Sven Lindström

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle were on air with the August episode of Nordic Rox to share their top 2000s songs from No. 20 to No. 16.

The guys kick off the show with Something Wicked by The Teenage Idols. Superb garage rock. Sven loves those one-chord tracks. He says, that’s basically what he can play. Haha.

Then comes Nicole Sabouné’s brand new single, Mirror On The Wall.

The next song is Sharpshooter by The Creeps from their Blue Tomato album in 1990. It was produced by Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman. The Creeps were a special guest on a big tour for Roxette. They are a great band, Per loves them. The band is terrific, but especially the singer, Robert Jelinek. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1965 and he came to Sweden with his father who was a designer for Ikea. He grew up in Älmhult in the south of Sweden.

[When Sven and Per recorded this show, the North American tour leg was still on the horizon, so they talked about it. /PP]

Sven asks Per what to expect on Roxette’s US tour. Per says there are 15 dates: 13 in the US and 2 in Canada. It’s basically the same show that they are doing in Europe and South America. It’s a greatest hits show and he has been able to collect the classic players in the band. Clarence Öfwerman, keyboard player and Jonas Isacsson, lead guitar player, are still with them. They have a new singer, the most amazing Lena Philipsson who is doing a fantastic job. Sven says she is a great stage personality. PG says it’s been a wonderful tour. Since they started off with Lena, they have done almost 60 shows. It’s just been awesome to play all these classic tracks again. Per is having a blast. Mr. G asks Sven if he is coming to see them in the US. Sven says he used to go to the South by Southwest Festival, but that’s in the spring, so he will see. Per says he can come by and sell some T-shirts. That’s a great offer, Sven admits. Haha.

Two songs from the Swedish ’60s are coming up. The one they play first is in Swedish. Per says most Swedish acts in the ’60s were singing in sort of English. Swenglish, as they used to call it. They were playing more easy listening music for Sven and Per’s parents’ generation, but there were a few exceptions who got big. Sven-Ingvars is one of those bands. The guys picked a song that was very big in 1965. Säg inte nej, säg kanske, which translates to don’t say no, say maybe. It’s a good title, Per thinks.

Then Wedding by the Hep Stars follows from 1966. You might recognize the organ sound, because that’s Benny Andersson, who later kicked off ABBA. He even wrote the song. He was the keyboard player in the Hep Stars, probably the biggest band in 1966/67. They were leading the pop craze wave in Sweden at the time. Per has this song as a seven-inch single. It was a major hit single when he was a little kid.

No. 20 on the Nordic list is With Every Heartbeat by Robyn, who is still going strong. She made this song in 2005 together with Kleerup.

The next track is a trip to Denmark. The guys play The Raveonettes a lot on Nordic Rox. They are a cool duo. Love In A Trashcan is one of their best songs, Per thinks. It’s from 2005. They were formed by Sune Rose Wagner and Sharon Foo back in the early noughties. They have a very special sound, basic and atmospheric. The album is called Pretty In Black, if you want to buy it.

Sven and Per are moving to Sweden for song No. 18 and play Hot Night Crash by the amazing Sahara Hotnights. It’s from the album Kiss & Tell. They had a couple of great tracks in there and this was the first single from the album in 2004.

Here comes one of Sven’s favourite bands, The Hellacopters, hard rock and roll from Stockholm. By The Grace Of God is a great track from 2002. It sounds perfectly like 2002.

A major hit, the breakthrough song for Peter Bjorn and John is coming up next on position No. 16. Young Folks is from 2006. It’s a fun thing what a whistle can do. Never underestimate a whistle, Per says. Roxette had that written on the vinyl inner track on the Joyride album: Was it really necessary to whistle? Someone said that when they did the Joyride track, because they didn’t like the whistle. So Roxette kept it and it became a major hit as well.

The guys play a Roxette song, something from the old days from the Joyride album from 1991. Things Will Never Be The Same they used to play live a lot. They don’t do that anymore, though. It’s one of the highlights for Per from that album.

Close To You by Velvet Beat is next. Then comes O.C.D.O.D. by The Hives and Darling, Go Home by Amanda Jenssen wraps up this episode of Nordic Rox.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle presented their 550th Nordic Rox show in July. They shared their top 2000s songs from No. 25 to No. 21 in that episode.

The guys are ready to play the best sound from the Nordic countries and kick off with something really greasy, Grease Baby by Clutter, garage rock from Stockholm. A very cool song according to Per.

Then comes Mia Karlsson’s beautiful track, Breathe Now from 2024. PG loves this song and he thinks Mia has a great voice.

The next track is Let’s Go Parking Baby by Caesars from their Youth Is Wasted On The Young album from 1998. Excellent stuff, Sven thinks. He loves their sound.

The guys play two US No.1s in different versions. First of all, Björn Skifs who topped the US Billboard charts with Hooked On A Feeling. Per corrects Sven that he wasn’t called Björn Skifs those days, but Blue Swede and the song was a cover version of Hooked On A Feeling, the ooga chaka stuff in 1974. But the track they play is a Eurovision song from 1975, a big, big, big hit in Scandinavia: Michelangelo by Björn Skifs. It’s a cool song according to PG. It makes you smile.

Then there is an ABBA track in a different version by the group called Pale Honey, a cover version of Lay All Your Love On Me from the Super Trooper album 1980. The guys think it’s a great track and Pale Honey’s interpretation is an interesting, nice version.

No. 25 on the noughties list is a Danish song that travelled the world. It was the theme song for the TV series The Bridge. Hollow Talk by Choir Of Young Believers is a very special track. Per was pretty late watching the series. Everyone saw it around him, except him. He watched all the seasons, and then just before the three last episodes, they took it off Netflix or HBO, whatever it was. So PG hasn’t seen the ending yet and begs Sven not to tell him. Sven laughs and confirms no spoilers here.

Sven knows the next song is one of Per’s favourites. It’s by Lisa Miskovsky. Mr. G thinks she is a great singer, and this is one of her early hits, Driving One Of Your Cars. Per thinks it sounds amazing and he loves it. It’s an excellent track from 2001. It’s getting old. “Just like you”, Per turns to Sven. Haha.

No. 23 is a female singer called Titiyo. She broke through in 1989 with Talking To The Man In The Moon, but her biggest song is Come Along. It’s written by Peter Svensson from The Cardigans and Jocke Berg from Kent. Jocke wrote the lyrics. Kent was a massive band in Sweden, but has never broken through outside. Come Along has got a great sound, and it sounds a little bit like The Cardigans, Per thinks. It’s a very good song, and you can still hear it here and there.

Someone New by Eskobar feat. Heather Nova is next. It was a one-off collaboration between this band from Stockholm and Heather Nova from Bermuda in 2002. It was a big song in Europe, and it still sounds cool.

No. 21 is Wonderchild by Christian Walz, who is a great producer and writer, and he has been around for many years. This was a really big song for him. It’s from the album Paint By Numbers. He is also a very prolific writer for Swedish artist Veronica Maggio. He has written brilliant tracks for her in Swedish.

Sven introduces the next track, Bad Blood, as a song by the touring version of Roxette. Per says it’s not really a Roxette track. It’s sung by Per and Lena Philipsson, who is an amazing singer.

The next song played is Hey Princess by Popsicle. Then comes Fine by The Cardigans. It’s taken from The Cardigans’ second album, Live, which broke them big in Japan in 1995. Sven asks Per what he was doing in 1995. PG has to think about it. He came off a tour. If you can’t remember the ’90s, you weren’t there, Sven says. Per says they did a world tour with Roxette in 1994 and 1995. The Crash! Boom! Bang! tour, so they probably played some big shows in the summer of 1995. Then they recorded more music, because they made their first compilation album in 1996. Per says “it’s all coming back to me now”. Haha. Like Peter Sellers would say.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are back on Nordic Rox with a new countdown. In the June episode, the guys share their top noughties (from the years between 2000 and 2009) songs from No. 30 to No. 26.

Before they get down to it, they go back to 1975 and Benny Andersson, alive and kicking in the studio. Intermezzo No. 1 is the only instrumental track ABBA ever released. It’s from the great album called ABBA. Per is wondering how No. 2 sounded. It’s an outtake, Sven says. Per still thinks it’s a great track. You could hear the musical ambitions of Benny Andersson in that one. Wonderful, sort of classic influences and power pop all melting together. And you got all the fine session players from Stockholm of the ’70s era. The guys say, if Benny hears this, they are in the studio in Halmstad waiting for Intermezzo No. 2. Haha.

Effortless by Sabina Ddumba is next, then comes Old Man Chicago by Alberta Cross. A great track according to PG. Sven says it’s a Swedish guy on the vocal, but they are based in England. They used to be a duo, they had different setups in the band or lineups, but Petter Ericson Stakee is the founding member and singer, and the only original one left.

Push Play by Miriam Bryant is played as the next song. Then comes the amazing sound of the Viagra Boys from Stockholm and the song Waterboy. It’s a cool band formed in 2015 and quite successful.

No. 30 on the top noughties list is from Gothenburg on the West Coast, Sweden’s number two city. It’s Midnight Prayer by an indie band called the Bad Cash Quartet. Per thinks they were a very good band. This song is taken from their third album and the final one as well.

The guys are moving up to 29. The song is It’s Been Hurting All The Way With You, Joanna by a great artist called Moneybrother. It’s taken from his Blood Panic album 2003. It’s a great track according to Per. Sven remembers seeing him in Austin, Texas during the South by Southwest festival. He was great on stage as well. He remembers they played there and then they jumped into a tour bus, and went up quite a long while for the next gig immediately. It’s hard being on the road, Per says. Sven says, that’s why he never broke through as a pop star. Haha. Moneybrother was later changing language to Swedish and he is quite successful in Sweden as well.

Position No. 28 belongs to The Ark, a sizable international hit group. It Takes A Fool To Remain Sane is a great song. The Ark broke up, but they got back together and they are still touring once in a while with a spectacular singer, Ola Salo, as a frontman. He’s been doing a lot of musicals as well. Sven remembers they had a summer house in a little city or rather a locality in Småland, where the band came from. It’s in the middle of nowhere by a lake. There, in an empty house, which you thought were empty, you could hear drums pounding, and it was The Ark rehearsing.

Sven and Per go back to the second biggest city of Sweden. Gothenburg is No. 1 in many ways though. Here comes another indie band from the early noughties, The Plan. There are so many fantastic artists coming out of Gothenburg. Starting when Per was a kid in the ’60s, they had Tages, one of the biggest bands in the ’60s in Sweden, coming from Gothenburg. The guys are playing Tages quite a lot, every time they get a chance. So The Plan is following their footsteps in a way. The song picked is Mon Amour from 2001. High energy, power pop. PG thinks the organ in the beginning is pretty cool, he loves it. Sven thinks it sounds a little bit like Per’s power pop band Gyllene Tider. Mr. G says, they all use these Italian organs. Haha.

For No. 26, the final song from the best of the noughties list so far, the guys go to Helsingborg. They picked Painted By Numbers by The Sounds. They had quite a big song in the States, Living In America. Painted By Numbers is taken from their second album, 2006. They have done some really amazing stuff over the years, PG thinks.

The Morning Show by Metro Jets, Big Big World by Emilia and Don’t Hate On Me by Vincent are played.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström welcomes Per Gessle back to Sweden after the South American tour leg in the May episode of Nordic Rox. The guys are sitting in sunny Halmstad on a beautiful day.

Per has been touring with Roxette during the 40th anniversary year. Time flies when you’re having fun, he says. And he did have fun in South America. It’s a beautiful place, he loves to go there and play there. Lots of noise and loud people everywhere, and love and affection as well. The guys will dive into some of the tour memories, but before that they kick off the show with a smile. Smile by Atomic Swing is the first song they play. It’s from their debut album that came out in 1993.

Final Gørl by Norwegian Sløtface is next, a power pop punk band or whatever you want to label it, from Stavanger, a great city in Norway. Then comes Lies by Peter Bjorn and John.

Sven is curious which countries Per & Co. went to in South America. Mr. G informs that they played Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. Sven wants to know how it was to get back to South America after so many years. Per says it was amazing. They have a new singer in the band, Lena Philipsson and it’s a new experience for everyone. But it was great. They had 12,000 people in Buenos Aires and 9,000 people in Santiago. The reception is tremendous. It’s like time stood still in a way. There are still a lot of people hanging outside the hotels and it’s really cool.

40 years is a long time in this business, so PG is very honored and privileged to still be able to do this after all these years. The heyday of Roxette, of course, was from 1988 until 1995. 1989 internationally, but in 1988 they had a big breakthrough in Scandinavia. So South America came pretty early. The first tour they did there was in 1991-92 with the Joyride album and they immediately started to play football stadiums.

They guys play a song taken from the Joyride album. The track is on the tour setlist as well. Per knows what song Sven picked, it’s always he who picks the Roxette songs on the show. It’s Fading Like A Flower, a big song for Roxette. It was No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1991 and it’s still a crowd pleaser.

Sven remembers being in South America watching Roxette play there in 2012, and he was amazed because he wasn’t really ready for the devoted fan base they had there. People waiting at airports and the fans everywhere. It’s pretty crazy still, Per says. Especially in South America, people show their emotions a lot. It’s just wonderful to be there from a performer’s point of view. It’s just great to do shows for those people. Sven is curious if it is different as opposed to touring in Europe, for example. Per says it depends on where in Europe you go. But PG usually says that the farther north you go, the calmer the audience is. And the farther south you go, the more temperamental the audience becomes. Latin America is just fantastic. He loves it there and he loves those cities. Montevideo is fantastic, Santiago is great, Buenos Aires is crazy. There is like an old European touch to it still, which you don’t really find in Europe that much anymore. Sven agrees, Buenos Aires really is a fascinating city. And there is great food and great wine. Sven asks Per if there are any noticeable differences between Buenos Aires and Rio and Santiago. Generally speaking, Rio is a little bit more touristy than São Paulo in Brazil. São Paulo, for Per, is a little bit more arty. But these are big cities and you are on tour, so you spend a lot of time in the hotels and in the arenas.

The next Roxette song also ended up on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart on No. 2 and it was No. 1 on Cashbox. It’s Dangerous from the Look Sharp! album. It’s still also on the setlist. It’s a really wonderful song. Per wrote it just after they released the first Roxette album. Marie didn’t like it, so they skipped it for a very long time. But then Mr. G convinced her that it had something. At the end of the day, many, many, many, many years later, Per overheard an interview Marie did and she said it was her favourite Roxette song. There you go! Haha. The revenge!

Rocket Scientist by Teddybears is next. Then comes Going Home by Sophie Zelmani.

Sven asks Per what’s up next for Roxette. They continue touring this 40th anniversary throughout the year. They are going to do about 20 shows in Europe starting in May. So it’s a pretty busy summer. There are lots of German dates and they play in Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland. Name it, you got it. Hopefully, this tour will continue to North America as well, the US and Canada. The last time they played in the States was 2012. Sven saw them in Boston. They also played the Beacon Theatre in New York. It would be fantastic to go back on this tour.

Another Roxette song is coming up on Nordic Rox. Church Of Your Heart is from the Joyride album. The vinyl version of Joyride didn’t include it at all, but it was available on the CD. For some reason, their American record label liked it and they wanted to release it as a single. So they did. They made a video as well and it became a decent hit in the States, and eventually, also a single in the rest of the world. It was more of a leftover for Roxette. In those days you squeezed more songs into a CD, because you had more space. And you wanted to keep every vinyl side to a maximum of 20 minutes for the sound quality, which Per thinks is great, because if you make an album that’s 40 minutes, that’s enough. Sven always liked this song, because he thought it was a slightly relaxed power pop side of Roxette. It made him think of Tom Petty. Per says they love Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They got this Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, so it’s indeed got that sort of style. It’s a three chord thing.

The fourth Roxette song on the show is taken from the Have A Nice Day album. This one is a newly released version called The Monk Version. Sven turns to Per and says he needs to explain it. The song is called Wish I Could Fly and The Monk Version is when they mixed this song, they did different alternatives. This particular version included some sort of monks singing. However, they were the monks. Haha. They were singing the outro of the song in this monk style. It’s been available on 12-inch singles in the past. A lot of people like it and Sven picked it, so PG thinks Sven must like it too. Sven says he was intrigued by the title. The song is a sizable hit in Europe and a big one in the UK.

Shoreline by Anna Ternheim is next, then Inner City Ghosts by Johnossi wraps up the program.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are back on the airwaves with the final countdown of the best songs of the Swedish ’90s in the April episode of Nordic Rox. Positions from No. 5 to 1 are played on the show.

The guys have been struggling through 30 songs to finally get to the top of the list. Sven asks Per how he feels about the top 5. Mr. G thinks it’s a tough competition up there, but these are 5 great songs.

Before that, they take a trip to the garage and they find The Sinners there. When She Lies is played by the band. Then comes The One You Need by Miller Moon from Malmö. Surfway by Sydkraft (south power – Per translates) is next. They came from Halmstad and this song is from 1978. This was the first single they ever made. Sven thinks it’s a cool song. He remembers Per saying back in the days when he had Gyllene Tider – which the guys will come back to later on in the show – that Sydkraft came from Halmstad and they were signed to EMI, so that made PG think that GT could never be signed by EMI, because they can’t have two bands from this ridiculous little town on the west coast. But they could. Gyllene Tider eventually wound up on EMI, so they became label mates with Sydkraft.

The guys are moving back in time to one of their favourite parts of the show, where they have a look at what was buzzing on the Swedish top charts back in the days. Approximately 60 years ago this week, they had a big song on the radio in Sweden called Sunny Girl by the Hep Stars. It was written by Benny Andersson who eventually became one of the Bs in ABBA. Haha. This is one of his first compositions and it was a major song in Sweden over the summer of 1966. Sven suggests if you haven’t heard the Hep Stars before, listen to 20-something Benny Andersson and see if you can hear traces of the future ABBA sounds there.

The next song is Above The Candystore by Paola. Per thinks it’s a fantastic song, produced and written by Klas Åhlund who also was a member of Teddybears and produced and wrote a lot of stuff for Robyn, for instance. Paola was a great pop singer and this song was forgotten, not getting the credit it deserves, Sven says. Per loves this track. He played it a lot.

This brings the guys to the top 5 of their best of the Swedish ’90s list. No. 5 is a song called Tuesday Afternoon by Stonecake from 1991. Sven always had the feeling that Paul McCartney would have loved to have written this one. Per confirms it was very much influenced by his style.

No. 4 is one of the most successful Swedish bands ever internationally and a great band as well. It wasn’t easy to pick a song from The Cardigans because they have so many, especially in the ’90s. Sven and Per stuck with My Favourite Game. Per thinks it’s a great one. Sven agrees it’s a cool track. It was written by Peter Svensson and produced by Tore Johansson. It’s homegrown Swedish stuff, which made a lot of Japanese fans fill the streets in Malmö suddenly. The Cardigans were very big in Japan.

In the bronze position they are changing language. More or less everyone in Swedish bands was singing in English in the ’90s. But here is a bold fighter for the Swedish language. It’s the band PG was in at the time, Gyllene Tider. Det är över nu (It’s over now). That sounds a bit depressive, but in fact, the band was just kicking off again. GT started in the late ’70s and broke up in 1984, and then they came back in the mid ’90s. This was actually the comeback single in ’95. Per wrote it in a dressing room in Osaka, Japan on the Roxette Crash! Boom! Bang! tour. It was the first time they had worked with producer Michael Ilbert, who changed their sound to be a little more raw and heavier. Sven agrees, they sounded tougher and rougher. This one became a massive comeback for Gyllene Tider. It became the opening for big tours that would happen in the next two decades for this little band from Halmstad. Then there were several comebacks over the years, like every fifth year, drawing record audiences to the shows.

No. 2 is Driving One Of Your Cars by Lisa Miskovsky, a girl from the north. She made some fantastic tracks in the ’90s. This is one of Per’s favourite songs. It definitely deserves the runner-up position on this chart.

The winner is one of the few songs that Sven and Per agree on. It’s a band that started in the early ’90s and became famous and sort of shaped the sound of the Swedish ’90s. They made their debut album, A Car Crash In The Blue, in 1993 that had this single, Stone Me Into The Groove. And the band is… Atomic Swing. They sounded like nothing else. The singer, Niclas Frisk, had a lot to do with that, but the whole sound was original. It was very special at the time and he was the writer as well, so he made some fantastic music. It’s a very well-deserved number one position that they put themselves on in this chart. It’s timeless pop music by a highly original band. They sounded terrific.

Bad Blood by Per + Lena is played next, then comes Holiday Inn by Adiam Dymott and All My Senses by Mando Diao.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and they say goodbye. The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Pic by Anders Roos

Thanks for your support, Sven!