The Daily Roxette

The Finnish metal band Children of Bodom has announced that their upcoming album will contain a cover version of Roxette's 'Sleeping In My Car'. It has become a tradition for this band to include cover versions of popular songs in their releases, they previously released songs such as 'Aces High' (Iron Maiden),  'Somebody Put Something In My Drink' (Ramones), 'Party All The Time' (Eddie Murphy) and 'Oops!... I Did It Again' (Britney Spears). 'Halo Of Blood' will be released on the 7th of June in Europe.

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So, here we are again.  The TDR team meets in the 'Virtual-Record-Review-Room' to review the latest album from Gyllene Tider.  This time Thomas, Kai, Paul & Colin discuss the album.  Find out their thoughts below...

Thomas: What strikes me is that this album sounds like it was been recorded in between Gyllene Tider (1980) and Moderna Tider (1981). It has the sound of the former, but the melodies of the latter. Moderna Tider is likely my favorite Gyllene album so I kind of like that. On some days Puls (1982) wins though... The band sounds as good (if not better) as ever, and especially Fritte is outstanding on this album! The Farfisa Fantom is adding another dimension to almost every track on the album. He wrote on Facebook during the recordings “Well, if it isn’t time to go and Farfisa-lize some tracks already!” I don’t find the album is as Red Bull/Green Day sounding as Per led us to believe, but at least half the album is on steroids. I know I’ve been knocking C&C’s productions lately, and while I still feel that Per should try new partners, this time the production suits the material. By the way, did anyone else notice that they’ve switched Anders’ face from the preview sleeve to the real one? Some trivia that will make no sense to non-Swedes: The album’s working titles were Sex laxar i en laxask and Duga. I’m not even going into that... Let’s review the record!

Paul:  Sex laxar i en laxask would’ve be an ‘interesting’ title...!  This album is definitely old-skool Gyllene Tider.  This sounds a million miles away from The Heartland Café (1983), which is a good thing (although I am fond of “Heartland”!), and there is a much edgier, harder sound.  Especially to the uptempo tracks.  If you’ve read previous TDR reviews, you’ll know that I like that!  It’s possible that GT have never sounded this good...

Kai: Don’t forget that at least Christoffer is a long-term Gyllene Tider fan. Judging from what has come to the surface, the boys seemed to enjoy the collaboration. And this you can hear.

Colin: I love The Heartland Café but it is different from the rest of the Gyllene Tider albums, I think. This album has a rough edge to it, the sound reminds me of the Per’s Garage songs!

STOCKHOLM - Apparently there has been a press day as both Aftonbladet and Expressen have articles today about Gyllene Tider's forthcoming album Dags att tänka på refrängen. Jens Peterson and Anders Nunstedt respectively only have good things to say about it! And for you who weren't fortunate enough to hear the snippets on Amazon.de this weekend, TDR can only say the album sounds very promising! The snippets disappeared after the weekend so supposedly someone at Amazon.de has been fired... Nunstedt says it's a "new but old sound" and "Gyllene has always been good at first impressions" while Peterson says it's "perky pop music" which makes "hands clap, knees buckle and mouths grin."

The album will be released April 24 on CD. Gyllene's single "Man blir yr" entered the Swedish more or less official single chart (take the poll) at #2 last Sunday. The vinyl 7" has been delayed until April 12.

Update: The release date of the soundtrack of "Small Apartments" is here! It will be released digitally March 18, CD March 27 and vinyl "asap." Per has shared the record sleeve with us, along with the tracklisting. Picky readers may notice this list is not identical to the one listed in the movie.

Small Apartments – Soundtrack

1.   Franklin’s Intro (0.56)
2.   I Have A Party In My Head (I Hope It Never Ends) -Instrumental- (2.03)
3.   Drizzle #1 (2.02)
4.   Shopping With Mother (2.36)
5.   Franklin’s Theme #1 (1.39)
6.   He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother (4.18)
7.   Burned Out Heart –Instrumental- (3.37)
8.   Are You An Old Hippie, Sir? –Instrumental- (1.49)
9.   Making Love Or Expecting Rain #1 –Instrumental- (2.46)
10. Waltz For Woody (1.03)
11. Drizzle #2 (2.02)
12. C'mon (2.59)
13. Warm. Again. (4.27)
14. Drizzle #3 (2.02)
15. Drizzle #4 (0.56)
16. Week With Four Thursdays (1.54)
17. Dixy -Instrumental- (3.06)
18. Making Love Or Expecting Rain #2 –Instrumental- (4.03)
19. Double-Headed Elvis -Instrumental- (1.31)
20. Franklin’s Main Theme (6.43)
21. I Have A Party In My Head (I Hope It Never Ends) (2.09)

Don't ask us what happened, but Gyllene Tider seems to have rested themselves into shape again...

Nine years after the comeback album Finn 5 fel! we get "Man blir yr" (You Get Dizzy) - the first teaser from the... um... comeback album Dags att tänka på refrängen, recorded while it was the dreariest, darkest and coldest time of year in Christoffer Lundquist's studio the Aerosol Grey Machine down in Skåne.

- All the songs have been written for Gyllene, so the contenders for the single were razor-sharp. But that's a good sign, says Per modestly.

One tends to agree. The rhythm section consisting of Anders Herrlin and Micke Syd is snappier than ever. Göran Fritzon's Farfisa organ has been serviced and MP's and Per's guitars battle it out in stereo.

Besides, dizzieness is as you may know a famous theme in classical pop music. You don't have to dig very deep to find Tommy Roe's "Dizzy" and The Beatles' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" in every record collection worthy its name.

"Man blir yr" will be released digitally March 18. But don't forget to clean your record needle. The song is also released on 7" red and yellow vinyl. Back to the future!

The B-side is called "Chikaboom #2."

Halmstad's five golden boys are back! New album Dags att tänka på refrängen (Time to think about the Chorus) and new tour! The album will likely contain 12 freshly written songs for Gyllene. The tour isn't all set yet, but Halmstad is on the map.

Tour dates and locations will be announced January 22, 10 am CET.

Micke Syd says his heart is full of joy and he's happy that he finally looks like the pop-star he always knew was hidden inside, in spite of bad perms and red Adidas shorts...

Dags att tänka på refrängen is a Swedish ideom which literally means it's time to start thinking about quitting or going home. This is however of course not what the album title refers to: refräng also means "chorus" and Gyllene's choruses are always catchy, so naturally that's what they mean! Think Roxette's don't bore us - get to the chorus!

Göran Fritzon says in an interview on SR P3 that the tour premiere most likely is on July 5.

Follow Gyllene on Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest.

You will find more info about the album on Elektroniska Tider, the news section.

In a newsletter from EMI Per writes:

There was a time when you recorded LP albums. Each side was about 20 minutes long to maximize the sound quality. Our Joyride album was so jam-packed with material that we just had to omit a few pearls that we really loved. One of them was “The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye”, which instead was used as a B-side on the “Spending My Time” single (yes, they had B-sides back then…). We’ve been regretting this for twenty years now, and when we did the Travelling album, which was recorded during our 19 month World Tour, the idea popped up to give “The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye” a new and well-deserved chance. Would there be a way to brush off the dust and rejuvenate this overlooked gem into the current world? There certainly would. We gave it to Peter “Bassflow” Boström, who was unable to make the tight Travelling deadline since he was busy writing and producing Loreen’s Eurovision Song Contest Winner “Euphoria”. But now, in time for the summer season, he’s done. And what a piece of work it is. Absolutely brilliant. We love it! Now more than ever...

Pre-listen the new remake at Roxette Official between 1-3 pm CET.

Or immediately here.

FORT McMURRAY - For reasons yet unknown, Roxette has several songs charting on the Canadian top 200 chart.

LW    TW
#64, #60 The Look
#67, #67 Joyride
#69, #69 Listen to Your Heart
#77, #64 It Must Have Been Love
#109, #93 Dangerous
#152, #132 Fading Like a Flower
#178, #163 Dressed For Success
#199, #171 Spending My Time

One of the reasons may be that Travelling was released in Canada the other day, and several radio jockeys have received a special version containing liners by Roxette. (Likely the same ones as TDR published previously.) Whatever the reason might be, this can't be a bad thing.

HALMSTAD - Bassflow (Peter Boström; the guy who wrote + produced Loreen's "Euphoria") has done a wonderful remake of "The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye" (2 versions, one long, one longer...). It was supposed to be included on the Travelling-album but didn't make it in time. Maybe we should release it on its own? Always loved that song...

Per, being back in Sweden, just revealed on Facebook that the next single off Travelling will be "Touched by the Hand of God". Per wants a video, but "where do we find the time for that??" he wonders. Nothing more is known at this time.