The Daily Roxette

PORTO ALEGRE (Brazil) – After the long awaited and meteoric comeback of Roxette to South America that included one show in Uruguay, three in Argentina, one in Chile and five in Brazil – worth millions of dollars to promoters and full of a "million" sighs, screams and tears among the fans who attended the concerts – the are great expectations now that Roxette will return to South America in 2012.

Social media and web-savvy promotors in Chile have turned up the volume on their long-standing effort to get Roxette to perform at a big music festival there. They have launched a "campaign" website and a Facebook page that already has over 1,700 members.  

Considered one of the most important music festivals in Latin America, the International Song Festival of Viña del Mar is held every year during the last week of February in the coastal city of Viña del Mar, Chile. Established in 1960, the festival can in some ways be compared to Eurovision in that it is primarily a song contest. It has two categories: pop music and folk music. The highlight of the six-night festival is the big name international artist that attracts the crowds and who shares the stage with local and regional artists and "less famous" worldwide acts. This past February, that headliner was Sting. The festival is held at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater, which now has capacity for 20,000 people.

Broken Records International (BRI), a Santiago-based company led by Héctor Faune and Max Irarrázaval, received a kind of "green light" from the producers of the festival to start, for the third time, negotiations with Roxette for the duo's presentation as the main international attraction. Since the return of Roxette during the Night Of The Proms in 2009, BRI has been trying to bring them to the Chilean summer festival.  Numerous telephone calls were made ​​during those years to Marie Dimberg, Roxette's manager, and Thomas Johansson of LiveNation .

But the current situation seems more promising than in other years, Faune told RoxetteBrasil. "Now Roxette is finally on a world tour," said the the successful businessman and fan of the duo, his voice vibrating with enthusiasm, "and we still have an album of new songs in the charts worldwide. The environment for a presentation at the Festival could not be more favorable. Moreover, the Roxette concert was sold out on April 9th in Santiago, and the producers of the Festival of Viña del Mar attended the show."

You can now vote for Roxette as "Best Live Act" for the Rockbjörnen, the famous Swedish pop music awards given out by Aftonbladet.

Aftonbladet's Rockbjörnen page

PARIS – A new website for the Young Masters Program on Sustainable Development (YMP) was launched yesterday at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and "Green," the opening track on Christoffer Lundquist's new album Through the Window, is being used as the soundtrack for a video on the site that outlines the project.  The song, with lyrics by Michael Saxell, is a "perfect fit" according to Torvald Jacobsson of YMP.

Developed at Lund University in Sweden, the program features a web-based, global classroom. It is free of charge and open to students 16-18 years old all over the world. So far, more than 20,000 students from over 110 countries have completed the curriculum.

Christoffer's album, by the way, has met with mostly favorable reviews and initial sales figures put it in the top 30 on Sweden's official album chart.

NEW YORK – One of the tracks on Lada Gaga's forthcoming new album "Born This Way" has a staffer at MTV headquarters here in Times Square thinking about Roxette. Travis, who works on MTV's "Buzzworthy" blog, hears '80s and '90s references in Gaga's pop-rock anthem "The Edge Of Glory" and cites four of his favorites – including Roxette's "Dangerous" – in his article about the song.  He writes:

Ooh boy. Swedish rock-pop band Roxette was one of the definitive bands of the late '80s and early '90s. I never really knew anyone who bought their music, but if one of their songs came on the radio, everyone knew every word. The accent, the tight pants, the red lips, the sexy bleach-blonde hair... it all works SO WELL together. But the main takeaway from "Dangerous" is Marie Fredriksson's (she actually had a name, and it wasn't Roxette) gravelly sweet voice.

NEW YORK – Their performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at the Academy Awards this past February was seen by some 40 million-plus U.S. TV views, but it's the power of YouTube, where their videos have been seen over a million times, that got these elementary school kids there in the first place.

Over the past 11 years since their director, Gregg Breinberg, started the chorus at Public School 22 here on Staten Island, their fame has grown. Their most recent video – a cover of Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart" – has in just over a day, already had over 25,800 views. 

"Don't fake it, you should feel it," Mr. B (as he is known) tells his kids. The result, as you can see in all the videos posted to the blog he maintains, are performances remarkable for how uninhibited the children are. Far from being stiff or self-concious, these kids move to their own individual, as-the-spirit-moves choreography. 

Each year, Mr. B auditions another set of 10-year-olds for the chorus. The kids have sung with Tori Amos, Passion Pit, Crowded House, Queen Latifah, The Bangles, Little Dragon, Judy Torres and Kylie Minogue, just to name a few. They have also performed for President Obama and the first family, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Stevie Nicks, Rihanna, Kanye West and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey television show.

It has happened again: Roxette's new single "Speak To Me", according to our sources to be released on April 15th, has been leaked. TDR has a copy of it and as much as we are allowed to tell is that the song has been remixed and, to be honest, is slightly overworked. The duration now is 04:01 min and it features a newly recorded final part in which Marie has a solo sung almost in opera style, supported by heavy rock guitars. Apparently someone involved in the production has been careless with the material.

We are in touch with Roxette's management, contemplating about the chance to have a snippet of the song published on this site later this day. Chances are good at the moment, so please check back from time to time.

Once again we request you not to look for this song on p2p or warez sites. We know that as honest fans you would not support such illegal actions. So please report any occurence of the song as a comment to this article, so we can go and ask the page owners for removal of the file.

Update: Well, as most of you already know this was our little April fools article. The single has not been leaked. It has however gotten a sweet make-over.