The Heartland Café
| The Heartland Café | ||||
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| Studio album by Gyllene Tider | ||||
| Released | 17 February 1984 | |||
| Genre | Pop | |||
| Label |
EMI Capitol Records (US) |
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| Gyllene Tider chronology | ||||
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The Heartland Café is an album released by Swedish pop group Gyllene Tider on 17 February 1984. The group's first recorded foray into the English language, The Heartland Café was the second album to feature vocalist Marie Fredriksson singing back-up and proved to be a precursor to the Swedish super-duo Roxette, which consists of Fredriksson and Gyllene Tider's lead singer, Per Gessle. The album peaked at No. 18 on the Swedish albums chart.
Planning for The Heartland Café began after Gessle had released and publicized a solo album. It also followed a hiatus of sorts for the band. In liner notes written for a re-issue of the album in 1990, Gessle wrote, "Rehearsals were very sporadic, we almost didn't hang out at all, we were very sick of each other after many intense years."
In preparing to reassemble for an album, the members decided to step into English-language rock. Released by EMI Records, The Heartland Café was made in part to satisfy an interest expressed by label affiliate Capitol Records in the band due to its popularity in Sweden and its catchy pop/rock sound.
According to Gessle, preliminary demo recording and composition occurred in the band's native Halmstad, and the band recorded the album itself in , finishing near Christmas 1983.
EMI released The Heartland Café in early 1984. Despite what Gessle claimed was lacklustre interest on the part of EMI itself, Capitol took six of the 11 tracks from the album and combined them on to an extended-play (EP) record in the United States under the abridged title Heartland. In preparing for international release, Capitol requested that the members come up with a less indigenous name — Gyllene Tider is Swedish for "golden age". They decided on the title of a 1975 Dr. Feelgood song, "Roxette".
As a result, many Roxette fans consider Heartland the first true Roxette release even though it was not full-length and did not feature Fredriksson and Gessle up front. It would be another two and a half years before Roxette in its final form would release a full-length album, 1986's Pearls of Passion.
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