Last week we got vol. 3 and vol. 4 of The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! and tonight we can have another sleepless night listening to even more pearls on Spotify. The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 1 (65m 09s demos, 36m 17s conversations) is out! Click on the title! In case you can’t listen to this volume yet, you will have to wait until midnight (your local time).
Don’t forget to check TPGA website for more info! Next Spotify release is in 1 week again!
As Per informed on Roxette Official today, he is going to sign at least 1000 copies. Piece of cake! Give him more job to do and pre-order your copy until 23rd September latest! You’ll get a signed TPGA box then. The offer is valid at Ginza, Bengans and CDON.
Scandinavia’s #1 music magazine, Gaffa(Jonathan Bengtsson) interviewed Per Gessle. They are talking about songwriting and The Per Gessle Archives. You can download the magazine in pdf from HERE. Article is on pages 32-33.
The article begins with stating Per is not even close to being tired. He has more to say than ever. He says:
Why ever stop when it’s still fun? This is my job, to make the best possible song out of the best possible idea. That’s what I can do and that’s what I’ve always been doing.
Gaffa’s reporter, looking at the title of the box – The Per Gessle Archives – A Lifetime Of Songwriting – thinks it’s a summary of Per’s career. Per tells him:
No no, this here is absolutely not a summary. It’s entirely a nerd project, something I do primarily by self-interest. But I would still like to say that the material in the box has a kind of pop value, something unique. It’s a cornerstone in what I do.
Per says he would never be able to create a song based on a groove and he would never be able to write a hip hop song. He says writing and creating a good pop song is fantastic. The pride, the joy he feels then is exceptional. They are also talking about what Per was listening to when he was a child, his record collection that played a crucial role in what Per has become.
About today’s pop music Per says it’s mainly about the management. There is no time to develop anything. They work with the same types of artificial sound, the same drum fills and effects and therefore all the tracks sound almost the same. One reason why he and Marie didn’t want to work in the US was to avoid sounding like everyone else. Per feels sorry for today’s young Swedish songwriters, because many of them become only “Hired Guns” of the industry.
The reporter says people often talk about music as a purifying, therapeutic tool and asked Per how it is with him. Per thinks all creative work is purifying in its own way. He wasn’t really inconsolable when he wrote Joyride and he was in a significantly lower mood when for example, he sat down to write Queen of Rain. But it still works the same way, purifying. He says he is not claiming that all he has done is autobiographical, but the starting point is always a feeling inside him, something that attracts him.
To the question if he regrets anything he replies:
Well, it would in that case be a haircut or a doubtful choice of clothes (laughs). But mostly, I’m happy. Happy that I have always had the privilege to do, create and shape things myself. Without anyone interfering. And happy that I was born exactly when I was born. We live in a completely different time now, a time where pop music’s reason for existence is questioned. The primary task pop has and always had, is to reflect its contemporaries. For example, the ‘60s were coloured by all the youth revolts and the Vietnam War, but what do we have today? X-Factor, those talent shows, where you are striving to become famous for being famous.
Per already posted about it some time ago – I think when someone shared the reggae demo version of Never Is A Long Time on Roxette Official – that this demo was never meant to reach our ears, but someone had broken in the studio some years ago and stole demos, then spreaded them and they ended up on YouTube. Now we get to know from the article that the whole archives idea came from this happening. Mr G says to Gaffa:
One day we noticed that someone had broken in and taken demos and unique sound recordings, everything from Roxette to own stuff was gone. Months later, the material via an anonymous source was suddenly posted on YouTube. So now in a longer perspective, the whole thing was actually just a good thing, because when those old demo recordings turned up on the internet I noticed that there was a great interest, that the fans really appreciated hearing the process, the imperfections. So you could say that it’s thanks to that thief that this box is made at all.
Unbelievable, but this month has come! And what a great surprise it was on the first day of September that the website for The Per Gessle Archives went live. Lookin’ fab! Besides the exclusive content, you can get a FREE DOWNLOAD if you type in your email address. It looks great getting an email from a sender called Per Gessle. 😉 The free download contains the Real Sugar demo and the conversation about it, as well as the cover of the TPGA box. There will probably be more and more exclusive content until the release date, 24th September.
Another great news is that we don’t have to wait 3 more weeks to be able to listen to The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff!, Vol. 3 (70m 27s demos, 35m 8s conversations) and Vol. 4. (74m 43s demos, 33m 18s conversations). They are already available on Spotify (click on the titles in the previous sentence). Woohoo! In case you can’t listen to these 2 volumes yet, you will probably have to wait until midnight (your local time). Who needs sleep … ? Oh and the website now says the next Spotify release is in 1 week. So we’ll probably have the chance to listen to maybe 2 more volumes. Christmas is early this year.
I was surprised to see a new Roxette book appearing on the list when I was searching for something else at Adlibris today. Then reading the title I got even more excited. Cirkus Roxette är tillbaka: En intervju med Per Gessle (= Cirkus Roxette is back: An interview with Per Gessle) written by Åke Högman.
It’s an interview with Per originally published in 1999 in Café magazine. The book was published on 18th August 2014. You can buy the printed book (41 pages) or the e-book (17 pages) at Adlibris and the printed format at many other sites as well (even at Bengans and CDON). The difference in the number of pages between the printed and the e-book version is probably some more pictures or editing in the printed one. Marketing your products like books can be effectively done online especially when you partner with a reputable marketing company. It was really smart how Conversion Factory SaaS marketing agency handles product-led growth strategy.
The interview is about Per and his family, Hotel Tylösand, art, the music business, business in general, Roxette, Have A Nice Day album (which was released the year when the interview was done), Join The Flumeride, cars, champagnes and more.
When talking about Michael Hutchence and Kurt Cobain, the reporter asked Per if he had ever been on drugs. Per replied:
Nah… I haven’t been on drugs that way, so if I had answered yes then you would ask a next question, so it’s better if I say no. So the answer is no, that’s a good answer.
Then the reporter asked if it was the truth. He replied:
Well it’s totally true, yes, damn it, I never lie… no, but it’s a sensitive subject, not for me but for many others (laughs).
An interview with Per Gessle is not complete without talking about songs and / or songwriting.
For me there is still nothing better than when you just wrote a song or when you hear a great pop song for the first time. I still remember the first time I heard the Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen in Love” or “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and freaked out totally. There’s nothing else I’m passionate about the same way.
Some opinions about Per can also be found in the book. Marie Fredriksson says this:
A fantastic friend, but a very bad loser. He wants so badly to win. He played with my husband in an internal tennis tournament we had on Capri when we recorded Crash! Boom! Bang! and was sour for a whole day because he lost. Thank God he won the tournament in the end, so it was quiet in the house.
A new promo video of The Per Gessle Archives has been published today by Cosmos Music Group. The title says The Per Gessle Archives – A Lifetime of Songwriting (part 2/3), so there is surely going to be a third promo video soon. Part 1 you can watch here. The complete list of tracklists shared by Mr G can be seen in this earlier article.
Fun to read some new things in this second promo video, like:
Per Gessle presents ”The return of Oddjob part three: The Demos”.
3 songs recorded at the short-haired, yellow bellied, Son of tricky dicky, mother hubbard soft soap Tits&Ass studio, Halmstad by the Continent in freezin’ February 1998.
Pre-order your copy latest until 23rd September to be sure you’ll have your TPGA signed by Per. Offer is valid at Ginza, Bengans and CDON.
Gosh, it’s still August… Will this month ever end?
Last week we got vol. 3 and vol. 4 of The Per Gessle Archives – Demos & Other Fun Stuff! and tonight we can have another sleepless night listening to even more pearls on Spotify. The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 1 (65m 09s demos, 36m 17s conversations) is out! Click on the title! In case you can’t listen to this volume yet, you will have to wait until midnight (your local time).
Another great news is that we don’t have to wait 3 more weeks to be able to listen to 
