The Daily Roxette

Caroline Roosmark, the Swedish photographer who has taken the recent Roxette photographs, has this year also made a calendar for charity. This year's calendar is called Women & Men of the Year 2012. 2012's focus is children poverty in Sweden. "250,000 children live a life in poverty in Sweden. Half of them live with a single parent. 87 % of those are the mother. We want to lift this up on the political agenda so something is actually done about it. A lot of people think that there are no poor children in Sweden, but that's not the case" says Caroline in Aftonbladet.

The calendar is made on a very tight budget, none of the extras or stars get any payment, yet they never turn Caroline down, in spite of their often jam-packed schedules.

Marie Fredriksson, the female star of Roxette is in the calendar, as May. The text on May's page reads as follows (click the photo): She couldn't come along, they took away from her pearls and ribbons, all the visible signs of success. Sparrows' eyes followed her, the birds sat in her hands. The smallest animals by the hem of her dress. A friendly light fell over the backyard and we know: soon she's going out in the world.

Other stars include the actor Jan Malmsjö (Fanny & Alexander), high jumper Patrik Sjöberg and writer Kerstin Thorvall, to mention a few.

The calendar is for sale at Caroline's site, the price is 169 SEK (roughly € 18) You may also purchase the original photos there.

Photos used with kind permission of Caroline Roosmark.

Marie has drawn this charcoal piece called "Tre vänner" ("Three Friends") which is being auctioned out.
All profits from the auction go towards the Child Diabetes Fund, and is arranged by the Child Diabetes Fund together with the medical company Eli Lilly along with the Swedish Auction Office.

November 14 is World Diabetes Day. This is also the last day of the auction. Many Swedish celebrities have donated objects to this auction.

The auction is available at Auktionsverket and www.stadsauktion.se until November 14, and anyone can place a bid!

STOCKHOLM – The Original Album Series sets of Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson were released in Sweden this week by EMI Svenska. Gyllene Tider's reported box is missing for now, and The Daily Roxette is looking into that.

The Per Gessle box contains his five original albums: Per Gessle (1983), Scener [Scenes] (1985), The World According to Gessle (1997), Mazarin (2003) and En händig man [A Handy Man] (2007). The albums have been remastered, according to a poster, and the first two contain all the singles as bonus tracks. The CDs come in miniature LP sleeves which are really nice, apart from the fact that the first two original albums now miss the bonus tracks on the sleeve. There are no booklets.

Marie Fredriksson's box (see previous article) contains Het vind [Hot Wind] (1984), Den sjunde vågen [The Seventh Wave] (1985), ...efter stormen [...After the Storm] (1987), Den ständiga resan [The Eternal Journey] (1992) and I en tid som vår [In a Time Like Ours] (1996). Marie's first two albums also contain bonus tracks.

Update: Per Gessle's two first albums are not remastered when TDR has made a track to track comparison.

STOCKHOLM – As part of what EMI is calling an "Original Album Series," Marie Fredriksson's previously remastered solo albums will be released in Sweden on August 8 as five CDs contained within one eco-friendly package. The cover art (shown to the left) includes the retro "Capitol Full Dimensional Stereo" logo that dates back to the glory days of vinyl LPs.

The set is comprised of Het Vind, Den Sjunde Vågen, Efter Stormen, Den Ständiga Resan and I En Tid Som Vår.

A spokesman for EMI Svenska told The Daily Roxette that other artists in the series will include Per Gessle, Gyllene Tider, Björn Skifs and Wilmer X and that these other releases will also occur around the same time.

All of these releases will have the CDs packaged within the same cardboard sleeve that has multiple folds, and an attractive price point. CDOn.com has just listed the package at 159 SEK (17.50 €) while Ginza.se has it for 149. CDOn ships within the European Union while Ginza ships to Sweden, Denmark and Finland only.

Marie's albums were previously released as a box set called Kärlekens Guld (Love's Gold) and each of the albums was remastered at that time. Missing from this release will be the live Äntligen CD that was included as a bonus disc in the box set.

Additional reporting by Daniel Alvedahl.

As Roxette plays Romania for the first time ever tonight, it's Marie Fredriksson's birthday! The Daily Roxette assumes the tenacious Romanian fans have something terrific planned.

A huge happy birthday to you Marie, from all of us here at TDR. (You can tell her Per, as "Marie don't surf!".)

The first issue of StyleBy, a new Swedish fashion magazine, features an article about Marie Fredriksson's sense of style through the years as well a short interview with her. In the pages of the story, various models wear 10 of her outfits, with Marie's comments on each. You can find screenshots of the article on Roxetteblog.

Jonna Bergh, editor-in-chief and publisher of StyleBy, visited the walk-in wardrobe where Marie has stored all her outfits. "It was like a fashion museum!," she said.

The magazine can also be bought via an iPad app called StyleBy+.