Album

Marie Fredriksson’s new solo album

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As several online sources informed today, Marie is currently working on a new album – it will be the first Swedish album with original songs since her “I en tid som vår”, 1996. Her “Min bästa vän” record from 2006 was a cover album.

Marie Dimberg says it will be Ms Effe’s first original album in Swedish in 17 years. The recordings of the album are in progress and there are still no release date or title, but it is planned to be released this year. Woohoo! Hopefully a Marie tour is in plan as well for next year. 😉

 

 

 

 

New-old Gyllene Tider sound charmed Swedish press

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Today both Aftonbladet (Jens Peterson) and Expressen (Anders Nunstedt) have published their reviews of Gyllene Tider’s 6th studio album, Dags att tänka på refrängen. It’s not a surprise reading a positive review in Aftonbladet, but Mr. Nunstedt positively shocked most of the fans – and I guess non-fans as well. Some lyckopiller might have been involved while he was listening to the album. 😉

 

GT.se

 

According to Aftonbladet, Per Gessle wants you to clap your hands, your knees to be swinging and your mouth to be giggling. Well, what else? Don’t you feel the same with each Gyllene Tider album? Dags att tänka på refrängen – in Expressen’s opinion – is an energetic and playful album, full of ingenious melodies and smart arrangements. However, Anders Nunstedt adds he is curious whether the album grows even stronger after a few more listenings, as one of Gyllene Tider’s strengths has always been their ability to make a strong first impression.

Aftonbladet writes there is nostalgia and tributes to record stores and pop heroes. We already know Bob Dylan appears in the first track, but be sure there is some David Bowie, too. All 3 songs that we could have a listen to yet are full of typical Gessle rhymes and reading the reviews, there is much more to come.

You can find everything on this album from melancholically beautiful to uptempo party songs and from catchy pop candy to charming spaghetti western. “Lyckopiller” seems to be the one and only ballad. According to Nunstedt it’s a romantic piano ballad à la the classic GT concept, even if the song makes a trip to SOAP-land. “Knallpulver” is the only instrumental track and Mr. Nunstedt suggests the publisher to send it to Quentin Tarantino. Wow! What a great idea! After Small Apartments soundtrack everything is possible in hot hot Hollywood. 😉

In the title track, ”Dags att tänka på refrängen”, Per sounds young and life-affirming, says Jens Peterson. Anders Nunstedt says Mr. Gessle is singing duet with himself through the left and right speakers. It seems to be a good choice to end the short short short short short journey the album provides with its 38-minute length.

Expressen writes 10 of 12 tracks sound like they are written to be performed live. So, what about a medley this summer? DATPR compact. Well, maybe a medley with 8 of these 10 songs and ”Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej”, as well as ”Chikaboom (#2)” as separate songs in the setlist.

Release date of the album: 24th April, 2013.

 

 

Per Gessle, the workaholic

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Amazon.de shared the tracklist of Gyllene Tider’s Dags att tänka på refrängen album with length and dates next to the demos appearing on the Deluxe CD. The digital version is available from 22nd April, physical version (CD, vinyl) from 24th April.

 

GT-DATPR_Album-cover

 

Album:

  1. Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej /2:52/
  2. Man blir yr (Album Version) /3:01/
  3. Singel /3:01/
  4. Allt jag lärt mej om livet (har jag lärt mej av Vera) /2:59/
  5. Tio droppar regn /2:53/
  6. Jag tänker åka på en lång lång lång lång lång resa /2:54/
  7. Lyckopiller /3:07/
  8. Chikaboom (Album Version) /3:08/
  9. Anders och Mickes första band /3:22/
  10. Tiden är en dåre med banjo /3:02/
  11. Knallpulver /2:32/
  12. Dags att tänka på refrängen /3:41/

 

Demos:

  1. Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sig (Demo 6/8 2012) /2:21/
  2. Man blir yr (Demo 26/7 2012) /3:24/
  3. Singel (Demo 6/12 2012) /2:11/
  4. Allt jag lärt mej om livet (har jag lärt mej av Vera) (Demo 6/8 2012) /3:05/
  5. Tio droppar regn (Demo 6/10 2012) /2:29/
  6. Jag tänker åka på en lång lång lång lång lång resa (Demo 28/8 2012) /2:54/
  7. Lyckopiller (Demo 21/6 2012) /2:53/
  8. Chikaboom (Demo 6/12 2012) /3:40/
  9. Anders och Mickes första band (Demo 5/10 2012) /3:23/
  10. Tiden är en dåre med banjo (Demo 9/8 2012) /2:41/
  11. Knallpulver (Demo 8/5 2012) /1:32/
  12. Dags att tänka på refrängen (Demo 28/6 2012) /3:13/

 

Looking at the demo dates one can see (not that we didn’t know it until now 😉 ) that Mr. G is indeed a workaholic – and we like it! Let’s take a closer look at these dates.

 

  • 8th May, 2012: gig day in Curitiba, Brazil. Was the demo made in the dressing room?
  • 21st June, 2012: during a short break between South Africa and Borlänge. Were there any lyckopiller involved during the recording? 😉
  • 28th June, 2012: 1 day after Borlänge and 1 day before the ultra-awesome Amsterdam gig.
  • 26th July, 2012: 2 days after the megafantastic Gdansk, Poland gig and 1 day before Kotka, Finland. By the way, this day Per shared the new ”Fake guitarist in an 80’s band” plec collection on Facebook, Roxette Official. So, most probably he had to try and see if they were OK, thus he recorded a demo.
  • 6th August, 2012: After all the birthday celebrations it was time to record 2 demos. Not mentioning the earthquake in Halmstad that day.

Woke up to a trembling world 5 o´clock this morning. Thought Micke Syd was rehearsing in Harplinge.

  • Actually, there was a tweet regarding the earthquake that day: “Det värsta är ju inte att det har varit ett jordskalv i Halmstad. Det värsta är att risken finns att Per Gessle skriver en låt om det.” (meaning: ”The worst thing is not that there has been an earthquake in Halmstad. The worst thing is that there is a risk of Per Gessle writing a song about it.”). Well, I’m not sure about any songs being written that day, but it would be too cool to have some earthquake vibes à la Gessle one day.
  • 9th August, 2012: during the break between Finland and Norway gigs.
  • 28th August, 2012: 1 day before the Ottawa, Canada gig, when Roxette went on a lång lång lång lång lång resa.
  • 5th and 6th October, 2012: 4-5 days after the premiere of Kurt & Lisa and Furet wines in The Per Gessle Selection.
  • 6th December, 2012: well, demos are always good to be recorded when Santa is in town. 🙂

 

Now it would be interesting to hear anything about the circumstances under which these songs were written. Hopefully, there will be a detailed interview about the songs with Per after the album is out. So far we know that ”Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej” – formerly known as ”Är det jag” – was written in the 70’s (demo 9th July, 1979).

One more interesting thing – what a fan (Ketil Nordgård) mentioned on Gyllene Tider’s facebook page the day the tracklist was published – is that in the ”Att vara Per Gessle” book (p. 270) ”Knallpulver” is mentioned as a leftover from Per’s ”En händig man” album. However, Per stated in several interviews that the big difference between Gyllene Tider’s new album and ”Finn 5 fel!” (2004) is that one third of the songs on F5F were leftovers from ”Mazarin”, but now all the songs were written exclusively for Gyllene Tider. Well, whatever project ”Knallpulver” was written for, the title sounds exciting and it seems to fit the album quite well.

 

 

It’s official: new Gyllene Tider album and tour!

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According to the latest HallandsPosten.se article we have the very first official confirmation of the coming Gyllene Tider tour around Sweden and a new album in 9 years from Mr Gessle himself. At this point 18 concerts are planned and the tour schedule will be announced on the 22nd of January. The new album called “Dags att tänka på refrängen” will consist of 12 songs and it is being recorded in Christoffer Lundquist’s studio in Scania. The title can be both translated as “It’s time to think about the chorus” but also it’s a Swedish idiom meaning “It’s time to start thinking about quitting or going home” according to native speakers at The Daily Roxette. It also seems like that the tour will be called “LIVE 2013 – Dags att tänka på refrängen”, but this is not confirmed yet.

UPDATE #1:

In Aftonbladet story – some concert places are revealed. The tour should start in Kalmar according to various sources and Gyllene Tider will play in Slottsskogsvallen in Gothenburg, instead of Ullevi stadium. Of course, GT home town Halmstad is also in the schedule.

Goran Fritzon in the Swedish Radio interview said that album is ready in 75% and that the tour will take off on July 5 in… Halmstad! This would make Aftonbladet rumours false.

UPDATE #2:

HN.se has published another story on the new album and tour. Gyllene Tider has recorded 12 songs in 10 days and they plan to record 2 more, though only 12 will make the album. All songs are newly written except an old pearl from 1978. It seems like Per agreed to do a tour with GT already in the summer 2012 after he knew when Roxette tour would be over. A big differance from “Fin Fem Fel” will be that all songs are written specially for this project, not as before when 1/3 tracks were “Mazarin” left-overs.

Per Gessle of Gyllene Tider talking about new album: “Album will include a lot of three-minute hits. Shorts songs, a lot of positive energy with guitar and Farfisa-organ in the centre. It sounds like Buzzcocks meeting Green Day after they partied with a little too much of Red Bull”. And for those who know Swedish proverbs, you shouldn’t read the album’s title as a farewell, according to Mr Gessle.

Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundquist are producers behind the album, but all guys are involved in the album making process.

CD, colour LP album and the first single are planned to be released in the spring time with no exact date at this point.

(c) Fredrik Etoal
(c) Fredrik Etoall

The photo shoot was done by Fredrik Etoall, the one responsible for the Roxette’s “Travelling” session. And here’s the promo video from the newly launched YouTube site

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