Shoulda, woulda, coulda …

★ Hotblooded / (Do You Get) Excited?  ★  Double AA Side Single  ★

Let’s start with ‘(Do You Get) Excited?‘.  The planned sixth single that never was.  A promo video was shot, and everything was in place.  We do wonder if the artwork had been drafted for approval, all before the direction was changed and ‘Church Of Your Heart‘ instead became the final single?

We did discuss this very topic briefly in our upcoming ROX40 Interview with Per, which will be released on Saturday 4th April, so watch out for that one!

If anything, ‘Excited‘ should have been a double AA single at the time.  Oh, a double AA you say?  OK, then lets play…

‘Hotblooded‘ would have made a great single (picked by our own Thomas E).  Opener for the hugely successful Join TheJoyride and Summer Joyride World Tour 1991-1992, loved by fans, and absolutely nailed by Marie. What’s not to love here? Put it together with the equally charged ‘(Do You Get) Excited?‘ (picked by moi) and we have our mock-up for April. We’ll feature this one too on Friday as part of the ROX40 Countdown.

The Original Joyride Singles

Before we venture into mock-up territory though let’s have a look at the official singles.

Back during the Joyride era, it must have been extremely hard to pick from the 12 (or 15 depending on format) album tracks to release as singles.  The obvious lead was always going to be ‘Joyride‘ (which was a bit of fight with EMI, who in turn wanted ‘Spending My Time‘), but picking the follow-ups must have been a nightmare, but in a good way.

Every single song on the album, plus the outtakes were single-worthy. It was a huge triumph and a masterclass in pop perfection. This was another topic we discussed with Per only last week.

We ended up getting a whopping five singles, almost half the album, from well the vinyl version anyway:

★  Joyride [a Billboard No1!]
★  Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave) [a Billboard No2!]
★  The Big L
★  Spending My Time 
★  Church Of Your Heart [always an odd choice we thought, considering it wasn’t even on the vinyl edition].

What would you have gone with had you been able to pick the five singles?  Would ‘Knockin’ On Every Door‘ that featured earlier in the countdown have made your list?

Our Mock–up Designs

As always, our mock-up takes its lead directly from the original album artwork, and amazing artwork it was too.  Photography was by Mattias Edwall and artwork designed for the original releases by Kjell Andersson + Roxette.  This is iconic photography, instantly recognisable.  It’s such a shame we never got to see more outtakes from the Joyride photoshoot.  There must be loads of photographs. We’d say we’re still hopeful for a Rox Coffee Table Book one day, but you’ll find out about that in the ROX40 Interview.

Anyway, we digress.  Mock-ups this time, 12″ and 7″, CD (Card Sleeve) and Cassette Singles.  Those were the days.  We miss proper single releases, especially with b-sides, outtakes, demos, live cuts, whatever, they were all great.  It was always a great surprise to hear something else that didn’t make the album for whatever reason.

We even found an “original” promo poster rolled up in a tube in the attic. Honest! 😉

Next Month

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

★ Thanx! A special mention and thanx to Barry Mieny for sharing the amazingly restored artwork for this one.
Check out his insta! ‘roxetcetera‘ and website www.roxette.nl ★