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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are so thrilled because they are reaching the upper level of the Swedish best of ’90s top 30 list in the March episode of Nordic Rox. Positions from No. 10 to 6 are played on the program.

Before that, they kick off the show with a band that can’t stop celebrating. It’s The Hives with Hooray, Hooray, Hooray from their latest album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives. The next song is Sløtface from Norway with her latest single For The Boys. Then comes She’s Not You by Ola Främby from Lund, Sweden. Per likes this song a lot. The guys say the band was called The Girls, then it became The Men. Sven is joking that when they grew older, they also changed sex.

They guys are going back in time. Sven says they are nerds and they thought it could be interesting to have a look back sometimes and see what spun in the Swedish airwaves in the ’60s or ’70s. They eventually wound up with a radio show called Tio i topp, which translates into Top 10. It was one of the most loved shows ever in the ’60s for the kids. This week, 61 years ago, there was a Swedish band from Gothenburg in the charts with a fantastic song. The Beatles was topping the charts with their version of Rock & Roll Music. They were a tough act to push out of the number one position, but on position number two there was Tages with I Should Be Glad. Per thinks it’s amazing. It never ceases to amaze Sven that a Swedish pop group could be named Tages, because that would be like the name of a ’40s dance band. Per thinks it’s a great track and they wrote it themselves. Some would say that they were not only one of the best pop bands in Sweden during the ’60s, they were also the best dressed. They looked really cool and had great hairdos.

Someone New by Eskobar feat. Heather Nova is next from 2002. Per thinks it’s a beautiful song. Sven thinks it’s an interesting collaboration of a Swedish band and a British singer-songwriter.

The guys are ready to go into the top 10 list of their countdown. No. 10 is Bob Hund. Bob the dog. Sven thinks it’s an amazing band. It seems to him that those guys who wouldn’t fit in in ordinary bands formed a band together, to become outcasts and to become brilliant. Per agrees. The band was really cool, especially live. They actually gave it up last year, they did their last show. They have been doing this for many decades and this is one of their most popular songs in Sweden. It’s a great track. It’s still hard to understand, since it’s in Swedish and since the singer is singing in a broad southern Swedish dialect, even some Swedes have difficulties with understanding it. The title says it all though. Istället För Musik: Förvirring (in English it’s Instead Of Music: Confusion). A great track and a great title.

On position No. 9 there is one of Per Gessle’s favourite bands, Broder Daniel. PG thinks it was a great band. They also came from Gothenburg, and did some amazing songs. One of their best songs is Underground. Sven asks Per what it was about them that hooked Per on to. He replies that they had this sort of new wave attitude and in the middle of all the chaotic things that they did, out came some fantastic pop songs and this is one of them from 1996. Mr. G still likes it a lot.

1996 was a great year, the guys think. PG asks Sven if he remembers ’96 and Sven replies if you can remember the ’90s, you weren’t there. That’s what they used to say about the ’60s.

They move on to 1997 and No. 8 on the chart. There is a Swedish singer, Robyn, who made her debut album in 1995, but this single, Show Me Love, came out in 1997 and became a big hit for her. It was the fourth single from her debut album. She is touring the US in September. She stayed away from the music industry for a couple of years, but now she is back with a vengeance. This song was written in cooperation by Robyn herself and Max Martin, and it was produced by Dennis Pop. Per thinks it sounds very ’90s. Sven is curious what is typical for the ’90s sound for PG if they are talking about the Swedish hit machine music in the mid ’90s. Mr. G says they were very active with Roxette in the ’90s and they were still pretty organic, touring. But this was another side of pop music, more studio focused. More programmed stuff and more computer driven and all these songwriting teams started to develop. Roxette came from a different breed, from a different generation. Sven says they had one leg back in the ’60s pop band.

No. 7 is Joyride, Roxette’s fourth US number one single. It was the title track from the Joyride album, of course. This particular version is the US remix for Top40 radio done by Brian Malouf. He was a very popular remixer and producer and he did a great job with this one. This was very typical at the time that the American record labels wanted their own mix for the American radio and their own versions for certain formats on the radio as well. Per remembers doing Listen To Your Heart in a version without guitars, because it was a radio format that didn’t play guitars. It sounded silly to them, of course, but that’s the way the radio wanted it to be. This particular version of Joyride was not released anywhere else. It came out on a 12-inch single. It’s interesting to compare the two because this one sounds a lot busier. There are a lot of things happening. The original version is a lot drier, so to speak. It’s a little more rocky, there is a snare drum, for instance. The drums are louder and a little bit more reverb to it. It’s nothing new for the American listeners, because this one is the standard version in the US. Sven asks Per if there is anything that hasn’t been said, something he can say about Joyride that he never had said before. Mr. G can tell the traditional story of how it was written. His girlfriend at the time, now his wife, left a note on his piano saying, ”Hej din tok, jag älskar dig”, which translates into, ”Hello, you fool, I love you”. He thought it was the most beautiful thing to read, so he thought that’s going to be a chorus, and he was in the middle of writing a song, so he just used it: „hello, you fool, I love you, c’mon, join the Joyride”. That was like a gift from heaven. His wife didn’t get any songwriting credits.

No. 6 is Hey Princess by Popsicle. The song is from their debut album called Lacquer, 1992. Per doesn’t know much about them. Sven says they are a typically Swedish indie ’90s band. When he pictures them, he sees a band gazing at their shoes, typical shoegazers, a typical ’90s band. They had a couple of big songs in Sweden. They had good songwriters and they were really radio friendly for the ’90s. Per was on the other side of the planet in 1992 touring, so Popsicle swept him by more or less. He heard about them later on, but at the time he wasn’t that much into listening to them.

Down In The Past by Mando Diao, Show ‘Em Good by Cocktail Slippers and You Want The Sun by Niki & The Dove are played.

Sven and PG 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!