Feb 2010

Per Gessle was born in Halmstad, Sweden, and quickly became a devoted music fan, one of many 60’s kids who dreamed about fronting a pop group. But for Per Gessle, reality would exceed his wildest dreams, making him the uncrowned king of Swedish pop.

With staggering record sales of more than 45 million albums and 25 million singles Per Gessle is still re-inventing himself as a songwriter and artist. Experimenting with his methods by writing around a groove instead of focusing on melody first, Per has managed to come up with a handful of songs that has taken his pop music craft in a new and fresh direction.

The resulting “Party Crasher” album (released in late November 2008) is Per Gessle in his most inspired song-writing mode, filled with the kind of melodic hooks that once brought him worldwide fame as a songwriter and artist. Twelve infectious pop songs spiced up by a playful production with an eye on the best dance music of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

But despite its title the new album is not just a frenzied disco machine. The ballad “Sing Along” makes you think of Roxette’s most melancholy moments, ”Stuck Here With Me” highlights the underrated falsetto singer Per Gessle, and mid tempo tunes like ”Doesn’t Make Sense” and ”Kissing Is The Key” explores new angles on the Gessle song writing craft.

Crucial to the album’s sound is Per’s choice to stick with his core gang – producers Clarence Öfwerman and Christoffer Lundqvist plus extraordinary singer Helena Josefsson, who gets a lot of praise from the pop maestro. “Our voices work great together. But it’s not just what Helena sings, she adds so much energy and magic as a person – whenever she’s in the room something inspiring happens. I very often gave her free hands. “Sing whatever you want” – and some times I even adjusted the songs to fit in with her improvisations”.

The first single, “Silly Really”, became an instant chart-topper in Sweden. “When I wrote ‘Silly Really’ my idea was to write a vintage disco tune with a chorus that sticks like glue. ‘Silly Really’ gave the album its direction”, Per says.

Per Gessle’s international success started when he and Marie Fredriksson in the spring of 1986 recorded their debut single “Neverending Love” as Roxette. In those days few Swedish acts had been able to break out of their homeland – Abba being the glorious exception to the rule. But in the spring of 1989, Roxette almost overnight became international superstars when “The Look” (off their second album “Look Sharp!”) became a US #1, the first time a Swedish pop group scored a US chart topper since Abba’s “Dancing Queen” in 1977.

For years to come, Roxette would be one of the most successful pop acts in the world. Songs like ”Dressed For Success”, ”Dangerous”, ”Listen To Your Heart”, ”It Must Have Been Love”, ”Fading Like A Flower” and ”Joyride” gave them multiple US hits during 1989-91 - including four #1 singles and two #2 on the Billboard chart – as well as numerous other hits all over the world. The yearlong ”Join The Joyride” World Tour took Roxette to Europe, Australia, North America and South America, building a loyal fan base that in many cases lasts to this day.

After the release of “Crash! Boom! Bang” in 1994, the group once again toured the world – this time travelling to Europe, South Africa, Australia, Asia and South America. The tour was another major success for Roxette, whose February 1995 concert in Beijing was the second ever by a Western pop act (Wham! was first in 1985).

Apart from the greatest hits collection “Don’t Bore Us – Get To The Chorus” and the Spanish collection “Baladas en Espanol”, Roxette took a break after the mammoth tour. Per filled the gap by recording the solo album, “The World According To Gessle” (1997), before Roxette returned with the “Have A Nice Day” in 1999. The album featured a stark, updated sound and a string of hit singles like “Wish I Could Fly”, ”Stars” and ”Salvation”. Roxette’s 2001 album ”Room Service” also featured strong single hits like ”The Centre Of The Heart”, ”Milk And Toast And Honey” and ”Real Sugar”.

In 2002, however, Roxette was struck by tragedy when Marie Fredriksson was diagnosed with brain tumour. After a successful operation she managed to recover, but for the foreseeable future a Roxette career was put on hold. The drastic changes of plans instead became a means for Per to return to his Swedish solo career.

On his 2003 album “Mazarin”, Per surprised everyone with his most personal and low-key songs yet. Surprisingly enough both the album and a hastily put together tour became that year’s biggest seller, considering the album’s almost “non-commercial” approach. But despite its success, “Mazarin” was only a foreboding on what was to come in when Per’s former power pop group Gyllene Tider reunited for its 25th year Anniversary. The band’s Swedish summer tour drew close to half a million people – making it the second biggest tour in Europe that summer.

The obvious question is: how do you follow success of this magnitude. The answer was: “you don’t”. Under the moniker “Son of a Plumber”, Per Gessle in November 2005 released a double album – a debut album of sorts - packed with deeply personal and highly inventive music inspired by transferring his record collection into his iPod. The album had a charming early 70’s feel to it with tracks like “Jo-Anna Says” and “Hey Mr DJ” becoming airwave favourites.

In the autumn of 2005 Per also hade the honour to receive a BMI Award for more than 4 000 000 airings of “It Must Have Been Love” - on American radio alone (a feat which would be repeated with “Listen To Your Heart” three years later). In the summer of 2006 he and Marie Fredriksson made a much anticipated reunion for the recording of a new Roxette single in time for Roxette’s 20^th Anniversary. “The RoxBox”, a retrospective cd/dvd box of hits, outtakes, live material, demos and videos were released to ecstatic acclaim from fans all over the world.

During yet another successful Swedish solo album and summer tour in 2007 (“En händig man”), Per decided to revive his international solo career with a new album – the result being the hit-packed 2008 album “Party Crasher”, his strongest offering since Roxette’s heydays. In the spring of 2009 he assembled a touring band featuring a combination of Roxette stalwarts Clarence Öfwerman (keyboards), Christoffer Lundqvist (guitar/vocals) and Pelle Alsing (drums) plus relative newcomers Magnus Börjeson (bass)/vocals) and Helena Josefsson (vocals).

The tour took Per and the band to 15 intimate club dates in cities like London, Hamburg and Munich—giving fans a chance to see the Roxette songwriter “reclaim” his international catalogue of hits in a more guitar-driven and almost garage-rock sounding setting, which could be heard to the fore on the resulting “Gessle Over Europe” live album.

In Amsterdam and Stockholm fans got a real bonus treat when Marie Fredriksson took the stage during “It Must Have Been Love”. It proved to be a signal of a Roxette comeback, because in the autumn of 2009 Roxette headlined the 25^th Anniversary Night of the Proms tour, playing 42 shows in front of more than 600 000 people in Belgium, Holland and Germany. During the tour recordings for a much-anticipated Roxette album of new material started, an album that has been scheduled for release later this year.

Creativity never sleeps. Maybe its time to re-discover one of contemporary pop music’s most well known hidden gems?