Releases

Roxette – It Just Happens

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I think the first time we could hear about the song It Just Happens was when Marie’s biography was published. It turns out that the song was recorded in September 2014 at Marie’s studio, Vinden. There was Marie, Per, Clarence and Christoffer to record it. In the book you can read it’s a typical Roxette ballad, like It Must Have Been Love, Vulnerable or Spending My Time.

This is what Per said about the song in October 2015:

Yes, I can now confirm that this is true. One of the brand new songs is called IT JUST HAPPENS. And it’s big and bold and done with love. It’s ready for mix, mastering and eventual human digestion. Stay tuned, folks. /P.

Mr. G confirmed in an interview done by Swedish Radio that the single would be out in April and a video is in the making.

It Just HappensThen came 1st April and the cover of the single popped up. Ojojoj. Most of us thought it was an April fools day joke. I mean the layout of the cover. What the hell is that butterfly with sun-go-down wings and guitar ass doing on the cover? It looks like a cheap and weak Photoshop attempt. Then more and more links appeared to the single and that the release date is 8th April. Oh well… it’s not the first time we don’t like the cover of a Roxette album and seeing this, I’m afraid it’s not the last time either. More important is how the song sounds. You know me, I’m usually one with the most positive approach towards Roxette and their stuff, no matter what they do, but this cover put my expectations and excitement at a lower level. So I hoped for an awesome song at least, if the cover is not the funkiest anyway.

Why to wait until the official release date? These days, in the world of digital music consumption new stuff is released digitally first and maybe even sooner than the official date. It has just happened now. The song is already available on Deezer [The link didn’t work for a while, since Deezer was too early to make it public. /PP] and on Roxette’s Soundcloud page. Oh yeah. The cover of the single is really THAT one. Gosh… I try to get over it, I promise.

The song, I thought it would be more of a sung-by-Marie type of typical Roxette ballad, so the first surprise came when I heard Per start to sing.  To me it’s a little bit of Vulnerable, yes, but more Cooper! A Thing About You and Speak To Me also came to my mind while listening to it. It Must Have Been Love? No, the song is definitely not of that caliber, I would say. But I don’t mind. I find the song attractive and powerful, sounds like classical Roxette, but fresh! I love Marie’s high tones and how Marie’s and Per’s voices blend. By the way, is it me or Per really sounds a bit like David Bowie here? The song is on repeat since at least an hour, so counting with its 3:46 length, I listened to it at least 15 times already. And hey, I can already sing along by heart! OK. Me likes the song and I almost forgot about the cover. 😉 Hopefully, there will be a physical release as well.

 

It Just Happens

It’s a cabaret, taking over on a quiet lazy backseat day
And it’s so beautiful
Like the sunshine on your balcony
Just yesterday

Don’t underestimate
Your heart is never late
And love will always find a way

It just happens
You don’t know what’s going on
If it’s new or if it’s been there since long
If it’s right or wrong
You fall in love
You fall in love

You don’t have a say
Just let it slide and close your eyes and watch the passion play
Don’t underestimate
Your heart can never wait
And love will always find a way

You’ll fall in love
It just happens
You’ll fall in love
It just happens

Don’t underestimate
Your heart can never wait
Love will always find a way

It just happens and you don’t know what’s going on

©Per Gessle

 

IJH makes me curious about the rest of the songs on the upcoming album. Hearing how It Just Happens starts, it is for sure not the intro song. Will it be an uptempo hit then? Most probably. We have to wait until 3rd June to find out. That is the release date of the new album. Oh and don’t forget, a video is coming, too! Hopefully, without any butterflies.

 

Roxers’ favourite Roxette studio album covers

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Some days ago we asked you to list your Top3 favourite Roxette studio album covers. We got a lot of comments and after the collage had been shared both on Roxette’s official Facebook page and Instagram account, there were even more votes. It seemed to be obvious which covers would end up at the Top3 positions, but I was curious about the exact results. It’s of course not a representative sample, but who else could judge Roxette’s album covers better than Roxers?

After checking all the comments, I counted the votes / mentions and found out the Top2 were indeed quite obvious. Most people voted for Joyride and Look Sharp!. I would say the difference between the number of votes is so tiny, the 2 covers are equally strong. The third position is occupied by Crash! Boom! Bang!, but Tourism was very close to become the third as well. The difference is quite small here, too. The 5th best cover according to Roxers is that of Room Service.

The remaining 4 covers are well behind any of those in the Top5. No surprise poor Travelling (which was released 4 years ago today, by the way) is at the end of the list. I remember how excited we all were about the new album in 2011 and 2012 and when the cover was shared on Facebook, tons of us first thought it was a joke and that it couldn’t be the final design. Not that it wasn’t funny to see BoJo on the sleeve, but… ehm… Then we decided, OK if the content is awesome, we don’t really care about the cover. The songs turned out to be fab, so the sin made with the album cover was forgiven, so to say.

We like busy covers only if there is a real concept behind them (see Tourism) and we love professional, artistic photos of Marie and Per on the sleeve. We are not into weird Photoshop attempts (see Travelling) and busy covers with seemingly no concept behind them (see Charm School). Don’t get us wrong, we love seeing such non-pro pics, but it works much better on social media sites or in books than on album covers.

These days when music is consumed rather digitally, it might be even more important to have a great cover to catch the attention of those who still go and buy CDs at record shops. Come to think of it, even for digital use it is important to have a good-looking sleeve. At least I prefer seeing a clear, eye-catching cover pic on Spotify and similar sites when I listen to music either on computer or on my smartphone.

So anyone in charge of the upcoming album cover design, please make an attractive one! Now you can see which directions Roxers prefer. 😉

 

Roxette_studio_album_covers

 

Video to the new Roxette single

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As you could read in our article this morning, Per starts a radio podcast on 24th March. A great chance to practice your Swedish by listening to 2 nerds chatting about music.

Today Per visited Swedish Radio P4 Halland and talked about the podcast. In the short interview he also mentioned that he is busy with other things as well. Besides that he started his own record label Space Station 12, there are also a lot of things happening around Roxette. The new album is out in summer, the single is out in April and he confirmed there will be a video to the single which they are shooting next week. Too cool!

Another interesting thing Mr. G mentioned is that they are playing 18 shows in Europe this summer. We know about 14 dates so far, so there are at least 4 more to come. Sounds promising!

Listen to Per HERE!

PG_P4_Halland_02  PG_P4_Halland_01

 

Roxette Diaries at the Berlinale

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As we posted about it some days ago, LevelK, a sales company handling international sales and distribution and managing the distribution rights for quality films and TV productions worldwide started to deal with the Roxette Diaries. They bring the documentary as part of their Berlin International Film Festival line-up.

They describe the docu as:

The extraordinary pop documentary ROXETTE DIARIES that through self shot video material presents an intimate portrait and an unique insight into the world of one of the 80’s and 90’s biggest pop bands.

Roxette Diaries is in clear focus. Roxette appears on the cover of LevelK’s festival magazine (click HERE to download) in which you can find 2 pages about the docu, including Rox pics from the past.

Nice promo for this long-awaited film, which is set to be released on 7th March. Now it’s out really soon.

 

rox_diaries_levelk_1_rs  rox_diaries_levelk_2_rs

Thanx for finding the magazine, Roxette Cafe.

 

Marie Fredriksson signing session at NK in Stockholm

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When the news about yesterday’s signing session came out, most of us were really surprised. No one thought there would be such an event, taking into consideration how Marie talks about it also in her book what difficulties she has with writing after her illness. Many were worried about her, thinking that a signing session would be too tiring for her and it probably was in a way, but you could see she really enjoyed it. She was smiling during the whole session and anyone talked to her while she was signing, no matter whether in Swedish or in English, she had some nice words to everyone.

MF_signing_session_Sthlm_NK
Photo by Patrícia Peres

The session was to start at 1 pm. Some hardcore fans started queueing quite early, even before 10 am to be the first ones in the line. By 12 there was already a very long queue. Helena von Zweigbergk arrived at 12:45 and Marie a bit before 13:00. Marie came with Micke and he helped her to get down the stairs that led to the little podium. She walked so fine down the stairs. We shouted woohoo when she arrived and she was happy to hear it and see so many people there.

On the podium there was a small table with flowers in a vase on it, 2 chairs and a Xmas tree next to the table. First Marie was sitting on the left to let Helena sign the books first, but after a little accident of a fan knocking over the vase they changed places. It was just a little water coming out of the vase and it wasn’t a real issue. Marie took it easy, just smiled and even helped to wipe it off.

It was awesome to see her in such a great mood. She was happy to see everyone, but when she saw the real familiar faces to her, she was smiling even brighter. Fans came from all around the world. Besides Sweden of course, there were fans from Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, Spain, Norway, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, the UK and 2 people came even from Australia. Wow! Some couldn’t reach Stockholm yesterday because of storms. Ferries and trains didn’t come or didn’t arrive in time to the Swedish capital, so some who wanted to, unfortunately couldn’t attend the session. Some fans brought only 1 book, others brought 7-8 to have them signed for those fans who couldn’t attend the session.

Marie got tons of presents and flowers. Mainly white and red roses. She loved it! She couldn’t grab all the flowers of course, but Marie Dimberg was there to help her and she took all the flowers and gifts. Helena also got some flowers and she was glad about it, too.

Those who still didn’t have Marie’s biography, Kärleken till livet could buy it at NK. A shop assistant was bringing the books around, along the queue. The security team of NK was very nice and their system worked well and smoothly. They let fans go to the podium 1 by 1 to the signing stage and it was Ms. Dimberg who told them when they could let someone inside the cordoned off area. Sometimes even Marie told the security guy: “Nästa!” (“Next!”)

As it was stated on the event’s Facebook page by the organizers, we could take pictures of Marie, but not with Marie. Everyone understood it and was behaving well. Many were taking photos, so actually, even if one of course couldn’t sit or stand next to Marie, they could have pictures with her while she was signing their books, smiling at them, etc.

Those who wanted to have their names written in the book besides Marie’s autograph and Helena’s signature, got it written by Helena. Marie was so cute when grabbing the books to sign. If the book wasn’t open at the page where she wanted to sign it, she insisted on turning the pages. Haha.

Micke wasn’t there waiting until the end of the session, but Marie’s daughter, Josefin stayed there to wait for Marie. After the session ended at 2 pm, after everyone got their books signed, we applauded Marie and when she got off the stairs of the podium and she showed she was happy she could make it coming down the stairs we shouted woohoo and applauded her again. Watch THIS short set of videos. She’s just awesome! She really is.

You know Marie is no fan of Facebook at all. She made it clear several times, mentioned it in her book and also in the TV4 interview one could watch in the morning. So if a post comes from her – of course it’s not she writing the post itself, but D&D Management typing her words – it’s much appreciated. She wanted to express her happiness, so she thanked everyone for coming. A picture of approximately one third of the flowers was posted both on her Facebook page and on Roxette’s page with these words:

“Tack alla som kom till dagens signering – från när och fjärran! Och tusen tack för alla vackra blommor och presenter – mycket glad!” / “Thanks to everybody who came to the book signing today – from near and far. And a thousand thanks for all the beautiful flowers and gifts – very happy!” Marie Fredriksson

It was a wonderful one hour with Marie and we were all so happy about seeing her enjoying it too. Her smiles are priceless!

 

Photos:

bayart.se
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