Gyllene Tider

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Gyllene Tider in 2004

Gyllene Tider is a Swedish pop group. Gyllene Tider means 'Golden Ages' or 'Golden Times' in English. Few Scandinavians have not heard the song "Sommartider", often played on the radio during late spring and early summer. The band is well-known for its catchy choruses and light-weight lyrics and can be compared to the Swedish "Beach Boys". In the text below, the Swedish name of the song is written in italic. Within parenthesis, the English translation is written.

In 1977, Per Gessle met Mats Persson, a member of the band Audiovisuellt Angrepp, forming the duo Grape Rock. Later Micke Andersson, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzon joined and the quintet was born. The group's name was changed to Gyllene Tider.

1978 - The band had become a group of local celebrities in Halmstad for their Christmas-concerts. They took advantage of this and released their quite rare vinyl ep; Billy. The record sold in about 900 copies.

In 1980, the LP Gyllene Tider was released, becoming a huge success in Sweden. Flickorna på TV2 (The girls on channel 2) was the biggest hit on that album.

The second album was released in 1981 under the name Moderna Tider (Modern age) and also enjoyed huge success. It was followed up by a national tour. The next year Puls (Pulse) was released with the hits Sommartider (Summertimes) and Flickan i en Cole-Porter-sång (The girl in a Cole Porter song).

The group tried to break through to the American market in 1984 with the album Heartland (a six track mini version of the album The Heartland Café released in Sweden) under the name "Roxette". But it failed and the album flopped after selling about 8,000 copies.

In 1985 the group officially broke up. But in the following years a few "Greatest hits" albums were released and a few reunions took place, in particular their immensely popular comeback tour Återtåget in 1996.

In 2004 the band celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with the first new album after 20 years and a big summer tour in July and August. The tour, called GT25, was a huge success, being the biggest tour in Scandinavia ever and the second largest of all time in the whole of Europe, gathering large crowds all over Sweden. When they performed at Ullevi stadium in Göteborg during the GT25, 58 977 fans watched the concert live, and the performance was later broadcast on TV4 Sweden.

1 Album Discography
- 1.1 Greatest Hits and similar
- 1.2 DVD
2 External links

[edit] Album Discography

The band's logo

1978 Gyllene Tider (EP) (aka "Billy" and "the yellow EP")
1980 Gyllene Tider
1981 Moderna Tider
1982 Puls
1984 The Heartland Café (six of the tracks from this album were released in the United States as Heartland under the name "Roxette")
1990 Parkliv (Live 1981)
1997 Återtåget Live! (Live 1996)
2004 Finn 5 fel!
2004 GT25 Live! (Live 2004) (also on DVD from Ullevi)

[edit] Greatest Hits and similar

1989 Instant Hits + Pers Garage
1993 Samlade Tider (nice price)
1995 Halmstads pärlor
1997 Ljudet av ett annat hjärta/En samling (nice price)
1997 Återtåget - Gyllene Tider live!
2000 Konstpaus - samtliga inspelningar från 90-talet och lite till...
2004 GT25! Samtliga Hits
2004 GT25 Live!

[edit] DVD

1997 Återtåget (documentary from TV4, live and interviews )
2004 Karaoke Hits!
2004 Parkliv (concert/documentary from 1981 filmed by Lasse Hallström, released on DVD 2004)
2004 GT25 Live! (live at Ullevi 2004)