Demos

Per Gessle releases the Pop-Up Dynamo! demos on his birthday

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Per Gessle continues the wonderful tradition, and in 2026, he releases the demos of the Pop-Up Dynamo! songs.

When I did an interview (part 1, part 2) with Per about the album in 2022, I asked him about the demos too.

PP: – Your demos in the “Look Sharp!” and “Joyride” era were quite produced. Now how should we imagine the demos for “Pop-Up Dynamo!”?

PG: – I made pretty produced demos. Hahaha.

PP: – Do they sound almost the same as the final songs?

PG: – Not really, because Clarence and Magnus, especially Magnus is really into the analog synthesizers and I have lots of them myself. You know, Jupiter 8, Jupiter 6 and Prophet 5 and all those synthesizers. So we used those, but when I made the demos, I didn’t use them at all. So it was Clarence and Magnus who created this ’80s sound. But eventually, I’m sure I would release the demos on a birthday. Hahaha.

PP: – Surprise, surprise! Haha.

PG: – These type of songs that are like pop songs, it’s really hard to present them on an acoustic guitar. I have to show Clarence and Magnus what I want with this song, which direction I wanted to go. So I have to make a demo, which sort of makes sense. The only song I didn’t have a demo for is the one [You Hurt The One You Love The Most] I wrote with Giorgio Tuinfort.

So that’s why you won’t find a demo to YHTOYLTM on this release.

It’s fun to read the interview again now that the demos are out.

The Per Gessle Archives – Pop-Up Dynamo! The Demos

  1. Walking On Air (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – Oct 26, 2019 + May 4, 2020)
  2. Me And You And Everything In Between (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – May 5+6, 2020)
  3. Headphones On (Sweetspot Demo – March 1, 2021)
  4. Watch Me Come Undone (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – Jul 20, 2020)
  5. The Craziest Thing (Sweetspot Demo – Feb 10, 2021)
  6. Debris (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – March 5+6+10, 2020)
  7. The Loneliest Girl In The World (T&A Demo – March 8+9, 2020)
  8. Jezebel (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – Nov 27+28, 2017)
  9. My Chosen One (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – Dec 19, 2019)
  10. Walk Right In (feat. Helena Josefsson) (Sweetspot + T&A Demo – May 27 + Jun 9, 2020)
  11. Sunday Driver, Yea (T&A Demo – Jan 22 + Feb 14 + May 4, 2020)
  12. Sunflower (feat. Helena Josefsson) (T&A Demo – Aug 26, 2020)
  13. Necessary (T&A Demo – Sep 29, 2020)
  14. Wish You The Best For Xmas (T&A Demo – Jul 25, 2022)
  15. When She Needed Me The Most (T&A Demo – Jul 26 + Aug 16, 2022)

Listen to it on Spotify or on any other streaming platform!

Per Gessle releases the Finn 5 fel! demos

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Lucky fans we are! Per Gessle continues releasing demos from his archives. The new set he thought to surprise us with this Christmas is the demos to Gyllene Tider’s Finn 5 fel! album. The album contains 14 songs, but there are only 9 tracks on this current release. Well, the album title is „Find 5 errors!” and… haha… 5 demos are missing: Solsken, Ta mej… nu är jag din!, Du måste skämta, Ande i en flaska (Gabba Gabba Gabba Come On Come On Karma Karma) and Har du nånsin sett en dröm gå förbi? Why, you might be wondering. Here is what PG says about it:

I only made these nine demos. The other songs were presented to the band when we got to the studio. “Ande i en flaska” is a silly version of “Ghost In The House”. “Ta mej… nu är jag din” is based on a Rox track I demoed in Nov 1999 called “I Don’t Care If It Rains”. It will pop up eventually… Or not.

This guy knows how to tease! Fingers crossed I Don’t Care If It Rains sees the light of day in the near future.

FINN 5 FEL! – DEMOS tracklist

1. En sten vid en sjö i en skog – T&A Demo, 28 Okt 2003 – 2:42
2. Tuffa tider (för en drömmare) – T&A Demo, 30 Dec 2003 – 3:25
3. Ordinärt mirakel – T&A Demo, 2 Dec 2003 – 2:42
4. Jag borde förstås vetat bättre – T&A Demo, 28 Okt 2003 – 3:20
5. Nere på gatan – T&A Demo, 3 Dec 2003 – 2:57
6. 72 – T&A Demo, 20 Juli 2002 – 3:47
7. Varje gång det regnar – T&A Demo, 27 Okt 2003 – 3:37
8. Hjärta utan hem – T&A Demo, 2 Dec 2003 – 3:00
9. Speciell – T&A Demo, 28 Dec 2003 – 2:32

Listen to the F5F demos on Spotify, Deezer, YouTube or other digital platforms! No physical release is planned.

Spending My Time is the Listen To Your Heart of Joyride

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Did you know? 2 extremely important Roxette songs were written on this day 27 years ago. Yeah, Per Gessle, the 8th wonder songwriter wrote Joyride and Spending My Time on the same day. Isn’t he a genius? I mean, look at these 2 songs. Both of them are masterpieces and he could just come up with the power pop song in the morning and the big ballad in the afternoon. He is second to none!

Per says about Joyride:

When I wrote this one Roxette was sitting on top of the world. Three number ones in the US already and more to come. It felt like nothing could go wrong, I was full of self-confidence and every song felt so easy to create.

My wife (then girlfriend) left a note on my piano saying in Swedish: ”Hej din tok, jag älskar dej!”, which means ”Hello you fool, I love you!” It just had to be a chorus.

The writing process went very quickly. So fast I actually wrote ”Spending My Time” together with MP Persson the same afternoon. Hallelujah!

On The Per Gessle Archives you can listen to 2 demos of Joyride: first a less produced, acoustic Joyrider recorded on 22 May 1990 at T&A and a lot more produced Joyride recorded on 23 May 1990 at T&A. Listen to Per and Sven Lindström talking about the demos HERE.

Per about Spending My Time:

The music to ”Spending My Time” was cowritten with my old chap MP Persson. We finished writing it the very same day that I wrote ”Joyride”. Must’ve been May 1990.

I liked the idea of writing a lyric that starts in the morning and ends at night. This was my humble attempt. Great vocal performance by Marie and a super production from Clarence made this one a winner for Roxette.

On The Per Gessle Archives you can listen to the demo to Spending My Time recorded on 24 May 1990 at T&A. Listen to Per and Sven talking about the demo HERE.

Per adds:

I knew we had a great song (MP and I wrote this one together) but the demo always sucked!!! I couldn’t sing it very well, I don’t know why. It was always meant for Marie. She did a tremendous job delivering it. I’m sure it would have become a Top 5 song in the US if EMI wouldn’t have scrapped the entire company and sacked 122 people in the middle of marketing this one. People loved it but radio never got the chance to catch up. The Music Business. You win some, you lose some.

Stills are from the official videos to Joyride and Spending My Time

    

Pics are from ”Songs, Sketches & Reflections”.

Per’s quotes are from his book ”Songs, Sketches & Reflections” and the demo conversations from The Per Gessle Archives, as well as the PG about songs section on RoxBlog.

The Per Gessle Archives – all volumes are out!

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Per Gessle signing the boxes. Photo taken from The Per Gessle Archives Facebook site.
Per Gessle signing the boxes. Photo taken from The Per Gessle Archives Facebook site.

Surprise of the night! Even if the official release date is 24th September, all volumes of The Per Gessle Archives are available already on Spotify and on iTunes (maybe not in all countries yet)! Well, all volumes, except The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 5, which is on a LP in the box and is not planned to be released digitally. At least not in the very near future. Probably more streaming sites will have TPGA, but don’t forget to order the real deal, the box itself! Here you have some possibilities to order it: Bengans, Ginza, CDON. If you were an early bird, you probably pre-ordered the box, so you’ll get your signed copy in some days. Remember to check your signed copy thoroughly, since Per wrote a hidden message on one of them. If you are the lucky one, please, post a photo of your box! We are dying of curiosity! 😉

Check TPGA website for more info on the archives!

The tracklists to all volumes you can see here. The Spotify and iTunes links to each volume:

Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 1: Spotify   iTunes
Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 2: Spotify   iTunes
Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 3: Spotify   iTunes
Demos & Other Fun Stuff! Vol. 4: Spotify   iTunes
Mazarin – demos:                        Spotify   iTunes
En händig man – demos:             Spotify   iTunes
The Roxette demos, Vol. 1:         Spotify   iTunes
The Roxette demos, Vol. 2:         Spotify   iTunes
The Roxette demos, Vol. 3:         Spotify   iTunes
The Roxette demos, Vol. 4:         Spotify   iTunes
The Roxette demos, Vol. 5 (LP – not available digitally)

 

Update on 3rd October:

As Per shared the info in September, he wrote a special “message” on one of the signed boxes. Today it turned out that the special box has a Leif on it besides Per’s signature. The fan who got it, Álex Usero ordered it from Ginza. Great that it’s a hardcore fan who got this special item. Congrats!

The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 2 on Spotify!

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TPGA The Roxette Demos Vol 2Last week we got vol. 1 of The Per Gessle Archives – The Roxette Demos! and tonite we can’t go to bed without listening to vol. 2 on Spotify. The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 2 (65m 11s demos, 31m 13s conversations) is out! In case it’s not available at you yet, you will have to wait until midnight (your local time).

Check TPGA website for more info on The Roxette Demos!, Vol. 2 and earlier TPGA releases!

The tracklists to all volumes you can see here.

In case you want a signed TPGA box badly, pre-order your copy until 23rd September latest! Hurry up, only 1 week left! The offer is valid at Ginza, Bengans and CDON. The whole huge box of beauties is out on 24th September!