Customer Reviews

A Collection Of Roxette Hits! Their 20 Greatest Songs!

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Like many former superstar acts, Roxette has taken to living off its past. "A Collection of Hits" is the duo's fourth greatest hits package in the past 12 years and third compilation since 2002. That makes this set less than worthwhile for fans who own the others, especially "The Ballad Hits" and "The Pop Hits." If you own those two albums, you won't need this new one (every hit song on this disc is covered by the others), unless you've 'just gotta have' the two new tracks featured on "Collection."

Speaking of the new cuts -- "One Wish" and "Reveal" are nothing stellar; they're passable fare, but you can save a bit of money by buying (and downloading) them through an online vendor.

However, "A Collection of Hits" is a great buy for the casual Roxette fan, or that person who stopped following them after their early 90s heyday in America. Unlike "Ballad" and "Pop" from a few years ago, "Collection" features only their best-known numbers from the past 20 years. If you've never looked into Roxette and want to see what the rest of the world has appreciated for two decades, grab this disc. Otherwise, pony up the extra cash for the more-complete, earlier greatest hits collections.

Here are the songs that were all over the radio in the 80s and 90s...songs I grew up listening to and howling (er, singing) along to but never knew who sang them. I stumbled across this gem the other day and I can't stop listening to a few of the songs, especially Fading Like a Flower, Joyride, It Must Have Been Love, Dangerous, and Listen to Your Heart. Granted, a couple of these songs have been remixed into techno, but the originals are truly classics...you will be smiling after listening to it!

By the time that Roxette's career blossomed, I'd largely lost interest in contemporary pop music beyond following artists that I was already familiar with, such as Madonna. I occasionally discovered other artists that I liked but mostly I ignored the pop music scene. Eventually persuaded to give Roxette a chance, I decided not to bother initially because I didn't want to pay the full price, but I seized the opportunity to buy this compilation when it was offered in a sale at a tempting price. Their sound is basically melodic pop/rock with an eighties/nineties edge.

Comprising Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson, Roxette's main period of commercial success ran from 1986 to 1994. During that period, four of their singles (The look, Listen to your heart, It must have been love, Joyride) made the very top of the American pop charts with two others (Fading like a flower, Dangerous) just missing the top spot, peaking at number two. Their British hit record was less spectacular, with five singles making the top ten, the most successful (It must have been love) peaking at number three first time around, later making the the top ten again when re-issued following its use in a TV commercial. Of the six major American hits, it's worth noting that one of them (Listen to your heart) was initially only a very minor hit. Re-issued as a double A-side with Dangerous (another of those big American hits) following the British success of It must have been love, it made the UK top ten, but as I wasn't paying attention, I don't know which side was the most popular. Another of those big American hits, Fading like a flower, just failed to make the UK top ten. Almost unreal (from the soundtrack of Super Mario Bros) also made the UK top ten, while three other songs (Wish I could fly, How do you do, Sleeping in my car) made the UK top ten in the nineties.

Two songs recorded especially for this compilation (One wish, Reveal), both of which later became successful as singles around Europe, start and end this wonderful compilation that shows why Roxette were so popular.

I say "probably the best Swedish pop/rock band besides ABBA" because I can't say I know a lot about Swedish music. However, I rate ABBA as one of the all time great bands, and probably the best pop group of all time [I rate The Beatles as the best group of all time and value them for their really weird songs...which aren't particularly pop]...so for Roxette to be compared favourably to them is a big call on my part.

Probably the main reason I bought this compilation was for the song "Fading like a flower". On the odd occasions I've heard this song, I've really enjoyed it. Listening to it for the first time on cd here, I can't say that it grabbed me as much as it did back then. However, before I listened to this cd all the way through, I must have listened to this song around a dozen times, which says a lot for me. I've been listening to it repeatedly since I've listened to the whole cd too. This song is back as an all time great pop classic in my estimation...up there with ABBA's best songs, and songs like: "What have I done to deserve this?" by the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield; "Clocks" by Coldplay; "Do they know it's Christmas" by Band Aid; "Our lips are sealed" by The Go Gos; and, from Australia, "Chemistry" by Mondo Rock and "Green" by Alex Lloyd.

Roxette, apart from being very melodic and catchy popsters, have a harder rock sound than ABBA in their songs. So, in songs like "Fading like a flower" you get a very cool keyboard melody introducing the song, followed by a momentary rock power chord. The chorus to this song is great and the verses are nice too. The song also features some nice changes of pace and cool guitar rhythym in that slow part as well a really nice lead guitar there too.

The other song that I tend to play a lot, though not nearly as much as "Fading like a flower" is "Dressed for success". It features a cool rock guitar sound, catchy chorus and some cool drums.

Another song I quite like is "Dangerous". This is yet another catchy melody song which Roxette are so good at. Usually the female half of Roxette does all the singing, but here the male half has his share of lines. Hadn't really noticed the weird outro to this song before-the man sings some barely intelligible words.

Rest assured that the rest of the album is chock full of catchy pop/rock, which I won't delve into too much, suffice to say that Americans might rate some of Roxette's ballads higher than I do...songs like "Listen to your heart" which isn't a fave of mine and "It must have been love", which I wasn't expecting to like but on hearing it here it did have a lyrical charm to it.

As for the rest, I'll just mention songs that had me relating them to songs by other artists, e.g. something else that Roxette has in common with ABBA is songs with daggy lyrics, these would include: "Joyride", "Spending my time" [more so for mediations on relationships than being daggy], "Almost unreal" [back to dag central here]. "A thing about you" also features one of those trippy effects that The Beatles were so fond of. It's in the intro of this song whereas The Beatles liked to use stuff like this for outros.

Other songs which remind me of other artists: "How do you do" [The Beatles' version of "Twist and shout" can be heard in this song]; "Crash! Boom! Bang!" [Dusty Springfield]; "The centre of the heart" [Savage Garden]; and "Run to you", which had a guitar vibe which reminded me of Weddings, Parties, Anything's song "Monday's experts", which is, granted, more of a stretch for Roxette to have been influenced by.

The songs towards the end of this cd are not the kind of pop/rock that fills most of the preceding tracks. Best examples of that are "Crash! Boom! Bang!" and "Wish I could fly". The latter has a nice mellow, cool vibe to it. "Stars" is also a more dance orientated song...it features a trippy intro and tinny techno beat.

Another thing to recommend this band are that they widen the musical instruments that they use, e.g. instruments that sound like music box pianos, organs, steel string guitars and violins.

If you like catchy pop songs, you should love this album, so long as you don't mind the band's forays into rock for entire songs or parts of songs.

P.S. One possible criticism of this cd is that it, according to the sleeve notes, I think, does NOT have some of Roxette's songs which charted in Europe. On the upside, the new songs on this cd are surprisingly good...I mean they are not classics, but they are much better than you would expect such new songs lumped together into a best of compilation to be.

I did neglect to mention perhaps Roxette's biggest hit, The Look. Whilst this song has many good hooks/elements to it, the lyric "tasted like a raindrop", sung about a woman, remains a hurdle for me liking this song better! I.e. it sounds a rather naff lyric!

If you like this cd, you might want to read my reviews of other albums with a good pop sensibility, e.g.

Midnight Oil for masterful pop/rock. Politics never sounded so good.
Alex Lloyd-Amazing: The Best Of
The Go Gos
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Skyhooks
INXS

Nice songs, brings back good memories. Stuck it in my car player and listen everyday, makes the commute go fast.

I feel much better listening to this. I ripped on my computer and am playing it right now. Also, play when I am driving, no bad tracks.

Never heard of this group before (I'm almost 60 years old)and just happened to hear one of their songs in some movie I rented. Waited until the ending credits to see who sang the song, and it was the Roxettes. Ordered this CD and another by them and love them both! As usual with Amazon, I got great service and a great price.

brought Back Alot Of Memories, I Was Younger, Had ALL Of My Hair, And All Was Right With The World. This Disc Is In Heavy Rotation In My CD Player

A fun romp through most of their hits, this collection unfortunately shortchanges much of their later work in favor of their early successes. This makes sense in a way, especially for U.S. audiences who may have checked out after "Crash! Boom! Bang" and aren't familiar with their later albums, especially since you could only buy those as imports. But for the world at large, who kept up with the Swedish duo, there are simply too many singles to fit on one disc (hence the Ballad and Pop Hits compilatons they released a few years back). Yes, it's called "20 Greatest Songs", but what constitutes that is up for debate. In my opinion, this works best for newbies and those U.S fans who only want the songs they remember and a few they don't. As for the new cuts, they're nice but not up there with the best of Roxette.

Hi I have always liked Roxette and I think that this CD was the best.