Roxette: The 20 greatest songs
Their greatest hits compilation out now deserves to earn it a new generation of fans, writes
They have had a string of number one hits on both sides of the Atlantic, have sold tens of millions of records and their songs still play on the radio — and now they have a greatest hits album out.
Roxette, the Swedish duo of Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson, have just released A Collection of Roxette Hits — their 20 greatest songs.
Roxette might not be the hippest group around, and their profile has been pretty low outside Scandinavia for the past few years, but if you like listening to catchy and unpretentious pop then you could do much worse than give them a try.
Their Roots go deep
Roxette, hard though it is to believe, can trace their roots back 25 years to when Fredriksson sang for the first time with Gessle's band Gyllene Tider.
Five years later, now a duo, Gessle and Fredriksson released their first album as Roxette. The title track Pearls of Passion was a hit single but sadly is not included on the new compilation.
In the early to mid 1990s Roxette were never off the radio thanks to songs like The Look, Joyride, Listen To Your Heart, It Must Have Been Love and Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave).
Several of these reached the top spot in the United States during the band's brief period of success across the pond.
Illness
Later records have not quite achieved the same following, and the band's two members have often been diverted by solo projects and, in Frederiksson's case, serious illness when she developed a brain tumour.
However, last year Frederiksson and Gessle appeared in public together for the first time in more than three years when Gessle — the band's chief songwriter — received an award for four million plays of It Must Have Been Love, sparking hopes Roxette could release some new material.
These hopes have now been realised as the greatest hits compilation contains two original songs, the uptempo One Wish and the ballad Reveal.
The greatest hits album deserves to win Roxette a new generation of fans.
“I haven't heard any Roxette songs.''
— Khushpoo Gupta, finance, University of Wollongong Dubai
“I don't know who that is.''
— Sonam Nithani, finance, UOWD
“I have no idea who Roxette is.''
— Allen Joji, business, Mahatma Gandhi University Dubai campus
Search engine victory
A Chinese internet search engine has won a court case brought by music companies over alleged breach of copyright.
According to BBC reports, record bosses were unhappy that Baidu.com was posting links to sites that offered illegal music downloads.
In an earlier ruling, Baidu was ordered to pay thousands of dollars to a distributor of EMI, but this decision has now been overturned, with judges accepting the website's argument that the music is being downloaded from the web servers of third parties.
“If the music companies had won, the whole search engine sector would have ground to a halt,'' a spokesman for Baidu told China's Xinhua news agency.
New album from Filipino favourite
Filipino favourite Billy Crawford is rumoured to be releasing a new album in summer 2007. The 24-year-old singer, who began performing on TV in the Philippines when still a small child, is already working on the follow-up to his Big City album. Previous hits for Billy include Urgently in Love, Supernatural, Bright Lights, When You're In Love With Someone and Trackin'. He has also pursued acting, featuring in Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.
The writer is the travelling bard of Gulf News
