Good Karma XL
- Barry Mieny
- Roxette XL
Wrapping up the studio albums, Good Karma gave us much more than expected. Fourteen demos, two outtakes, and nine remixes add up to give us 36 tracks in total. I’m just happy we got this final album and have almost no complaints about it.
The album cover is a big letdown to me. Sure, there was a shared theme to the album and singles’ art, but I’m certain some good shots could’ve been taken during the video shoot for “It Just Happens” to give us a final album with Marie and Per on the cover. I mean, there were some excellent T-shirt designs that accompanied the album’s release. Whatever. Since I’m not here to redesign the cover, I just added “XL Edition” and called it a day.
Album
When my only complaint about an album is some weird backing vocals on a single track, it has to be half-decent. Which this is. We only got eleven tracks, but those tracks were a return to form for the band.
- Why Dontcha? (2:46)
- It Just Happens (3:46)
- Good Karma (3:19)
- This One (3:12)
- You Make It Sound So Simple (3:42)
- From a Distance (3:31)
- Some Other Summer (3:09)
- Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers? (3:32)
- You Can’t Do This to Me Anymore (3:50)
- 20 BPM (3:48)
- April Clouds (3:30)
Demos
We have demos for each of the album tracks, as well as for the two outtakes from the recording sessions and an early version of “This One” titled “Everybody’s Jumping.”
- It Just Happens (demo, 5 May 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:38)
- Some Other Summer (demo, 1 July 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:56)
- April Clouds (demo, 3 August 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:50)
- Everybody’s Jumping (demo, 12 September 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:56)
- This One (demo, 21 September 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:48)
- Why Dontcha? (demo, 27 September 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:36)
- From a Distance (demo, 22 October 2014: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:53)
- You Can’t Do This to Me Anymore (demo, 8 January 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:57)
- Piece of Cake (demo, 15 January 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:08)
- You Make It Sound So Simple (demo, 18 January 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:33)
- Good Karma (demo, 3 April 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (2:50)
- Let Your Heart Dance With Me (demo, 19 April 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:02)
- 20 BPM (demo, 10 September 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:25)
- Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers? (demo, 15 December 2015: Tits & Ass) — Per Gessle (3:29)
Outtakes, B-sides and non-album tracks
Various issues kept these two tracks off the final album, but luckily, they were salvaged, and we got them as part of the Bag of Trix box set.
- Piece of Cake (3:15)
- Let Your Heart Dance With Me (3:07)
Mixes and edits
When you get nine remixes from an eleven-track album that only had two real singles, you don’t complain. The remixes for “Some Other Summer” rubbed some fans the wrong way, but no one could complain about the mixes from the “Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers?” single.
- Some Other Summer (Sebastien Drums remix) (3:12)
Remixed by Sebastien Drums - Some Other Summer (Bottai remix) (5:27)
Remixed by Sebastien Drums and Giovanni Bottai - Some Other Summer (Alexander Brown remix) (5:07)
Remixed by Alexander Brown - Some Other Summer (Patrick Jordan remix) (3:01)
Remixed by Patrick Jordan - Some Other Summer (Didrick remix) (2:55)
Remixed by David Didrik Franzén - Some Other Summer (TRXD) (3:23)
Remixed by Truls Dyrstad and David Atarodiyan - Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers? (Addeboy vs. Cliff remix) (3:49)
Remixed by Andreas Broberger and Hannes Lindgren - Why Don’t You Bring Me Flowers? (Patrick Jordan remix) (3:18)
Remixed by Patrick Jordan - From a Distance (SingSing version) (3:36)
It’s certainly not the worst of all the deluxe editions I’ve imagined so far, but I hope some other demos were presented for the album or some other mixes we’ve yet to hear.