgia factor plays a big role in Roxette’s current success. In areas like Australia where they sold 50.000 tickets in one day, people thought Roxette was inactive since 2001.

About their motivation:

The most important thing is that we have a blast and that Marie feels like a princess. This is the world’s weirdest rehab!

Per Gessle reveals to Expressen: Roxette is recording a new album

Roxette is already underway with recording a new album. At the same time the band’s successful World Tour that began earlier this year will extend – and continue throughout most of 2012.
(p) Lionel Zaragocin
We’ve already started recording new songs for our next album which will be a continuation on “Tourism”, says Per Gessle.

Per Gessle, Marie Fredriksson and the rest of the “new” Roxette has received a nine-day vacation from the hectic tour. Expressen met Per Gessle related with the opening of photography exhibition with Terry O’Neill’s classic 1960s images of Tres Hombres Art in Tylösand.

Some concerts are like a big karaoke-show, the audience sings along, all the time, says Per’s wife Åsa has been for most of the tour.

I and MP were in the studio in Halmstad yesterday and wrote a new song, Per reveals. – New album is being recorded during this tour, in local studios and during the soundcheck. Just as the “Tourism” from 1992. All material is new. Working title is now “2Rism”

(c) ExpressenPer found a part of previously unreleased recordings. – Here are the songs with young Marie, before she became ill. We will use the song and record new backgrounds. Like Stones did when they found some leftover from the cult classic “Exile on Main Street” and Springsteen’s “forgotten” recordings of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” that was released as “The Promise”.

– These successes are pure bonus for us, that we had not counted on. We cannot compete with today’s artists like Lady Gaga and other pop based on beats, arrangements and a visual idea. It is not easy to do powerpop 2011. Yet we have just played for almost half a million people. When the tour is complete, we will reach 1.3 million.

Source: Expressen

Thanks to Emilio Gimenez Bahl for the picture.