Per Gessle – The Pop-Up Dynamo! Demos

PER GESSLE’S BLUEPRINT: THE POP-UP DYNAMO! DEMOS REVEAL THE MASTER AT WORK

Albumreview by :Jan Vranken

The Swedish pop architect opens his vault, offering a fascinating glimpse into the creative process behind PG Roxette’s 2022 comeback album

When Per Gessle released ‘Pop-Up Dynamo!’ in October 2022, it marked a brave new chapter for the Roxette legacy. Now, just over three years later, the Swedish pop maestro has gifted us something arguably more valuable: the raw, unvarnished demos that birthed those meticulously crafted songs. Released on his 67th birthday this January, ‘The Per Gessle Archives – The Pop-Up Dynamo! Demos’ strips away the glossy ’80s synth sheen that defined the final album, revealing the skeletal beauty of fifteen tracks in their embryonic state.

What emerges is a masterclass in songwriting fundamentals. Without Clarence Öfwerman and Magnus Börjeson’s arsenal of Jupiter 8s and Prophet 5 synthesizers, these demos expose Gessle’s melodic architecture in its purest form. The opening track, ‘Walking On Air’ – originally conceived for a beach scene in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ that never materialized – sounds remarkably intimate in its October 2019 incarnation. Helena Josefsson’s vocals remain powerful, but here they float atop sparse arrangements that emphasize the strength of Gessle’s hook-writing rather than the production wizardry that would later transform it into a neon-soaked anthem.

The contrast becomes even more pronounced on ‘Me And You And Everything In Between.’ In May 2020, at his Tits & Ass Studio in Halmstad, Gessle and Mats Persson captured something predominantly acoustic and vulnerable. Knowing how the finished version became what Gessle himself described as sounding ‘like a hit single from a different era,’ these demos offer a before-and-after lesson in pop production that belongs in a textbook. It’s the difference between a charcoal sketch and a technicolor painting – both have merit, but they serve different purposes.

‘The Craziest Thing’ proves particularly revelatory. The Sweetspot Demo from February 2021 lacks the orchestral hits and Pet Shop Boys-adjacent bombast that Öfwerman and Börjeson would later inject, allowing listeners to appreciate how Gessle salvaged an unreleased mid-1980s chorus and retrofitted it into a modern context. The bones are undeniably strong, even if they’d eventually need considerable meat added to them.

Helena Josefsson emerges as a crucial collaborator throughout these sessions. Her contributions to ‘Watch Me Come Undone,’ ‘Debris,’ and ‘Sunflower’ demonstrate why Gessle chose her as one of the primary voices for PG Roxette. On these demos, her performances feel less processed, more human – you can hear the breath control, the slight vocal imperfections that would be smoothed out in final production. It’s these imperfections that make the demos so compelling for longtime fans.

Perhaps the most interesting inclusion is ‘Jezebel,’ captured way back in November 2017 and originally intended for Gessle’s solo work. In its demo form, the country DNA is even more apparent – think Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Songbird’ rather than the more polished version that eventually graced ‘Pop-Up Dynamo!’ It stands as the album’s outlier, yet its presence here makes perfect sense as a window into Gessle’s willingness to raid his own archives for material worthy of resurrection.

The demos also include two non-album tracks: ‘Wish You The Best For Xmas’ and ‘When She Needed Me The Most,’ both from 2022. These feel like bonus treats for completists, though neither quite reaches the heights of the album’s strongest material. Still, they demonstrate Gessle’s prolific nature – even while assembling ‘Pop-Up Dynamo!,’ he was crafting additional songs that simply didn’t fit the final narrative.

What’s most striking about this collection is how it validates Gessle’s original claim that he made ‘pretty produced demos.’ These aren’t four-track bedroom recordings with a guitar and a tape machine. They’re professional, often multi-layered productions in their own right – just without the analog synth alchemy that would define the final album’s sound. Think of them less as rough drafts and more as alternative versions that took a different evolutionary path.

For fans who fell in love with the synth-heavy final album, these demos might initially feel anticlimactic. But that’s missing the point. This isn’t meant to replace ‘Pop-Up Dynamo!’ – it’s meant to complement it, to show how great pop songs can exist in multiple states simultaneously. It’s the difference between hearing ‘The Look’ as a fully produced Roxette classic versus hearing Gessle perform it solo acoustic. Both versions work because the foundation is rock-solid.

The archive release also serves as a poignant reminder of Gessle’s continued vitality. At 67, he’s not resting on laurels or endlessly touring the greatest hits circuit. He’s documenting his process, educating listeners on how the pop sausage gets made, and doing so with the confidence of someone who knows his back catalog can withstand this level of transparency. These demos won’t convert skeptics, but they’ll deepen appreciation among believers – and in today’s streaming era, that kind of fan service is increasingly rare and valuable.

7/10 (Elevator Entertainment/Parlophone)