Nordic Rox

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle were on air with their countdown of the Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden in the February episode of Nordic Rox. Positions from No. 15 to 11 were played on the program.

The guys are in Halmstad and they are ready to make February a bit brighter, wherever you are listening to them. Per says it’s been really grey and dark for several months now, but where they are, they don’t really have any snow, in the southern part of Sweden, by the water. It’s just grey, fifty shades of grey. Sven says „southern” is a flexible word, because in the US it means Florida, Texas, etc. It’s not really the same thing in Sweden. It’s a bit chillier there.

Sven says Per has been busy touring and a couple of weeks ago he saw Roxette play at the Wembley Arena in London. It was very cool. Per adds it’s been a great tour. They started a year ago in Cape Town, South Africa and moved to Australia. Then they did Europe last summer and also in the autumn. It continues this year with South America in April. Then they move into Europe over the summer and hopefully North America in September, October.

Sven remembers he was there in South America when Roxette played there last time in 2012. There were quite some scenes with really devoted fans coming up. PG says they have fantastic fans in South America, as everywhere, but they are really hotblooded down there. They show their feelings and emotions a lot. They really look forward to coming back and playing in Buenos Aires, Rio, Montevideo, Santiago, all those places. Sven understands it completely.

Speaking of hotblooded, the guys kick off by going straight to the sky with Wrong Face On by The Hellacopters. It’s a great band, making a big comeback. The song is from their latest album, Overdriver. They had a few years off and then they came back with a bang released last year. They started out in 1994. The guitarist and singer, Nicke Andersson, the guy with the military cap, started out as a drummer in the Swedish death metal band Entombed. Per didn’t know that. It was quite a turnover when they started The Hellacopters, Sven says. Per thinks Nicke is a great front guy. Sven agrees and adds he is a great songwriter as well.

Let Your Heart Dance With Me by Roxette is next. It’s not quite new, but maybe the first listen for many. This is a Roxette track from 2020, however, it was recorded for the Good Karma album in 2014, but they never finished it. They finished it off for a greatest hits album called Bag Of Trix in 2020. This is one of the last singles released by Roxette and it’s got quite good stream rates. It’s very popular among fans. Sven is curious how come it didn’t make it on the Good Karma album. Per thinks they had too many songs, as always. When they did that album, Marie was pretty ill. You cut things short once in a while. You start songs and then you never really finish them off. There were a couple of tracks like that. When they were going to make this compilation album, Bag Of Trix, Per just got reminded that they had a couple of unfinished ditties in the bag.

Happier by Sarah Klang is played next taken from her album Beautiful Woman, which came out in 2025. Almost a brand new track. Beautiful.

The guys continue with Beat It. Sven suggests holding your hat or horses. It’s not a Michael Jackson song, but the Swedish band The Sunshine from 2005.

A Song From Under The Floorboards by Lolita Pop is next from 1989. This rock band is from Sweden. They were very popular in the ’80s. This song is slightly unusual, because they wrote their own material, but this one is a cover. It’s a Magazine track originally, written by Howard Devoto, who used to be in the Buzzcocks, one of Per’s favourite bands. One of his favourite songs ever is Ever Fallen In Love. It’s an amazing track and still sounds so cool according to Mr. G.

The guys start off the ’90s countdown with a band called Beagle from Lund, the south of Sweden. If you like musical trivia, the guys can tell you that Beagle was the last band ever to be signed by legendary ABBA manager Stikkan Andersson for his Polar Music label in 1991. One of the main figures in the band nowadays is the Roxette bass guitarist, and also a co-producer on the album Per made under the name PG Roxette. ABBA and Roxette, Beagle is really close to rock royalty, Sven says. Haha. The guys play The Things That We Say, the first single of the Beagle’s album Sound On Sound.

Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry from 1997 is No. 14. It’s one of Per’s favourite tracks, a big hit. Eagle-Eye sounds like someone invented that name after two glasses of wine to have a cool artist name, but it’s his real name. His mother was a Swedish textile artist, Moki Cherry, and his father was an American jazz musician, Don Cherry. Per knows even more about his family. His half sister is Neneh Cherry, another Swedish artist and Titiyo is his half sister as well. It’s a musical family for sure.

The guys go back even more in time, to 1995, and a band called Brainpool. PG loves Brainpool. He signed them to his publishing company in the ’90s and they were actually supporting Roxette also on the European tour, the Crash! Boom! Bang! tour in 1994. They were a hyper energetic young band from Lund, Sweden. They were a great band, great players, they had great songs, songwriting, and they just had this new wave-ish attitude, mixed together with the early The Who stuff. Christoffer Lundquist, who has evolved into a big producer, had this sort of Brian Wilson influence in all of it. He was a really great arranger as well, even though he wasn’t really the prolific songwriter in the team. Per thought they did some really interesting stuff. Per started to work closely with Christoffer in 2002. He was actually around PG a little earlier than that, in the late ’90s, in 1997, when Per made a solo album. He was an arranger then, but later he became Per’s co-producer. Mr. G has been working with him ever since. He is still a rather flamboyant guitarist in the live band. It’s interesting, because Brainpool and Beagle are two bands from Lund, Sweden, and Per sort of hijacked two of the leading figures. Haha. That’s the way Per is. The song they play is Bandstarter from the album Painkiller, Brainpool’s second album.

Sven is checking his list and tries to guess what comes after 13. No. 12. Haha. He says Maths was never his strongest subject at school. Per asks him if he went to school at all. Sven laughs and replies, „a few weeks”. Haha. Anyway, the next song is by a typical band from the Swedish ’90s indie pop era. It’s The Wannadies from the north. It’s proof that the guys play music from the north as well. Sweden is quite a stretched out country and most people live in the southern part. If you fly from the north to the south, it’s a three-hour flight, the guys add. That’s how narrow the country is. Back to the topic, the song they play is You & Me Song. The singer and the front figure in The Wannadies is Pär Wiksten. He has been producing, he has been a songwriter and collaborating with other artists as well. This is by far their biggest song and it’s from an album called Be A Girl from 1994.

Today’s number one, which is No. 11 on the ’90s Top30 countdown takes us to Gothenburg, 1996. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives is a band that the guys played a lot on Nordic Rox over the years, for good reasons. They like them a lot. The band made some fantastic albums and this particular song is one of their best. Instant Repeater ’99. Their debut album was called Welcome To The Infant Freebase. Sven says „instant” instead of „infant”, so Per corrects him. Then Sven says some idiot on his computer wrote „instant”, it might have been himself. Haha. The band is fronted by a charismatic leader, Ebbot Lundberg. Per thinks he is a great singer. Sven asks a pop trivia question from Per, if Ebbot was the guy’s real name. Per thinks it was, but it wasn’t. It comes from Tobbe, the nickname of Torbjörn, a Swedish name. He just turned it around and it became Ebbot. The guys agree that it was a good idea.

Sven and Per move ahead. They play Skidresorna (which translates into… Ski Travelling or Ski Journeys), a song by Björn Olsson who has made lots of albums with instrumental music. Lots of whistling is going on. He is highly original and he got a knack for beautiful melodies. He is also a very successful producer for other artists. He just came out with a new album called No Title. There is a bridge between him and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. He used to be a member of the band in the early days. He also was a member in Union Carbide Productions with Ebbot Lundberg, but he changed style completely. Per thinks everyone in Gothenburg has played together, haha.

Any Other Day by Wildie is next from Malmö in the south of Sweden. Per likes this song a lot. It’s a very nice track.

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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle continued their countdown of the Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden in the January episode of Nordic Rox. Positions from No. 20 to 16 are on the program.

The guys are sitting in beautiful sunny weather in Halmstad. They welcome 2026 and remember that Nordic Rox started 20 years ago. Sven asks Per where he was in 2006. PG has to think about it, but he probably spent most of his time in the studio working, recording. As always. Another year in the studio. Sven invites us to join them for 20 more years.

Before the countdown, they play some stinging new rock sounds from The Hives. Roll Out The Red Carpet is taken from their latest album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives, with the band dressed as medieval kings on the cover. Why not.

Always Like This, a new single by Sahara Hotnights is next. They got a new album coming out in February, called No One Really Changes. Then comes Waste Of Time by Smith & Thell, a wonderful song from November 2024, taken from their last album Chosen Family.

A band from Stockholm you might have heard of is next. Sven is teasing Per: it’s beginning with A and it ends with an A. Per joins in, he is wondering what that can be. ABBA, of course. For a brief period, they were into disco in the late ’70s and they did it very well. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! is actually one of Per’s favourite ABBA tracks. It was a single, but it wasn’t on any album. It just blew his mind when he heard it when he was really young. It’s got one of the greatest intros in the world. They released this single just before they went on their big world tour. A reasonable good kick-off to the tour.

Ifrån mej själv, some Swedish lyrics by Dundertåget or Thunder Express as they call themselves when they play in English. Per likes this song a lot, he thinks it’s a great track. The band is not around anymore, unfortunately. They packed in a few years ago, but their tracks are still available.

The guys get down to their ’90s list. They go to a town in Sven’s home county Småland, neighbouring to Halmstad in the middle of Sweden and a little town called Älmhult, famous throughout the world for IKEA. The Creeps are also from that town. They were a great band according to PG. They were supporting Roxette on a tour in the ’80s. Their Blue Tomato album is produced by Clarence Öfwerman, who is the Roxette producer. It was a big album for them. It came out in 1990 and here on position No. 20 Per and Sven play Ooh – I Like It! from this record. For a second, Sven thought Per was going to say ooh, I didn’t like it. Haha. Per says ooh, he did like it. He likes The Creeps a lot and it’s a really cool track. They were a fantastic live band and they had a great singer, Robert Jelinek.

No. 19 is Meja, a girl who had a breakthrough with this song, All ‘Bout The Money, and she made it big in Japan. Her debut album came out in 1996 and she wrote most of the songs with Billy Steinberg. Steinberg wrote a lot of songs with Tom Kelly, e.g. Like A Virgin for Madonna, Eternal Flame for The Bangles, I Touch Myself for Divinyls and True Colors for Cyndi Lauper. He is a fantastic songwriter. For her second album, Meja teamed up with a Swedish guy called Douglas Carr and this became a big song for her. Sven is not sure about how her name is pronounced internationally. Per says she is always going to be Meja for him – pronounced in the Swedish way.

Coming up at position No. 18 is a joint venture between Sweden and Denmark. Gör mig lycklig nu is a great song, one of Per’s favourite tracks from the ’90s. It’s a collaboration between Mats Ronander and Kim Larsen from Denmark. Kim Larsen was in one of Denmark’s biggest bands, Gasolin, but they never really made it outside Scandinavia. They sang in Danish, but they had a few songs in sort of Danish-English. Mats Ronander was connected with ABBA for a while. He was in the ABBA live band and he is a legendary musician in Sweden. He is a great guitarist and a fantastic harmonica player. He had some hit singles and this is one of the biggest ones, taking us back to 1992. Gör mig lycklig nu (translated into Make Me Happy Now). Per says this song certainly made him happy. Sven adds it put a smile on their faces in the Nordic Rox camp.

The guys are moving forward towards a group that really, really made it big in the ’90s. Somewhat unexpectedly, from basically nowhere to the top of the charts in the States. Ace of Base was in good hands, Per says. They started out early working with Max Martin and they had several big hits. The Sign was No. 1, their breakthrough song was All That She Wants, but Per’s favourite song from Ace of Base came a couple of years later. Sven would have voted for either All That She Wants or The Sign, but then Per having had four US No. 1 hits has the final say, the veto. The Hot 100 veto. Haha. Per says sorry about that. Life Is A Flower is his favourite. Mr. G doesn’t know if this song ever entered any charts in the States. Sven confirms it didn’t, but it was a big hit in Europe. Per just liked it from the first time he heard it. He likes this sort of music. First he says it was produced and co-written by Tommy Ekman, who was a member of the Swedish band Freestyle in the ’80s, a great musician and a great producer. After the song is played, Per makes a correction. Tommy Ekman was not the writer. The song is written by Jonas Berggren from Ace of Base. Tommy, however, was the producer. Per says he is sorry about that. Sven says everyone can make a mistake. He made ONE a long time ago, he laughs, so he knows how it feels. Anyway, since it wasn’t a big hit in the States, some of the listeners might not have even heard it. Now it’s No. 17 on the guy’s chart.

For the last song on today’s ’90s list, PG and Sven go down to the south of Sweden again. Against The Sun by Eggstone is No. 16. They guys think it’s a great band. Sven says the band set up the Tambourine Studios in Malmö where a lot of bands – e.g. The Cardigans – would record quite many hits. They brought English bands like Saint Etienne, even Tom Jones came to the studios in the late ’90s. He made a duet with Nina from The Cardigans, Burning Down The House, a Talking Heads song. It was the opening track on his Reload album. In those days you actually had a lot of young Japanese tourists in town and you wondered what they were doing there, but they all went up to Tambourine Studios to have a look and see if The Cardigans was there.

Here comes some more good-looking music. Good Vibrations by The Facer is next. Then Do You Feel Normal by The Hellacopters is played.

(Do You Get) Excited? by Roxette wraps up today’s Nordic Rox. It’s a track from the Joyride album. It was supposed to be a single, but it never was. However, they did a very nice video for it. You can check it out on YouTube if you are interested. Brilliant vocals as always by Marie Fredriksson. She was amazing on this one.

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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle continued their Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden series in the December episode of Nordic Rox.

The guys are counting down from position No. 25 to 21. Sven mentions at the beginning of the show that Per has a brand new single. It’s released by a duo called Per and Lena. PG confirms, but Sven keeps the listeners waiting. Good things come to those who wait, he says.

They kick off the program with some garage rock from Stockholm. Ain’t Coming Home by The Sewergrooves is played. Hemingway by Girl In Red is next. Then comes I’m Gonna Dance by The Mo and l.o.v.e by SHY Martin.

Woman & A Child by Mikael Rickfors, taken from the Judas River album in 1991, kicks off the five songs on the ’90s countdown.

The guys are moving on to a great song that Per really likes. It’s by Andreas Johnson. He used to sing and write songs in the band called Planet Waves. Sven asks Per who made an album called Planet Waves. First Per doesn’t realize what the question was referring to, but after he got it, he says it was Bob Dylan. Sven smiles and says it was just some quick pop quiz here. Mr. G continues that Andreas Johnson had a big solo career starting off with this particular album called Liebling in 1999, just in the final hours of the ’90s. This song that the guys chose was a big international hit for him in Europe. In France, for instance and in England as well. It’s called Glorious produced by Peter Kvint, a great Swedish producer. The song has a chorus you just can’t forget, according to Sven. Per thinks it’s wonderful, it stood the test of time. Sven says Per thinks that the chorus takes over everything and the verse is rather… not bland, but… Per tries to put it into words and explains that you need a neutral verse to get a chorus like that. He thinks it’s an amazing chorus. No wonder it became a major hit.

Sven and Per go into some Swedish lyric songs. Coming up first is a song called Lilla fågel blå (Little Bird Blue) by a songwriter and artist called Staffan Hellstrand. It was a big song for him, his biggest hit so far. Sven adds that it was backed by Swedish garage rock kings, The Nomads, which gave it an edge as well. PG thinks it’s a great song.

The tension rises, the guys are heading for No. 22. They picked Broken Promise Land by Weeping Willows. It sounds a bit of melancholy and that’s basically what it is, Sven says. Per agrees. It was their breakthrough song in 1997. They are still around, making new records, touring. Sven saw the lead singer Magnus Carlson on Swedish television a couple of days ago, so they are very much active.

No. 21 is a song by Marie Fredriksson. It’s another Swedish lyric song, a beautiful ballad called Tro. It can be translated into „faith” or „belief”. Marie made a solo album in 1996 when Roxette took a break. They took a four-year break after 1995, when they finished touring and Marie had her second child. She made a solo album and Tro was the first single. It was also part of a film and it was a really big hit for Marie. It’s a really wonderful song, an amazing song, Per thinks. Sven agrees and he says Marie tried to squeeze in a Swedish solo career between all the Roxette commitments, which were basically taken up all the time otherwise. Per adds that she wrote Swedish stuff that was not really in the pop style. She wanted to do things in Swedish as well. She never felt comfortable writing English lyrics anyway. She had lots of other things on her mind, which was great.

And that wraps up the Swedish ’90s list for this time. On the next show the guys are entering the top 20. So it’s going to be exciting further on.

James by Ex Cops, I Believed by Maria Jane Smith and Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy are played.

Then comes Bad Blood by Per + Lena. It’s the new single by Per and Lena Philipsson, who is singing with Roxette these days. It’s a little new piece of music that they put together over the summer season. Mr. G thinks it’s cool. Sven thinks it’s a great track and it sounds very inspired. Per says they were inspired and it was great fun making it. He co-wrote it together with a guy called Alex Shield. PG has been working with him a bit in the past on different projects. It’s got a sort of a Stonesy vibe to it. Per likes it and he also likes how Lena is singing on it. She is really cool, Sven thinks. He promises to sit down with Per and Lena to discuss the current tour and next year’s activities, which will be quite a lot. They will still be touring. It’s a big world, Per adds.

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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle started a new series in the November episode of Nordic Rox. They count down the Top30 ’90s songs from Sweden. The guys recorded this show in Stockholm before Per started the rehearsals for the autumn leg of the Roxette In Concert tour.

Per thinks the ’90s was a fabulous decade. Sven agrees. It’s actually one of his favourites, apart from the ’60s, the ’70s, and the ’80s. Haha. PG says, if you look back to the ’90s, it’s sort of grown on you over time. Sven says they are going to focus on the Swedish pop and rock stuff, which excelled during the ’90s. A lot of bands are coming up, not least a band called Roxette, which Sven can guarantee we will hear later on. Not today, because they are going to focus on positions from number 30 to 26 this time.

Sven asks Per what is happening with him, with Roxette. He says they are rehearsing for a new leg on the tour. They have been touring this year, they started in South Africa and Australia in the spring, and then did a big summer tour in Europe. And now they are going back to Europe again, playing the arenas. Starting in Budapest, Hungary, and going all over the place. 16, 18 shows before Christmas. Per says it feels good, starting rehearsing next week. They are getting the band together and seeing if everyone is alive. Sven will meet them up and check out their top shape at Wembley Arena in London. The band is playing there on 1st December. Per says Sven is most welcome and he can join Per on stage. Haha.

The kick off song on the program is a song that could be a theme song for the upcoming Nordic Rox shows, Back In The ’90s by the band Melodic Fluke. They are from Halmstad, Sweden, Per’s hometown. PG says they played Halmstad on the Roxette tour this summer and Melodic Fluke was their support act. They actually made a new album, and they sent it to Per. Mr. G listened to it and he thought it was really, really good. So he asked them to become the support act for the show. Sven says that’s what happens if you are lucky and send your new album to Per Gessle.

Hawaii Mud Bombers by Johanna Beach is next, one of Per’s favourites. Per thinks that it’s a great song. It’s like a surf, ghost punk. Sven adds that they got signed by Wicked Cool Records, Stevie Van Zandt’s record company. Stevie Van Zandt has this Sirius XM show Little Steven’s Underground Garage.

Then comes Dark Moon by Johnossi and Mon Amour by The Plan.

It’s time to check out the ’90s list. On position number 30 they have a female artist called Dilba. I’m Sorry from 1996 was a big hit single, a big radio single from Dilba’s debut album. PG thinks it’s an amazing song, such a great track. It stood the test of time for sure. It’s produced by Eric Gadd.

And Eric Gadd happens to be next in line with a song called Do You Believe In Me. It was his breakthrough song. He debuted in the ’80s, but this track is taken from his third album, which came out in 1991. The album was called Do You Believe in Gadd? Haha. Sven didn’t know, but interestingly enough, Do You Believe In Me was a dance hit in the Philippines. Per is curious how Sven knows it. Sven has got connections. Haha.

On No. 28, the guys have an amazing song that Per really likes. Precis som du, which translates into Just Like You, by a singer called Irma Schultz. She had a pretty big career in Sweden with her sister, Irma and Idde Schultz. But this is a solo single written by Mauro Scocco, who is a great songwriter. Sven says they had the pleasure of focusing on Mauro as a guest here on Nordic Rox a couple of years ago. He is a singer and songwriter in a band called Ratata, but he is doing solo as well. He is still around. He wrote this song, and this is a very typical Mauro Scocco song, and with a very typical ’90s production. Sven asks Per what a typical ’90s production is. For PG, it’s very much the style of the drum loops. Drum loops were used in a very special way. You can tell that this is like the ’90s. They did that themselves, with Roxette. They made the Have A Nice Day album, and the Crash album in the ’90s. Especially in the late ’90s, it was very much the drum loops.

No. 27. is Fishtank by a great little band called This Perfect Day. Typically ’90s. The song is from 1997, so this is where power pop, guitars, loud guitars, everything to the fore. It was a pretty big hit in Sweden in 1997, it topped the so-called tracks chart that year, which was the most important chart in Sweden at the time. The band is from the north of Sweden, and the song is taken from their third and last album. It’s called C-60. Sven asks Per if he remembers C-60 and C-90. PG remembers those were cassettes. The album surely came out on CD, the guys are not sure about vinyl. It’s a great song, Per thinks. If you happened to be in Sweden in 1997 and you turned on the radio, you couldn’t escape Fishtank.

The guys check out the debut album of Caesars Palace. They were called Caesars Palace when they started out and then they dropped the „palace” thing. Sven thinks there was a lawyer from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, calling them up and say, they were there first. Haha. They changed their name to Twelve Caesars, but nowadays it’s just Caesars. They had a big song, Jerk It Out, a couple of years later on, but the song that Sven and Per picked is the opening track of their debut album from 1998. It’s called Sort It Out and the album is called Youth Is Wasted On The Young. Per thinks it’s a great track. It’s ’90s with a sort of garage touch to it as well. They are a very charming band, easy to like. They are featuring two future, or maybe they were current back then, members of the Teddybears. Klas and Joakim Åhlund. And Klas, of course, went on to become a great producer for Robyn, for instance. He is a songwriter and producer. He is also working with Ghost and he even wrote the lyrics to Piece Of Me by Britney Spears. Nice CV.

That concludes this show’s dive into the ’90s.

The guys still play 4 songs on the program, first Electric by a band from Sven’s old hometown, Växjö, Melody Club, then I Believed by Maria Jane Smith and Poetic by Seinabo Sey. The last song on the show is T-T-T-Take It! by Per Gessle from his solo album, The World According To Gessle released in 1997.

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

Photo by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are back on The Spectrum with the September episode of Nordic Rox.

Sven thinks maybe they should change the name Nordic Rox to Nordic Metal or Nordic Hard Rox for today’s show. Per doesn’t think so, but he says they are going to start off really loud with a Swedish band called Thundermother. The track is Driving In Style. Sven asks you to watch your ears. So the guys kick off in the heaviest possible style. Thundermother is an all female, Swedish band. Per thinks they are really cool and they remind him of The Donnas, an American band. This is sort of similar. He thinks it’s great to hear that this style lives on, untouched. Sven agrees and adds that if you watch their live clippings, you can see that they are fantastically good on stage as well. So it’s probably a good show to watch out for. He thinks they have to return to Thundermother later on in future shows.

Starry Eyes by Helikoptern is next. It’s a power pop classic according to Sven. Per has the original on a 12-inch. It was made by a band called The Records, produced by a very young Mutt Lange before he became that big producer producing AC/DC, Def Leppard and Shania Twain. Sven didn’t know that Mutt produced this one. He went into harder stuff later, but according to Per, he has always been a pop guy. PG finds this song really wonderful and he thinks Helikoptern is doing a great job. They have a little vocal support by Kerry Bomb and it has just been released.

Hey Winner by Lolita Pop from 1989 is the third song the guys play. Per thinks it’s a great band. Then it’s Royal Republic’s turn with Baby from 2016. Mr. G thinks it’s a great track. Sven thinks it’s produced by Michael Ilbert, but Per is not sure about it. He knows that Ilbert has been working with Royal Republic a bit though, and they have been recording in his studio, in the old Hansa Studios in Berlin.

Above The Candystore by Paola, an old classic from the early noughties comes next.

Dow Jones Syndrome by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives is the following track. Sven asks Per what exactly the Dow Jones Syndrome is, but Per has no clue. Sven says they will bring in a doctor for the next Nordic Rox show and see if they can sort it out. Per says he likes The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, they are excellent. Unfortunately, they don’t do much anymore, but you can always keep your fingers crossed for a reunion. Their album Behind The Music from 2001 is really amazing.

Getting back to Michael Ilbert, Per explains he used to work with Roxette as well, in the late ’90s. Speaking of Roxette, this brings the guys to Per’s solo project. Sven explains Per has just released a new Swedish single. PG says he couldn’t help himself. They started the Roxette tour in February in South Africa and Australia and then they had two months off, so he went into the studio and got four tracks. Sven smiles and says Per can’t just go on vacation. Haha. PG says he likes being in the studio. It wasn’t supposed to be anything, but he liked all those four tracks. He took two of them and made a single called Henrys gitarr (Henry’s guitar). Sven informs that Henry is a guy that’s been reoccurring in Per’s lyrics. Henry is a character that he has been writing about ever since the ’70s. He has been in and out of songs. Sven is curious about what the story is behind Henry. PG says it’s just a cool way of writing lyrics. You create a character that pops up every five years or so. And he has changed his lifestyle and his family situation and his drug abuse or whatever. Now he is back and he is playing a fantastic guitar. Per asks Sven if he likes the song. If not, he leaves. Haha. Sven thinks it’s a great summer track and another reason to learn Swedish.

Close To You by Velvet Beat comes next. [The guys don’t talk about this song, but it’s Sven’s band. /PP] Smooth by The Nomads is the following song. The Nomads are the kings of the Swedish garage rock scene and this one is a great track coming from Solna, one of the Stockholm suburbs. The guys continue with Bound For Glory by Elin Engdahl feat. Elitronic, then comes Waterboy by the Viagra Boys. Do It by Maja Ivarsson comes next, then Sort It Out by Caesars.

A Brand New Start by Miller Moon from Malmö wraps up the show. Per loves this song, it’s such a great track. It sounds a little bit like Billy Idol, Iggy Pop. But they have this computerized bass thing. This is really cool, mixed with all those guitars and that style of singing. Per has never heard it before, so he thanks Sven for bringing it to the show. Sven says it’s his pleasure, he always wants to bring out some cool stuff from the greatest city on earth, Malmö, Sweden. Haha. Per says: „Oh my God…” Haha.

The guys are out of time, so they say goodbye and thank the listeners for joining them.

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

Thanks for your support, Sven!