Charla K to compete with a song co-written with Per Gessle

Charla K’s name probably sounds familiar to Per Gessle’s fans, because she was signed by Per’s record label, Space Station 12 and together with Alex Shield she also performed as support act to Per Gessle on Mr. G’s summer tour last year.

Now she is among the ten finalists competing in the Norwegian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. Charlotte Kjær (29) is from Tønsberg and currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2009, she participated in X Factor Norway as part of the group Shackles. In 2013 the group participated in Melodi Grand Prix as a duo. Charla K’s first single was “Should’a Let Me Go“, written together with Alex Shield and Sharon Vaughn. This year, she co-wrote Stamina for Anastacia’s new album.

In 2018, Charla K competes with a song written together with Alex Shield and none other than Per Gessle. “Charlotte is a natural talent who has that unique skill that you listen to her whatever she is singing!” says Per in today’s press release. “Charla K writes songs as well, Stop The Music is a fantastic creation she composed together with Alex Shield. I’m both proud and happy to have written the text. And suddenly we all ended up in Norway. And on Melodifestivalen. Life is full of surprises! Incredibly fun,” says Per.

Charla K is excited to stand on the scene of Oslo Spektrum and perform the song “Stop The Music” on March 10, 2018. “It’s great for me to be one of ten selected artists who get the chance to participate in one of the year’s greatest , most important and most influential music contests – MGP,” she says.

Stop The Music” was chosen out of almost 1200 songs and that is a record for the competition in Norway.

In the 1980’s, Per Gessle already took part in Melodifestivalen as a songwriter. First in 1980, when Lasse Lindbom performed “För dina bruna ögons skull”, the song ended up at the 10th position. In 1986 Lena Philipsson competed with “Kärleken är evig” (lyrics written by PG) and ended up at the second place.

Fingers crossed for Charla K that she wins the contest in Norway, so we can all support her on the ESC later! Listen to the song HERE!

Photos by Karin Törnblom taken at Space Station 12’s anniversary party 2017

 

Per Gessle makes it sound so simple

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© Anders Roos

You probably remember our latest article on a new song registered under Per’s and Addeboy vs. Cliff’s (Andreas Broberger & Hannes Lindgren) name at BMI. The title of that song was ”I Come Alive”. Now there is another song listed in the BMI repertoire. It’s called ”You Make It Sound So Simple”. What is Mr. G cooking???

Again, all 3 guys are registered as songwriters / composers of the song, so it’s probably a cooperation like it was with Heikki L or Kill FM or Sebastien Drums. Is it going to be a complete Per Gessle feat. Addeboy vs. Cliff album or what? Or is it related to the new Rox album?

It surely turns out soon. But hopefully, the new Roxette album is released even sooner. 😉 Now that Per has announced the album is finally DONE, it shouldn’t be long until announcing a release date as well. Woohoo!

 

 

Per Gessle comes alive?

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.

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© 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!

 

Per Gessle’s cooperation with Hep Stars

Hep Stars was Sweden’s most successful band in the 60s. Benny Andersson (ABBA) was one of the members of the pop group back then. Actual members are: Svenne Hedlund, Bengan Arenblad, Totte Päivärinta, Todde Stoor and Joffe Enbom. One of their most popular song is ”Cadillac” (based on The Renegades’ ”Brand New Cadillac”). Cool song, isn’t it? Not sure if it’s the same baby and if the cadillac is big & black.

So, the guys are celebrating their 50th anniversary and for this reason, they are releasing an album in 2014 (4th week). Why am I writing about it? Because that album will contain a so far unpublished song written by Per Gessle. There will be 2 singles (”It´s Nice To Be Back”; ”I Wanna Be With You”), but I have no clue if any of these 2 songs is the one written by Mr G. Actually, there is a song with the title ”I Wanna Be With You” on The Lonely Boys album, but I guess it’s not the same, since they are talking about a so far unreleased song. UPDATE: As Per informs, it IS the song from The Lonely Boys… UPDATE (29th Jan 2014): here you can have a listen to it… Ehm… or maybe not if you don’t want to ruin what you have in your mind about this song.)

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This is not the first time Per Gessle cooperated with Hep Stars. When EMI released their compilation album (Hep Stars: 1964-69!), it was Per who compiled those 30 songs the double LP contains. Not sure about the year, since some websites say it was in the early 80s, some others say it was in 1992. Would be cool to know the whole story behind it.

Google helped me to remember an old, fantastic SOAP interview (10/06/2006) with Per done by Jan Gradvall, where besides many many other interesting things he also mentioned that Hep Stars was his first favourite band.

Per said in that interview: “I liked them. I envied my parents that they could see Hep Stars on stage. I asked my mother about this just recently, but she couldn’t remember anything. She is 81.”

“I liked Hep Stars so much that I forced my friends to pretend that we were a band. We stood there with Carrom sticks as guitars and mimed to “Sunny Girl” from Hep Stars and “It’s My Life” from The Animals. But my friends were totally uninterested in music. They thought I was weird.”

 

 

MP_by_Hep_Stars

 

 

Another interesting information is that the upcoming Hep Stars album was produced by Mats MP Persson.

MP played and worked together with Svenne several times in the past. You can find some pics of MP and his studio from the past HERE and some new ones HERE. Don’t forget to check the walls! 😉

BBC Four will broadcast a documentary with Svenne and MP in it on 27th Dec.

 

 

 

 

 

Pic of Per is from ”Gyllene Tider sommaren 2013” docu, pic of MP is from Hep Stars / Hep House Records FB site.

Mr Gessle’s thoughts not to be lost

As Per is sharing a lot of information about his songs, demos, covers, etc. on Roxette Official and Per Gessle Official lately, we thought to collect them here, not to lose these pearls in the dark depths of Facebook. We hope Per is keeping up the good thing (thanx in advance, Mr G) and this way we can continuously update the list with his comments, so check it whenever you feel like it. There may be some new info for you from time to time. First of all, check Per’s posts, but if you don’t have time each day to have a look at the Facebook sites he’s handling, you can come here and see what’s new on the list.

We’ve created a section called PG about songs for this up in the Menu.

Enjoy the collection!

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