Album

Per Gessle – En vacker natt signing session tour

by

The release date of Per Gessle’s new album, En vacker natt is getting closer (28 April). Space Station 12 shared the complete list of the signing session tour stops. There are 14 places where you can meet Mr. G.

 

·         27 April (Thursday) – Göteborg 19:00-21:00 Bengans (Stigbergstorget 1)
·         28 April (Friday) – Halmstad 17:00-19:00 Akademibokhandeln (Storgatan 28)
·         29 April (Saturday) – Stockholm 13:00-15:00 Bengans (Drottninggatan 20)
·         4 May (Thursday) – Västerås 17:00-18:00 Skivbörsen (Smedjegatan 15)
·         6 May (Saturday) – Hässleholm 12:30-14:00 Skivlagret (Tingshusgatan 10)
·         6 May (Saturday) – Malmö 16:00-18:00 Folk å Rock (Skomakargatan 11)
·         7 May (Sunday) – Ullared 12:00-14:00 Gekås (Danska vägen 13)
·         12 May (Friday) – Gävle 17:00-18:00 Alla Tiders Skivhandel (Norra Skeppargatan 13)
·         13 May (Saturday) – Borlänge 13:00-15:00 Skivbutiken (Kupolen)
·         19 May (Friday) – Uppsala 17:00-18:00 Skivcentrum (Vaksalagatan 14)
·         20 May (Saturday) – Örebro 11:00-12:00 Bananamoon Records (Klostergatan 7-9)
·         20 May (Saturday) – Karlstad 14:00-15:00 Akademibokhandeln (Järnvägsgatan 14)
·         27 May (Saturday) – Norrköping 11:00-12:00 Vaxkupan (Drottninggatan 25)
·         27 May (Saturday) – Linköping 14:00-16:00 Bengans (Nygatan 31)

 

You can order the album online at these sites: ; ; ; ; ; ; . CDs are signed until the stock lasts. Let’s see who will be the lucky one getting that last signed CD which Per made special with a Leif drawing.

 

Update on 15th May: the signing sessions on May 19-20 are cancelled.

Update on 24th May: the signing sessions on May 27 are cancelled.

 

Roxers’ favourite Good Karma tracks

by

You might remember Per’s Sunday reflection post. He asked which your favourite song is on Roxette’s brand new album, Good Karma.

SUNDAY REFLECTION. Howdy folks. So, the mighty Good Karma’s been out a week by now. Great reception. Thanks. One thing: what’s your favourite song? Just one, pls. Otherwise I’ll get confused! Cheers, P.

It was really hard for all of us to pick only one track, because all songs on the album are dear to most of us and our favourites are changing day by day or even hour by hour. Checking the comments under the post, some are having an album with exclusive extra tracks, like Joyride, The Look, Vulnerable and So Far Away, haha. Sticking to the real Good Karma songs, the title track seems to be the absolute winner. How about a third single soon? 😉

gk_roxers_faves

 

Roxette’s new single “It Just Happens” out tomorrow; album out on June 3

by

April 8th is a special date for Roxette, as on that day back in 1989 Roxette reached #1 on the Billboard with The Look, their first number 1 in USA and the song that meant their brIt Just Happenseakthrough.

Twenty-seven (yes, 27!) years later, Roxette has decided to release their new single “It Just Happens” on this date. This is the first single off “Good Karma”, Roxette’s 10th album that will be released on June 3rd. The album will also be released on vinyl!

In the press release sent out today, Per explains “we wanted to mix the classic Roxette sound with a modern and somehow unpredictable production to create an interesting sound where one can both recognise us and experience something new”. The song “was one of the first songs written for the album and quickly became one of the key songs” and was therefore chosen as the first single.

Promotion for the song has just started, do not miss the butterfly on all social media! This is going to be a great 30th anniversary year!

Expressen (rating 3/5, “the production has style and fantasy”) and Aftonbladet (rating 3/5, stating the song is “surprisingly good” and “who would have thought Roxette do have so strong and melancholic melodies in 2016?”) also already reviewed the single.

 

The track list of the album is as follows:Good Karma

01. Why Don’tcha?
02. It Just Happens
03. Good Karma
04. This One
05. You Make It Sound So Simple
06. From a Distance
07. Some Other Summer
08. Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers?
09. You Can’t Do This to Me Anymore
10. 20 bpm
11. April Clouds

Roxers’ favourite Roxette studio album covers

by

Some days ago we asked you to list your Top3 favourite Roxette studio album covers. We got a lot of comments and after the collage had been shared both on Roxette’s official Facebook page and Instagram account, there were even more votes. It seemed to be obvious which covers would end up at the Top3 positions, but I was curious about the exact results. It’s of course not a representative sample, but who else could judge Roxette’s album covers better than Roxers?

After checking all the comments, I counted the votes / mentions and found out the Top2 were indeed quite obvious. Most people voted for Joyride and Look Sharp!. I would say the difference between the number of votes is so tiny, the 2 covers are equally strong. The third position is occupied by Crash! Boom! Bang!, but Tourism was very close to become the third as well. The difference is quite small here, too. The 5th best cover according to Roxers is that of Room Service.

The remaining 4 covers are well behind any of those in the Top5. No surprise poor Travelling (which was released 4 years ago today, by the way) is at the end of the list. I remember how excited we all were about the new album in 2011 and 2012 and when the cover was shared on Facebook, tons of us first thought it was a joke and that it couldn’t be the final design. Not that it wasn’t funny to see BoJo on the sleeve, but… ehm… Then we decided, OK if the content is awesome, we don’t really care about the cover. The songs turned out to be fab, so the sin made with the album cover was forgiven, so to say.

We like busy covers only if there is a real concept behind them (see Tourism) and we love professional, artistic photos of Marie and Per on the sleeve. We are not into weird Photoshop attempts (see Travelling) and busy covers with seemingly no concept behind them (see Charm School). Don’t get us wrong, we love seeing such non-pro pics, but it works much better on social media sites or in books than on album covers.

These days when music is consumed rather digitally, it might be even more important to have a great cover to catch the attention of those who still go and buy CDs at record shops. Come to think of it, even for digital use it is important to have a good-looking sleeve. At least I prefer seeing a clear, eye-catching cover pic on Spotify and similar sites when I listen to music either on computer or on my smartphone.

So anyone in charge of the upcoming album cover design, please make an attractive one! Now you can see which directions Roxers prefer. 😉

 

Roxette_studio_album_covers

 

Per Gessle comes alive?

by

According to a recent tweet, there is a song registered for Addeboy vs. Cliff (Andreas Broberger & Hannes Lindgren) and Per Gessle. The title is ”I Come Alive”. If you check BMI’s repertoire, there is indeed a song under their names. The question is whether it is one of the new Roxette songs co-produced by the duo or a Gessle solo cooperation with Addeboy vs. Cliff. Well, all 3 guys are registered as songwriters / composers of the song, so it’s probably rather a cooperation like it was with Heikki L or Kill FM or Sebastien Drums.

PG_visiting_DJ_Balthazar
© Per Gessle

Addeboy vs. Cliff are the guys who Roxette worked together on The Look 2015 remake. When Per was asked in the KappAhl interview about why they chose them, he replied:

I had started to work with them on another project via Cosmos Music. They are brilliant. Without them, I would not have dared to go in and record a new version of The Look.

 

In the Billboard interview related to The Look remake Per said:

I had started working with Addeboy vs. Cliff on some other projects a couple of months earlier so I thought they could be great collaborators. We got the backing track from them, which was the groove, drums and bass, and it sounded really cool and fresh, like the skeleton to something really interesting. I went into the studio with our regular producers, Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundquist, and added guitars, the solo parts and, of course, new vocals together with Marie. It took us two days.

With every album/project, I try to change one ‘important’ person, just to make everyone, myself included, stand on our toes. I always welcome change if it’s the right reason. In this particular case, new blood definitely needed to be injected everywhere. As always, we wanted to produce it ourselves so as to not lose control, but we needed a fresh start and a different angle.

I told Addeboy vs. Cliff we wanted it to sound like a hit record in 2015 and to pretend that the original Roxette version from 1988 is the demo.

He also mentioned they are producing themselves, but Addeboy vs. Cliff are involved in a few songs of the upcoming Roxette album, as well as other producers.

Let’s see what happens!