Have a nice day

Busy April 12th for Roxette and Per Gessle fans

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12th April brings for us fans one surprise after another. First it was announced that Roxette’s 6th studio album, Have a Nice Day will be released as a limited edition 180g yellow double LP gatefold sleeve. It was released only on cassette and CD in 1999, but never on vinyl. Nice way to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary, isn’t it?

Per Gessle looks back at the record as a definite highlight in the band’s career:

Song-wise I think ”Have A Nice Day” could be our best album ever, maybe the only one that turned out like I hoped it would. That’s probably because the five-year break allowed enough time for lots of songs to grow — I wrote some of my strongest stuff and Marie’s ”Waiting For The Rain” and ”Beautiful Things” are among the best things she ever made for Roxette. And then we also added some crucial new members to our core team.

We were testing a lot of different things on ”Have A Nice Day”, mixing guitar pop ditties with drum machine driven dance beats, also adding more strings than on any previous album. And we’re talking real string sections here. You can tell that it’s recorded by a band with a big budget — maybe too big.

It has many songs and quite a long running time, a fact which in hindsight might have hurt it a bit — the “too much of a good thing” syndrome. Maybe ”Have A Nice Day” always was a double album that somewhat reluctantly was squeezed into a single CD. That’s why I love the double vinyl album format in this re-release. “Have A Nice Day” has come home again.

Tracklisting:

Side A

  1. Crush On You
  2. Wish I Could Fly
  3. You Can´t Put Your Arms Around What´s Already Gone

Side B

  1. Waiting For The Rain
  2. Anyone
  3. It Will Take A Long Long Time
  4. 7 Twenty 7

Side C

  1. I Was So Lucky
  2. Stars
  3. Salvation

Side D

  1. Pay The Price
  2. Cooper
  3. Staring At The Ground
  4. Beautiful Things

PRE-ORDER the album HERE!

 

Then there is another limited release by Per Gessle, tribute to The Ramones, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend on 12″ vinyl in 2 colours. Clear red limited edition (500 copies) and clear limited edition (500 copies). It will also be available as a bundle with both colours.

Per about the release:

Ramones was a huge inspiration when we started our first band “Grape Rock” in 1977. The unbelievable energy, the amazing guitar sound, the cool lyrics and the added touch of surf music floored us totally. Impossible not to fall in love with.

In 2002 White Jazz Records was about to make a Ramones tribute album and I was invited to participate. My choice of song was the brilliant “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”. I couldn’t stop there so I decided to do two more killer tracks outside the album at the same time. Just for fun. Hey Ho!

Tracklisting:

Side A

  1. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
  2. Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
  3. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

Side B

B side is with engraving “Per Gessle” sign.

PRE-ORDER the album HERE!

 

Roxette on the radio – Portugal 1999.

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It’s 10 years now that Roxette were in Portugal, both to promote “Have A Nice Day” and film the video for “Anyone”. On April 11, they performed on the “Globos de Ouro” gala (kind of the Portuguese domestic version of the “Golden Globes” awards), broadcast live on TV; on the 12, they did a press conference in Lisbon, plus also a radio interview for RFM (one of, if not the biggest national radio station here); and from 13-15, they made the video for “Anyone”.

Some days later, RFM had a Roxette special day (can’t quite recall it, whether it was the following Thursday that week, or Thursday the following week… it was on a Thursday for sure, though) during which they aired excerpts of the interview with Per and Marie.

Also some time later, sometime around May following the release of the single “Anyone”, Rádio Placard (by then one of the most popular regional radio stations from Porto, Portugal’s second city) aired excerpts of the press conference by Roxette in Lisbon.

Certainly this ain’t no new stuff, but anyways, as I just had a chance to transfer these few radio bits from my old cassette to the computer, so I thought I’d share it. I mean, quality ain’t even thaaat good (the radio on which I made these recordings then wasn’t either), but still. Enjoy!

Download

Contents as follows:

Excerpts of the RFM interview on 12.04.1999 aired a few days later during Roxette special day.
Excerpts of the press conference in Lisbon on 12.04.1999 aired later in May by Rádio Placard during 3 days on their night program “Love Songs”.
Advertisement of “Have A Nice Day” made for RFM (aired on 13.04.1999).
ID made for the programme “Top Capital” on Rádio Capital (aired some Saturday in April 1999).
ID made for the programme “World Chart Show” which by then was broadcast in Portugal by RFM (aired somewhere in 1999).

Written by: sweepi @ R2R