Stories of famous songs: Room Service (2001)

It was recorded from January 2000 to January 2001 at Stockholm's Atlantis and Polar studios, as well as at Per's home studio Tits & Ass in Halmstad. The album is noticeably shorter than the previous Have a Nice Day and, according to critics, sounds more concise and lyrically sharper. Marie Fredriksson was less involved in the creation this time than before, composing only two songs, "Little Girl" and "Every Day". It is also worth noting that the album cover was photographed by Jonas Åkerlund, the same person who shot most of the clips for Roxette.

The Centre of the Heart (Is a Suburb to the Brain) – the most expensive video in Roxette's history

Gessle wrote the opening single at the beginning of work on the previous album and recorded the demo in Marbella, Andalusia at the turn of 1997 and 1998. However, it did not make it to the album until three years later. It was played publicly for the first time on February 23, 2001 during the intermission of the Swedish final of Melodifestivalen. In Sweden, it then topped the charts – it was at number one for four weeks in a row and eventually ended up as the fourteenth best-selling single of 2001. In Spain, it topped the airplay chart.

The clip was shot in three days at the Madonna Inn, California. The video was directed by the proven Jonas Åkerlund and filmed over three days at the Madonna Inn in California, a famous hotel famous for its over-the-top, kitschy décor. It is Roxette's most expensive music video to date, surpassing the budget of the 1991 video for the song "Spending My Time". But the budget did not prevent criticism: the clip earned criticism for portraying women in a negative light.

Real Sugar – a clip with a puppet talk show and the puppet Ramones

The second single was commercially weaker than its predecessor, but performed surprisingly well in some countries. It reached the top three in Argentina and the top five of the airplay chart in Spain. At the opposite end of the spectrum are Germany and Switzerland, where "Real Sugar" is still Roxette's worst-ranked single – in both countries it stayed on the chart for only one week.

A clip that mocks television. Directed by Jesper Hiro, the video is remarkably imaginative: it starts with a clip for the previous single "The Centre of the Heart" running briefly on a small TV, but then the channel suddenly switches to a fictional late-night talk show hosted by a puppet. In it, Roxette plays a song accompanied by the show's permanent home band – puppets designed to look like the Ramones. At the end of the video, the TV is turned off by two puppets kissing passionately on the bed. The humorous reference to the previous clip and the overall humorous concept contrast sharply with the more challenging, expensive and discussed video that preceded it.

Milk and Toast and Honey – a song that Per had in his head for six months

The third single from the album was created unusually: Per said that he carried the melody in his head for six months before writing it down and recording the demo in Halmstad. It was also the only single from the album Room Service released in the UK, where it only reached number 89. It did better elsewhere – it peaked at number five in Portugal, 14 weeks in Sweden (the longest since 1995's "You Don't Understand Me") and 17 weeks in Switzerland (the longest since 1994's "Sleeping in My Car").

Two views on recording vocals. The official view can be found in the booklet for the selection of The Ballad Hits (2002): Marie supposedly assumed that the song would be sung with ease, but in the end she had to work harder than on any other Roxette song to find the right "magic moment". But Marie's story from later years sounds different. In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Expressen (2015), she said that while working on Room Service, she tried to go to the studio as little as possible. While recording the singing to this song, she even allegedly told the taxi driver to wait before the studio – she wanted to be ready as quickly as possible and leave immediately. According to her, the reason was that she lost the desire to continue at Roxette, mainly due to the tense atmosphere during the recording of the previous album Have a Nice Day, where she did not feel good or confident. Both versions do not have to be mutually exclusive – singing could be difficult and at the same time Marie could not like being in the studio – but they show how differently the same recording can be experienced and narrated.