"Modern Times"

How it may have looked.

The Modern Times project arose from Gyllene Tider wanting to go outside the Swedish borders with their music. The plan was to record an entire album to send out to different EMI branches around the world, because that would stir up more attention. But it ended up being only a single - Beating Heart. (And also the b-side of the single Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång). EMI demanded two songs to be recorded specifically, and those were I Go To Pieces and California Sun (Tylö sun), why I don't know. Gyllene Tider recorded several songs from Moderna Tider and Puls in English for this "album." In the book "Att vara Per Gessle" the tracklist of the album is revealed, and California Sun isn't on it, go figure...:

Side A:
Fever In The Night (Ljudet av ett annat hjärta)
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Girl in a Cole Porter-Song (Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång)
I Go To Pieces
Threnody

Side B:
Excited (Upphetsad)
Been Lonely Too Long (På jakt efter liv)
Just Another Heartache (Vart tog alla vänner vägen?)
This Heart's On Fire (Det hjärta som brinner)
When All the Lights Have Faded Away (När alla vännerna gått hem)

This leaves us with these leftovers:
Beating Heart (När vi två blir en)
Buddy Holly (Ska vi älska så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly)
California Sun (Tylö sun)
Summer City (Sommartider)
To Play With Fire (Leka med elden)

Several of these songs have been totally re-recorded, while others just have new song dubs added to them. Per says these songs have been buried deep due to the poor lyrics, and I have to say he's correct. The lyrics on most of these songs aren't just up to standard, if you know what I mean! The best ones are probably Beating Heart, To Play With Fire (no wonder they ended up on the single), Summer City, Cole Porter-Song and When All the Lights... California Sun, Breaking Up is Hard to Do and I Go To Pieces are originals, of course.
Anyways, a band was already called "Modern Times" somewhere in the world so the whole thing was canceled, until Roxette came along with Heartland.
On a question to what happened to Modern Times Per replied that they never got any replies from any record companies, except from EMI in... Guatemala. It turned out to be another of Mr Gessle's famous jokes.