* En anglais uniquement
With their hooky brand of dance-oriented pop/rock, Sweden's
Roxette rose to fame as one of the biggest global pop acts of the '80s and '90s. Second in Sweden only to
ABBA in terms of commercial success, the duo sold over 75 million records around the world, earning number ones in several countries with 1988's
Look Sharp!, 1991's
Joyride, and 1994's
Crash! Boom! Bang!. They dominated the charts with songs like "The Look," "Listen to Your Heart," "Joyride," and "It Must Have Been Love," all four of which hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100. They never strayed from their high-gloss pop sound and continued to chart Top Tens in Europe with albums like 2001's
Room Service, 2011's
Charm School, and 2016's
Good Karma.
Hailing from Halmstad, Sweden,
Roxette were a duo featuring vocalist
Marie Fredriksson and songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist
Per Gessle.
Fredriksson and
Gessle first met in the late '70s, when she was a member of the pop combo Strul & Ma Mas Barn and he played with
Gyllene Tider, one of Sweden's biggest groups of the late '70s and early '80s. In 1981, after
Fredriksson's group broke up, she joined
Gyllene Tider as backing vocalist for a concert tour, and later worked with them in the studio in the same capacity. In 1984,
Fredriksson released her first solo album, Het Vind (Hot Wind) and
Gessle contributed a song for the sessions; the same year,
Gyllene Tider recorded their only English-language album,
The Heartland Café, and
Gessle once again invited
Fredriksson to contribute to the sessions. For the American release,
Gyllene Tider's American label, Capitol Records, edited the 11-song album down to a six-track EP and shortened the title to
Heartland. Capitol also felt the name
Gyllene Tider might not register with U.S. listeners, so the group adopted the name Roxette, taken from a song by British pub rock icons
Dr. Feelgood.
The Heartland Café proved to be
Gyllene Tider's last album for a 20-year period, and
Gessle decided it was finally time for him and
Fredriksson to record a project together. As
Roxette, they cut a single in 1986, "Neverending Love," which was a major hit in Sweden, and a number of songs
Fredriksson and
Gessle had earmarked for her third solo album became the basis of the first proper
Roxette album,
Pearls of Passion. In hopes of greater international success,
Roxette wrote and recorded their material in English, but while
Pearls of Passion was a hit at home, Capitol/EMI didn't bother to release the album in the United States. The same fate initially befell 1988's
Look Sharp! until an American student studying in Sweden brought a copy of the album home to Minneapolis and persuaded a DJ at a local radio station to give "The Look" a spin. The song clicked with listeners, and soon Capitol rush-released
Look Sharp! in the United States; both "The Look" and "It Must Have Been Love" went to number one on the singles charts, and the album went platinum, establishing
Roxette in the States and kick-starting their career in Europe.
Their next album, 1991's
Joyride, also went platinum in America, and it was followed in 1992 by
Tourism: Songs from Studios, Stages, Hotel Rooms and Other Strange Places, a collection of material recorded during the group's 1991 world tour. In 1994,
Roxette released
Crash! Boom! Bang!, which was successful in Sweden and Europe but failed to live up to the sales figures of their second and third albums in America. In 1996,
Roxette went on hiatus after recording a Spanish-language album, as
Gyllene Tider staged a reunion tour and
Gessle released a solo album.
Roxette returned to duty in 1999 with the album
Have a Nice Day, and
Room Service followed in 2001, with the duo making a high-profile appearance as part of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, in the fall of 2002,
Roxette were forced to curtail their activities when
Fredriksson was diagnosed with a brain tumor; over the next several years, she focused on her recovery and recorded solo material, while
Gessle also pursued solo projects and staged another
Gyllene Tider reunion.
In 2008,
Gessle surprised fans at a concert in Amsterdam when he brought out
Fredriksson to sing several
Roxette hits, and in 2009, the duo staged a comeback tour that sold out halls all across Europe and the Netherlands. With
Fredriksson back in fighting shape,
Roxette returned to the recording studio, and 2011's
Charm School was their first album of new material in ten years. It was followed by another successful world concert tour that stretched for two years. The lead single from the album -- "She's Got Nothing On (But the Radio)" -- hit the top of the European Airplay charts that January. 2012 saw the release of
Roxette's ninth effort, entitled
Travelling. It was originally going to be called Tourism 2, a direct sequel to their 1992 album, but
EMI insisted on avoiding album titles with numbers. The record featured the lead single "It's Possible," and went on to enter the Top Ten album charts in four countries.
2016 would mark the duo's 30th year together, and a huge tour was planned for the occasion. After brief stints pursuing other projects --
Gessle once again reunited with his boy band and
Fredriksson promoted her solo album
Nu -- the RoXXXette 30th Anniversary Tour kicked off in late 2014. It was scheduled to coincide with the release of
Roxette's tenth studio album, 2016's
Good Karma, but due to
Fredriksson's recurring ill health, the tour had to be cut short in February 2016. Gessele toured Europe as Per Gessele's Roxette in late 2018, around the same time that the 30th anniversary edition of
Look Sharp! appeared.
Fredriksson died in December 2019 at age 61. The following year,
Roxette issued Bag of Trix, a collection of previously unreleased songs that included "Let Your Heart Dance with Me," a
Good Karma outtake that was one of the last vocals
Fredriksson recorded.
Pelle Alsing, the group's longtime stage drummer, died on December 20, 2020. ~ Mark Deming