Meanwhile, in an alternate universe …

★  ‘The World According to ROXETTE’   ★   and ‘UP!’   ★

In 1996-1997, Roxette were on a bit of a break.

Per, always the busy bee, started off with what was initially planned as a Gyllene Tider project. That didn’t happen, and we now know a Roxette album entitled “UP!” was drafted, which then also obviously didn’t happen.

Not to be defeated, Per stepped out with ‘The World According to GESSLE‘, his third solo album and the first entirely in English. Released 2 May 1997, it went straight to the top of the Swedish album chart.

It’s a firm favourite here at TDR, and an essential soundtrack for any long drive, and it just got us to thinking, what would ‘The World According To Gessle‘ have been like had it been a Roxette album, but first…let’s talk briefly about the newly discovered ‘UP!‘.

A spooky (yet timely) Facebook post from Per this time last week, 22 Feb 2026…

“Wow! Bumped into an old notebook and found this idea for a new Roxette album called ‘UP!‘ back in 1996. That, of course, never happened. Interesting choice of songs, don’t you think? Most of them wound up on ‘The World According To Gessle‘”. /PG 22 Feb 2026

So strange that should happen the week before we post ‘The World According to Roxette‘.  Talk about alignment as we’ve had our mock-up ready since January.

We couldn’t resist ‘UP!‘, so we produced something quickly last Sunday as an addition, the day Per posted about it.

See end of the article for the ‘UP!‘ mock-up bonus. Check out the Spotify Playlist too.

The Original Album

The Gessle album title was inspired by ‘The World According to Garp‘, a novel by John Irving.

Three singles were released to promote the album. ‘Do You Wanna Be My Baby?‘, ‘Kix‘ and ‘I Want You to Know‘ (now a rare CD single). It was a pretty big budget release at the time too, with all three singles getting the video treatment, all directed by Jonas Åkerlund.  Very abstract videos – one eventually being banned, we forget why, something to do with a golf ball was it, or an “inappropriate” kiss?  (Bonkers!)

Dig a little deeper and there’s a hidden track tagged onto ‘Lay Down Your Arms‘. Titled “Cha-cha-cha”, which is an alternate take on ‘Kix‘, performed in an ‘Elvis Presley‘ style. Japanese editions came with an additional song, ‘Love Doesn’t Live Here‘ (personal fave!). Which was later given to Belinda Carlisle, who recorded and included it on her ‘A Woman and a Man‘ album, which was kinda cool, but not as good as Per’s own original.

The album received the anniversary treatment back in 2008, with an expanded set including a whopping amount of bonus tracks, mainly demos and all rather cool too.

The Recordings

To give it a more guitar-driven edge, Per brought in support and was backed by musicians from Brainpool and Gyllene Tider.  A great combination that worked well.

Per even managed to persuade Marie to come into the studio and provide some vocals for ‘I’ll Be Alright‘.  Another album highlight for sure, only wish it had been a true duet rather than a backing-vocal feature as it’s a good tune.

Our Mock-up Designs

As always, our mock-up takes its lead directly from the original album artwork, designed this time by Karl-Magnus with thanks to Kjell A, and photography by Jonas Linell.

We did of course have to borrow some additional images of Marie for this one, as there are no official studio photoshoots of Roxette during 1997.  The borrowed images are from the 1996 album ‘i en tid som vår‘ which were taken by Hans Carlén and Mattias Edwall.  Together, we tried to re-image them collectively as Roxette.

We’ve stuck to an LP edition here.  It’s a real shame the original album was never released on vinyl. How come, Per?

So here we have ‘The World According to ROXETTE‘ in all its imagined glory.  It would have been an interesting continuation from the crashing guitar sound of ‘Crash! Boom! Bang!‘ for sure.  Oh and YES we know, it wouldn’t have been released on Per’s ‘fundamental‘ label, we just kept it as is because we like the logo here!  It’s intentional, it’s not real so it doesn’t matter, but we’re sure it’ll still be pointed out by the ‘critics’ regardless.

Our LP Tracklisting

We’ve taken ‘liberties’ here, as obviously, this album isn’t real.  It’s lovingly over-imagined… 16 tracks as ROXETTE:

SIDE A
★  Stupid (as per the Roxette version that was released, maybe a bit more true to the GESSLE album though?)
★  Do You Wanna Be My Baby? (re-imagined as classic Roxette duet – Marie on chorus duty, closer to the demo style)
★  Saturday (pretty much as is, but backing and additional vocals by Marie.  Love this song).
★  I Wanna Be With You (A cute summery pop duet very close to the demo)

SIDE B
★  Kix (we love this as is, but with backing and additional vocals by Marie)
★  I Want You To Know (Marie on lead vocals – a new imagined ballad)
★  Always Breaking My Heart (Another roaring power pop ditty sung by Marie and Per on backing)
★  Love Doesn’t Live Here (Marie ballad – another epic ballad, better than Belinda, sorry Belinda! We love you really!)

SIDE C
★  June Afternoon (And of course this must be on the album. It was likely a single even)
★  Elvis In Germany (Let’s Celebrate) (Duet – more summer time style Rox fun)
★  Wish You The Best (Marie ballad with Per backing)
★  I’ll Be Alright (Overhauled into a real Roxette duet as it always should have been in our view)

SIDE D
★  She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (A roaring power pop ditty sung by Per and Marie on backing)
★  T-T-T-Take It! (Duet a la ‘Lies’ vibes – awesome! Marie on power chorus)
★  There Is My Baby (no changes as Per is great here, other than Marie backing vocals and support additions)
★  Lay Down Your Arms (another classic Per and Marie combo ballad duet here – a la Crash! Boom! Bang! perhaps?)

UP! A last-minute bonus mock-up!

Brand-new / original design by us, a bit pop-art, a bit of blue skies, and some familiar colours. Sitting comfortably between Don’t Bore Us and Have A Nice Day! We did take another little ‘liberty’ here in making this 12 tracks rather than the 10 posted by Per.

Track 9, “Krauss” as Per has since commented, is likely to be an early version of ‘Lay Down Your Arms‘. Additionally, it makes sense that ‘Every Day‘ refers to the demo ‘Every Day Outside My Window‘ which was from 1995, rather than the later version ‘Every Day‘ we all know from the Room Service era, which was demoed in 2000.   Hope you like the ‘UP!‘ artwork.

Want to know how it might have sounded? Ask no more…

Next Month

We’ll be back next month with another brand-new mock-up.
What could it be? Any suggestions?

In the meantime, go jump in your car, pop on ‘The World According to GESSLE‘ (or even UP!) and enjoy the open road.

No speeding!