Roxette

Per Gessle demo cassettes No.7 and No.8

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When Per posted the cover of two of his old demo cassettes from 1988-1990, I thought I would check which demos we haven’t heard yet. I hope I didn’t miss anything, but you know, the more demos are out the easier it is to get lost in PG’s demo jungle. Also, it’s always possible that there wasn’t only one demo recorded of the same track on the same day. You never know when it comes to workaholic PG.

Mr. G fortunately loves sharing info about his ditties and there are many comments he made on the songs themselves, but here you’ll find only those details added that popped up related to the exact demos (date and version) we are talking about. Links in the article are listening links.

And hey, we are happy to have a glance at the covers of demo cassettes No.1-6 and No.9-? anytime!

Demo cassette No. 7

A

1. Dance Away (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

2. Cry (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. Shadow Of A Doubt (9th February 1989)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „I love this song. This was really cool and I thought it sounded terrific and it had this boo-doo-boom boo-doo-boom, which is always very efficient if you can take control over it. You have the arena vibe to it. It’s just a great track. The demo for me still makes more sense than the finished Roxette album version. I had really high hopes for this song. It became OK, but I thought it would go even further. I thought it had all the melody lines and the rhythm, the groove, killer chorus and Marie was in there.”

4. Don’t Believe In Accidents (9th February 1989 -> if the date stated on the cover was meant for this track as well)
There is another demo from spring 1988 on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and as B-side of the Run To You single.

5. Start! (19th February 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „This was written for the „Look Sharp!” album. I actually hesitated a bit to include it on this archive series, because I’m not really happy. I think this is not the best song I have ever written. But on the other hand, it also shows that to be able to write all those songs that became really great in my book, like „The Look” or „Listen To Your Heart” or „Dressed For Success” or „Dangerous”, all those songs that were included on that album, I wrote some rubbish as well. Like this one. I played this demo for Clarence and Marie and nobody really liked it. Looking back, I think it was a wise choice not to include it on „Look Sharp!” The sound of that particular era is by far more interesting than the song itself, I think. This has a lot of Scritti Politti style, all this blipping and blopping synthesizers all over the place, sequence synthesizers.”

6. The Look (29th March 1988)
There is another demo from one day later (30th March 1988) on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG about the March 30th demo: „I actually started it at home with my new synthesizer. This is an exercise in how to work on it. So I wrote this song, using the sequencer. I wrote a melody and I basically kept the words just to memorize the rhythm of the melody. It could be anything. Then when I tried to rewrite the lyrics I just felt that hey, it’s impossible to replace those words, those lines, those phrases. And if you put on your Magical Mystery Tour cap, it sort of makes sense. With the rest of the lyrics I just tried to make the first verse intelligent in some way. When I wrote it I thought it was better if Marie were singing it, because that was the whole essence of Roxette. I was writing the songs, Marie was singing the songs. So in my demo the lyrics are „he’s got the look”, because it was supposed to be for Marie. It had a special power, you could feel it immediately when we recorded the demo. It just stood out, it was a great song. Everyone loved it. The only negative thing I could think of was that I was singing it, because that wasn’t the idea. And I was so surprised when it became the breakthrough song for Roxette. In my world, if there was a song that had to make Roxette big, it had to be sung by Marie. But fate wanted it differently.”

7. Here Comes The Weekend (30th March 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

8. Physical Fascination (17th April 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

9. Drowning In You (17th April 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition.

10. Kärlekens skepp (17th April 1988)
There is another demo on The Per Gessle Archives – På väg – Demos 1982-86 from March 1986.

11. Paint (28th April 1988)
Released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 1.

Info from PG: „This was a very special song, because this demo recording sounded very different to anything else we’d done before technically. And we were using the synthesizers. It just sounded very special. It was meant for me to sing the verse and Marie to sing the chorus, so I tried to make sort of a masculine verse and a feminine chorus. In this demo we used Camilla Andersson who did the vocals. She’s been helping me out with some of the female vocals over the years, especially in the early days. I just loved the song from as soon as it was done. I knew that was something very special and of course it became a great track for Roxette as well. Even better with Roxette, actually. But the demo has got lots of quality as well, I think.”

B

1. Listen To Your Heart (9th May 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4.

Info from PG: „It’s co-written with MP. As you can hear, the piano intro isn’t there on the demo. It’s something that Clarence came up with in the studio in Stockholm when we recorded the Roxette version. I didn’t expect it to be a huge song. It felt like a great song when we recorded the demo. It turned out to be this killer track when Marie took charge. I don’t think I’m singing it very well when I did the demo. The idea for the lyrics came to me from a friend of mine who went through a divorce and we sat up all night talking about his situation and then I wrote this sort of fictive story. It went very fast. Sometimes you just need something to inspire you. It can be something someone is saying in a movie or something you pick up from a commercial or a taxi driver says something funny, whatever. My friend’s story was just what I was looking for because I was in the middle of writing this song. So I wrote it down and made a story out of it. Mats and I wrote the music together, but I think we didn’t sit down together. I think the verse part of it is what Mats was writing and I wrote the chorus. He played me something that I thought was really cool, so I put that together with what I had.”

2. Let’s Party (14th July 1988)
Released on Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition and as B-side of the I Want You To Know single.

3. Break It Up (23rd March 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s the same song as “Kärlekståg” (25th October 1989) [track 11 on this list]. Just different lyrics. Written together with Janne Bark.”

4. Rocket From Her Heart (16th June 1989)
Released on The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 4.

Info from PG: „It was recorded in the Tits & Ass studio. Probably, I wrote it for the „Joyride” album. But of course, we never tried it out. I think nobody really liked that style. There’s a little 50’s touch to it, rockabilly. It wasn’t really our cup of tea, so I don’t really know why I did it, but I think it’s cool. I think it’s a nice little song. Maybe I felt like I needed a Roy Orbison dose or something. I haven’t got a clue. I remember I tried to convince Marie that this was really cool, but she didn’t want to listen to it that much. There was a Swedish band, The Boppers who did a cover version [Rocket From My Heart] of it, which I really can’t remember how it sounded, but they recorded it. They were a 50’s style Swedish band, so it made sense.”

5. Things Will Never Be The Same (17th June 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition. However, another version was released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3 from the same day – see track 7 here in the list.

6. Rocket From (Break!)

7. Things Will (Synt. Vers)
It might be the 17th June 1989 demo released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 3.

Info from PG: „This was very early on for the „Joyride” album and became a magnificent track. I thought it was really cool. It’s pretty long though. The demo is around 5 minutes. You could hear it sounds typical Roxette and you could really hear Marie delivering the song. It’s a very classic ballad for me, it sounds like a typical Per Gessle ballad from those years. I could take advantage of the fact that Marie and I have different preferences when it comes to keys. In the Roxette version I’m singing a little bridge after the verse, before the chorus, which made the song interesting.”

8. See (18th June 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s still unreleased, but there was a Swedish translation and recording made by Sylvia Vrethammar in 1990 with the title „Öppna dina ögon”. My music, Sylvia’s lyrics. Produced by Clarence. How about that? Also…. “See” + “See Me” has got the same lyrics. But different music. “See” = music by me. “See Me” = music by sweet Marie.”

See Me on Crash! Boom! Bang! and on Travelling.

9. Knockin’ On Every Door (15th August 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „August ’89, it must have been when we prepared for the release of „Listen To Your Heart” in the States, I guess. So I don’t know how I had the time to record this one, but it’s a pretty old song. There is another version of it called „Rocket” [9th April 1987], so this song started its life as „Rocket”. I rewrote the lyrics, changed the groove and outcame „Knockin’ On Every Door”. You could hear the influence of the „Rocket” demo as well here, because this is like a drum machine and a certain kind of beat, but also it’s got a lot of accoustic instruments in there, which was the whole idea behind the song to begin with. So eventually, we recorded it for the „Joyride” album and it became one of my favourite songs on that album. I thought it was really cool. Lots of things happened to that song. The beat changed and also when Jonas Isacsson came in and played the guitar riff, lots of things changed for the song as well. I guess Clarence was kind of pleased in the end.”

10. (Do You Get) Excited (19th August 1989)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 1.

Info from PG: „We made really produced demos, MP and me at the Tits & Ass studio. We worked really hard to arrange the songs as you could hear on this demo. You could actually hear that this is almost the same as the Roxette version. This is a pretty advanced song. Mats co-wrote it. It’s got lots of key changes and I don’t know how we could have made it without arranging it like this. Sometimes we spent days and days on just one song and I think this is one of them. It took a long time to do. I wanted to use modern technology into the songwriting and into the demo recordings as well. There’s a guitar riff in this song that was inspired by Led Zeppelin and the reason for that is that at the time we were recording this with Roxette, both Clarence and me were reading „Hammer of the Gods”, Led Zeppelin biography, so we were listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin music in the studio. Jonas who played the guitar on the Roxette version, he is like the biggest Led Zeppelin fan there is. All those little details take the songs into different directions. You could hear that this song has something special even in the demo. And of course when Marie started to sing it, it all made sense. The lyric was written for her. And the title is really cool when it comes from a girl. It’s one of my favourite Roxette tracks ever.”

11. Kärlekståg (25th October 1989)
Info from PG: „It’s the same song as “Break It Up” (23rd March 1989). Just different lyrics. Written together with Janne Bark.”

Maybe it’s THIS song released by Arvingarna?

 Demo cassette No. 8

A

1. Queen Of Rain (2nd January 1990)
It’s either the one released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition or the one released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4. As far as I can judge, these two are the same, just the fade-out in TPGA demo is longer.

Info from PG: „It’s one of the first songs that was made for „Joyride”. It’s co-written with MP and we probably spent the Christmas period in 1989 writing this. It’s one of my favourite songs. When „Perfect Day” was written, it had this accordion thing in it and we were going on a big world tour with „Joyride” and we realized that Vicki Benckert who was our backing vocalist could play the accordion. So we thought that would be a great ending of the show, so we skipped „Queen Of Rain”. Took it away, because that was the closing track and replaced it with „Perfect Day”. We left it for the next album, „Tourism” and it eventually became a single. A year later it hadn’t grown old that much, it was still a great track. It’s one of the best ballads we ever did.”

2. Physical Fascination (3rd January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. Love Spins (2 Vers.) (3rd January 1990)
One version is released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

4. Church Of Your Heart (8th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

5. Another Place, Another Time (10th January 1990)

6. Run, Run, Run (10th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

7. Another Place, Another Time (11th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

8. Every Beat Of The Heart (21st January 1990)
Info from PG: „It ended up with happy Carola! The demo was sharper!” [Every Beat Of My Heart]

9. Hotblooded (24th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

B

1. Watercolours In The Rain (24th January 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „This was custom-made. I wrote some lyrics, I didn’t have any music to it. I gave it to Marie and she came back with this haunting and really beautiful song. I don’t know who is playing the guitar on this demo. It’s not me. Maybe it’s Mats Persson from Gyllene Tider or maybe it’s even Jonas Isacsson, the Roxette guitar player who came down to play on it. I can’t remember. The whole song is there already, you can hear that. It’s just a really beautiful song. One of Marie’s very best songs. I think the early part of 1990 was very much a writing time, writing period for us, for me, but I can’t really remember. When I heard „Watercolours In The Rain” for the first time I felt like this is one of the greatest and most beautiful Roxette songs ever. I thought this was really a masterpiece. I thought Marie interpreted the lyrics really really well. Marie’s style of writing is very different from mine. This was just a 5-star song for the „Joyride” album.”

2. I Remember You (15th March 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

3. The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye (16th March 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

4. Sweet Hello (lugn) (29th March 1990)

5. The Big L (29th March 1990)
Either the one released on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 4 or the one released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 3.

Info from PG [from TPGA]: „When we recorded this one, I felt like it was supposed to be a single. It’s a very uptempo, catchy song. Later on Marie came down to the studio and we did an other version which is sort of similar to how it sounded on the „Joyride” album. She is answering me in the verses. In this version it’s just me singing it. I guess it was written for both of us to sing, I just tried to show what I meant. „Joyride” wasn’t written yet. There are similarities between „The Big L” and „Joyride”. It’s got the same sort of colourful vibe to it, it’s very catchy. They are like siblings in a way. This was a strong song for the album and eventually it became a single as well. With a very strange video.”

Info from PG [from Bag Of Trix]: „I wrote this song and I wanted it to be a little bit synthesized. When we came to the studio in Stockholm to record it for the „Joyride” album it became much more of a guitar-driven song than it was intended to. On this demo Marie is singing. We needed that sort of style on the „Joyride” album. It became a single and it became a very glamourous video as well. It’s not my favourite song. I just felt like there were better uptempo songs. I liked „Knockin’ On Every Door” more, I liked „Hotblooded” more, I liked „Joyride” more. This is like a sort of a bubblegum edge to it. I wouldn’t have written it again.”

6. The Big L (1st April 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

7. I Remember You (1st April 1990)
Released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on Bag Of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „I was trying to write more uptempo songs. All the ballads we made at the time turned out really really wonderful, so we were desperately in need for uptempo songs. So I wrote for instance „I Remember You”, which in my book you can skip. I don’t really like it. I made a demo myself first, then Marie came in and sang on it and then suddenly it all made sense. As always when she was singing in something. Clarence didn’t really like it either. I think it made the CD version of the „Joyride” album. It didn’t make the LP. Those days the LP was the proper album, at least for us in the band. It turned out to be like a throw-away song for me. I guess for all of us. There are better songs to listen to in life.”

8. Memories… (1st April 1990)
Info from PG: „I don’t think it’s my song. Could be that I “oversaw” the production. Or something. It’s probably an Eddie Jonsson-track. He was around a lot in those days. Btw, I don’t have any cassette player so I can’t check. I’ll ask MP!”

9. Comeback (8th April 1990)
Probably(?) the Come Back (Before You Leave) demo released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition.

10. Joyrider (23rd May 1990)
There is a Joyrider demo from the day before, released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and another one (longer) also from 22nd May 1990 on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 5.

Info from PG: „This one is a song called „Joyrider” which was the original title for this „Joyride” song. This is actually the very first demo that was made. When we did this demo, Mats and myself at the Tits & Ass studio, we immeditaely knew that this was gonna be a big song. So we went back the next day and basically produced the whole song. The produced demo is also available on this archive series and there you can hear all the main ingredients that were supposed to be there in the final version with Roxette. It was a very wonderful period in my life songwriting-wise. I did some great stuff in those months. This demo is just how it was written, exactly the same chords. It was written without thinking. It just came. The title came… I remember reading an interview with Paul McCartney saying something like writing songs with John Lennon was a long joyride. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I thought it was a really cool word. Then my wife left me a note on my piano saying in Swedish ’Hej, din tok – jag älskar dig’, which means ’Hello, you fool, I love you’, so I combined those two: ’Hello, you fool, I love you’ and ’join the Joyride’. That was fun. Great song.”

Question is if there was a different demo called Joyrider (with the extra „r” at the end from 23rd May [probably not? judging by the PG talks with Sven Lindström]) or it’s the Joyride demo that was released on Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition and on The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! Vol. 2.

Info from PG: „If my memory serves me right, we recorded an accoustic version first on May 22nd and the day after we recorded this version, which is a little bit more produced. Or actually a lot more produced. This is very rare that a demo sounds so similar to the finished product. We spent so much time with this arrangement. It just fell into place. Everything we did just made perfect sense. It’s very rare that happens, to tell the truth, but for this one it felt so good immediately. The whistle part, the bassline with a sequencer. It was just a great little song. The idea for the song came from a little not my wife had left me saying ’Hej, din tok – jag älskar dig’ in Swedish, which means ’Hello, you fool, I love you’. So that was like „I have to write a song”. Then I just started to play this A major chord and off I went. The „Joyride” single was delayed due to the Kuwait crisis for 6 or 8 weeks, but we presented it for radio at this convention in the States. After the convention I remember staying in a bar with Marie and someone else and all these people, one after the other just came up and said „hello, congratulations to your next No. 1; it’s gonna be a smash when it finally comes out”, so we had a great feeling leaving that bar, that’s for sure.”

 

Update from PG regarding dates: “Just to clear things up a bit…. sometimes a demo gets two different dates. It can be because you make the backing track one day and the vocals the next. Then you remake the vocals (improve the lyrics maybe?) and wooops… you get a new date. But it’s the same song and recording. This means that there is no more demo of Shadow Of A Doubt for instance.”

“Joyride” by Roxette in animated award-winning documentary “Flee”

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I remember I read it maybe a year ago or so that a documentary about a refugee who had to leave Afghanistan behind contains Roxette’s Joyride. Months have passed and it turned out that this animated documentary, Flee is a real award-winning film. It tells the extraordinary true story of a man, Amin Nawabi, on the verge of marrying his husband which compels him to reveal his hidden past for the first time. Director is Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Denmark) who has been close friends with Amin for appr. 20 years.

The documentary has already won several awards at bigger and smaller film festivals (e.g. Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, European Film Awards etc.; check Wikipedia for details) and is nominated as Best Picture – Animated at the Golden Globes and the Danish Oscar committee has selected it to represent the country as its contender for the 2022 Academy Awards in the best international feature category.

Now, during the Budapest International Documentary Film Festival I had the chance to watch Flee. It’s a very emotional and moving film. I don’t want to write a review of it, I think everyone in the 21st century should watch it and think about what’s happening around the world these days and how one’s life can change in a minute. The story starts in the 80’s and look what’s happening in Afghanistan still today… While I was watching the docu and heard A-ha’s Take On Me, then Roxette’s Joyride and Ace of Base’s Wheel of Fortune, music from my childhood and early teenage years, music from Amin’s childhood and early teenage years, I just couldn’t help comparing Amin’s life to mine. And it made the experience even more heartbreaking. What „problems” I had back then and what PROBLEMS Amin had. Shocking…

Joyride is on for appr. 1 minute in the movie. Amin starts to play it on his walkman while – together with another guy – he is being driven in a van by people smugglers to get from Russia via Turkey to Denmark. The song seems to be expressing his desires.

Fingers crossed the docu wins all awards it’s nominated for! HERE you can watch the official trailer.

Update on 8th February 2022: Flee is on the shortlist for the Oscars in 3 categories: Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best International Feature Film. Good luck!

Per Gessle releases two albums on his birthday

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Since a while it’s a wonderful tradition that Per releases stuff on his birthday. This year he decided to give us access not only to one, but two albums full of demos. One of them is the updated Look Sharp! 30th Anniversary Edition. Many of us have the physical box (2018), but the good thing is that now we get some extras. 11 demos are added that weren’t released on the box and some of them haven’t been officially released at all before. Those 11 tracks are the ones marked with a * next to the title in the tracklist below.

The other surprise is 20 vackra demos, all the demos PG made and used for the Nashville-sessions in 2016. This album is released under The Per Gessle Archives.

It seems that Mr. G won’t ever run out of demos. Lucky fans we are! Haha. Per tells:

That’s the way it goes. I find recordings and demos all the time in my drawers and old pockets!

The two albums are now available on all streaming services (links next to the album titles above the tracklists). No physical release is planned.

LOOK SHARP! 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION tracklist (Spotify, Deezer, YouTube)

Disc 1 (Original album)

  1. The Look
  2. Dressed For Success
  3. Sleeping Single
  4. Paint
  5. Dance Away
  6. Cry
  7. Chances
  8. Dangerous
  9. Half A Woman, Half A Shadow
  10. View From A Hill
  11. (I Could Never) Give You Up
  12. Shadow Of A Doubt
  13. Listen To Your Heart

Disc 2

  1. The Voice (B-side Dressed For Success-single)
  2. One Is Such A Lonely Number (Demo – September 1987) (B-side The Big L-single)
  3. Don’t Believe In Accidents (Demo – Spring 1988) (B-side Run To You-single)
  4. The Look (T&A Demo – Mar 30, 1988)
  5. Dressed For Success (T&A Demo – May 20, 1987)
  6. Dressed For Success (EMI Demo – May 26-30, 1987)
  7. Sleeping Single (T&A Demo – May 22, 1987)
  8. Sleeping Single (EMI Demo – May 26-30, 1987)
  9. Paint (T&A Demo – Apr 22, 1988) [On the physical release it’s Apr 28. /PP]
  10. Dance Away (T&A Demo – Feb 9, 1988)
  11. Cry (T&A Demo – Feb 9, 1988)
  12. Chances (T&A Demo – Nov 24, 1987)
  13. Dangerous (T&A Demo – Feb 11, 1987)*
  14. Dangerous (acoustic version) (T&A Demo – Feb 25, 1987)
  15. Dangerous (EMI Demo – May 26-30, 1987) [On the physical release it’s Sep 26-30, but the correct date is this on the streaming release. /PP]
  16. View From A Hill (T&A Demo – Nov 17, 1987)
  17. (I Could Never) Give You Up (T&A Demo – Dec 18, 1987)
  18. Shadow Of A Doubt (T&A Demo – Feb 9, 1988)
  19. Listen To Your Heart (T&A Demo – May 9, 1988)
  20. Boom Boom (And Boom Boom Again) (T&A Demo – Sep 15, 1987)*
  21. In My Own Way (T&A Demo – Sep 15, 1987)*
  22. Love Spins (T&A Demo – Sep 15, 1987)*
  23. Love Spins (T&A Demo – Nov 18, 1987)*
  24. One Is Such A Lonely Number (T&A Demo – Aug 26, 1987)*
  25. Drowning In You (T&A Demo – Apr 17, 1988)*
  26. Silver Blue (T&A Demo – May 21, 1987)*
  27. The Thrill Of It All (T&A Demo – Aug 26, 1987)*
  28. Physical Fascination (T&A Demo – Apr 17, 1988)*
  29. From Head To Toe (EMI Demo – May 26-30, 1987)
  30. Never Is A Long Time (EMI Demo – May 26-30, 1987)
  31. Never Is A Long Time (T&A Demo – Nov 11, 1987)*

Update on 1st February 2022: Mr. G added 6 songs to the Look Sharp! 30 set:

  1. Let’s Party! (T&A Demo – Jul 14, 1988) (B-side I Want You To Know-single)
  2. Start! (T&A Demo – Feb 19, 1988)
  3. Night Wire (T&A Demo – Apr 9, 1987)
  4. Pocketful Of Rain (T&A Demo – Jun 12, 1987)
  5. Rocket (T&A Demo – Apr 9, 1987)
  6. The Voice (T&A Demo – Mar 24, 1987)

Update on 7th February 2022: Mr. G added 1 song to the Look Sharp! 30 set:

38. Silver Blue (Demo)

Update on 25th February 2022: 1 more song added to the Look Sharp! 30 set:

39. Here Comes The Weekend (T&A Demo – Mar 30, 1988)

 

THE PER GESSLE ARCHIVES – 20 VACKRA DEMOS tracklist (Spotify, Deezer, YouTube)

  1. Min plats (T&A Demo – Sep 29, 2016)
  2. Första pris (T&A Demo – Apr 4, 2016)
  3. Småstadsprat (T&A Demo – May 9+17, 2016)
  4. Enkel resa (T&A Demo – Dec 14, 2015)
  5. Allt gick så fort (T&A Demo – Sep 14, 2016)
  6. Tittar på dig när du dansar (T&A Demo – Aug 4, 2016)
  7. Några glas rosé (T&A Demo – Jul 4, 2016)
  8. Far Too Close (T&A Demo – Mar 10, 2015)
  9. En vacker dag (T&A Demo – Jul 20+21, 2016)
  10. Det är vi tillsammans (T&A Demo – Mar 24, 2016)
  11. Känns som första gången (T&A Demo – Nov 6, 2012)
  12. Trodde inte mina ögon (T&A Demo – Apr 16, 2016)
  13. Parentes (T&A Demo – Jul 28+29, 2016)
  14. Känn dig som hemma (T&A Demo – Apr 13, 2016)
  15. Ge allt du kan (T&A Demo – Apr 26, 2016)
  16. Ruby and Me (T&A Demo – Sep 16, 2016)
  17. Nypon och ljung (T&A Demo – Dec 14, 2015)
  18. Första pris (T&A Demo – Mar 4, 2016)
  19. Tittar på dig när du dansar (T&A Demo – Dec 14, 2015)
  20. Måla mitt minne (T&A Demo – Nov 19, 2002)

Female vocals on 20VD are Helena Josefsson (Enkel resa + Nypon och ljung) and Anna Lönnberg-Volden (En vacker dag + Far Too Close + Måla mitt minne).

Happy birthday, Mr. G and many thanx for the prezzies!

Per Gessle – Joyride 30 interview in Aftonbladet

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Per Magnusson from Aftonbladet did an interview with Per Gessle via Zoom. Mr. G joined the meeting from his Stockholm office.

PG tells Per Magnusson that pop music is an escape. It was the same thing when Mr. G was little. He loved the pop world, because there was everything that didn’t exist in his real world. When you were a teenager; girls, drugs, eccentric people.

When I think of the Joyride era, we were like Zlatan, doing bicycle kicks all the time. At least it felt like that. At the same time, we were shocked and grateful to have broken through. That a band from Sweden would do it was not on the map. With “Look Sharp!” and “It Must Have Been Love” we had had five huge hits before “Joyride” came. But I was just motivated by the success, I just poured myself into it.

In the interview Per tells Aftonbladet that during those times, long before iPhones, he used to call home and record song ideas on the answering machine. Sometimes he woke up his wife, Åsa in the middle of the night. He als tells that Joyride and Spending My Time were written the same day.

I lived and breathed Roxette 24 hours a day. “Joyride” began with the note that my then girlfriend, now wife put on my piano: “Hello, you fool, I love you”. It’s a great pop chorus, I thought. I had just read an interview with Paul McCartney who described songwriting with John Lennon as “a long joyride”. That combination: “Hello, you fool, I love you / C’mon join the joyride” felt like a great pop campaign.

Aftonbladet shares that when Roxette reached their fourth US number one in May 1991, Per with entourage was eating dinner at the La Coupole restaurant in Paris when the phone rang.

It was magical. But then you already knew what it was like. When you are in the flow, it’s just another success. Many years later I was at Östermalmshallen and bought vegetables when they called and said that we had become number one with “Charm School” in Germany. In fact, that kind of success is appreciated even more today.

Aftonbladet informs that Joyride topped the charts in seven European countries and was certified multi-platinum in several territories. The tour that followed reached with its 100 concerts four continents and 1.7 million people.

It’s the South America tour that stands out, for several reasons. There were bad economic times there. Guns N ’Roses, Madonna and Michael Jackson had cancelled their tours. They said: “you can do your tour, but you won’t make any money”. From our side it was: “we are from Halmstad and get to play in South America. Then you can make money elsewhere”. It was thought that we would play for about 6,000 people. But a few weeks before we got there, everything exploded. We were moved to football stadiums. 50,000 in Buenos Aires. 65,000 in São Paulo. 45,000 in Santiago. Incomparable.

Aftonbladet tells that at the end of 1991 American EMI was acquired by the newly started record company SBK. 123 employees were fired overnight, in favour of about a hundred new ones – most of them completely unrelated to Roxette. The band received little support from their new record company. Singles didn’t climb as high, a video was completely scrapped.

It was super bad timing. Suddenly we were sailing against the wind. It just completely capsized. It never really turned out right after that. It was an absolute setback. A disappointment, above all. We hadn’t toured the US with “Look Sharp!”, so it was the first time we were there. It would be a big victory for the whole Roxette package. But that didn’t happen.”

To Aftonbladet’s question regarding how Per sees it today he replies:

We should have had a different strategy in the US. But we had like no one to talk to, there was no one else in Sweden who went through the same thing at that level. On the other hand, we had been on the Billboard chart for three and a half years without falling off, so there was probably a saturation within the band, “it will surely work even if we remain on this miserable record company”.”

At the same time, in other parts of the world it was a huge success. Joyride is still one of the best-selling albums ever in Argentina, Austria and Germany. The album has sold over 11 million copies. Per is three decades later proud of the album, which draws its aesthetics and energy from both The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and South American carnivals.

You said something about it being colorful and full of confidence? That’s exactly what it is! It’s bursting with positivism. We had no time pressure, no budget. From time to time I think it’s a great craft. A wonderful record from a wonderful era in pop music.

Marie is of course a big part of everything. Per agrees:

Yes of course. It’s very sad that she’s not here. And it’s the same with Pelle Alsing, who was also very important in that era. But it was a fantastic journey we had anyway, so you have to think positively. We had a devilishly long career together. I’m super grateful for everything we’ve been through. And I’m very proud to have worked with Marie and what she did with my songs.

To Aftonbladet’s question how Mr. G looks back on this carousel today, whether it is with undivided joy, or there is a sadness that something similar will probably never happen again Per replies:

It’s exactly as you say: it happens once in a lifetime – if you’re lucky. Most people will never experience anything like this. I think you can compare it to winning the World Cup in Formula 1. It’s a success that still gives confidence today. And you have to have a certain self-confidence to work with creative things, to stand on your own two feet. It’s quite hard to be so extravagant all the time. Now I’m going on tour again, I disclose myself every night and anything can happen. So of course you need self-confidence.

Per Gessle about…

… the idea behind Joyride: “The idea was that you could pick any song as a single. The ambition was to make a super-commercial record in the same spirit that we had success with – and that we were very good at.”

… Roxette’s manifestation: “Roxette was a hybrid of my pop geek mixed with Clarence (Öfwerman’s) magical productions and Marie, who was a fantastic singer from a completely different school. I tried to match their geniuses in my way.”

… more memories from South America: “In Córdoba, Argentina, there were fans from the airport to the hotel. It was like a marathon with a riot fence, flowers and Marie and Per signs. I know Marie tried to go out in a wig at some point, but it didn’t work out so well. It became a street race.”

… Bryan Adams (Everything I Do) I Do It For You (which was often the only obstacle from first places around the world): “I’ve always hated that song. And it was probably in our way, right? But I like Bryan Adams. He is a nice guy and a good photographer as well. And he sings damn good, always did.”

… the legacy of Roxette: “I see it on streaming, the interest in Roxette is increasing all the time. People do covers and new generations come. The big songs seem to become evergreens. You have to pinch your arm.”

Roxette on TikTok!

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Guess what! While celebrating the 30th anniversary of Joyride, Roxette enters a new social media network and a new profile is now added to the already wide portfolio of pages where you can stalk Roxette and Per Gessle. Haha. So that’s what Warner Music Sweden has been preparing for during the past month. A TikTok account for Roxette!

TikTok is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos. Take it from a marketer, nowadays it’s the most popular social media platform, because the content there is exciting, highly entertaining and there is always something for everyone. The algorithm TikTok is using is fantastic, always finding you with the content most relevant to you, so you feel it’s really personalized just for you. No brand or artist can avoid using TikTok to expand their fan base these days. I’m really happy that now we can find Roxette there too, because there are 1 billion monthly active users worldwide and the main users of this platform are from generation Z. Great chance to reach and engage them with Roxette’s timeless music! At the same time, there is a high ratio of those who are bored with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and moved on to TikTok, so now they can be reached there too.

Beware! Once you start using TikTok you won’t be able to stop watching the endless stream of short vids. And if you are the creator type, you’ll find the easiest ways to create your own original videos by the help of the great tools built in the app. And who knows, maybe a duet with Per Gessle is also written in your future! Haha.

Click HERE and follow Roxette (@roxetteofficial) on TikTok! Enjoy the already available short vids with Per! We all look forward to some more, don’t we?

Stills are from the videos.

Update on 30th November 2021:

According to TikTok’s press release, all music from Roxette is available for use in content on the platform, which has been appreciated by users from all over the world. The song “It Must Have Been Love” has so far been used in over 220,000 TikTok videos.

Per says:
It feels amazing that Roxette’s music is so popular on TikTok. Many people turn to TikTok to express themselves creatively and discover new things, so I’m so incredibly happy that Roxette has been adopted by so many in this way. It feels really fun to be part of the community now and be able to spread Roxette’s history and music to more music lovers.
On Roxette’s TikTok account, Per Gessle will, among other things, share exclusive video material, dig into both the huge song treasure and the archive for stage clothes and other curiosities. Users around the world will be able to see and hear stories and personal anecdotes that have never been shared before.