“The whole idea with Roxette to begin with was very much that I was the writer and Marie was the singer,” the act’s Per Gessle told Billboard in 2018, reflecting upon his partnership with Marie Fredriksson.
“She always made my songs better than they were,” Gessle praised. “I think that’s one of the tricks: You have to find people who make you stand on your toes. Marie’s capability of singing triggered me to write even better songs, because suddenly I had someone who could sing them.”
After Sweden’s Roxette broke through in the U.S. with “The Look,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a week in April 1989, “Listen to Your Heart,” the third single from the pair’s album Look Sharp!, ascended to No. 1 on the chart dated Nov. 4, 1989.
Gessle wrote the latter with Mats Persson “about a good friend of mine who went through a difficult divorce,” he mused in Fred Bronson’s The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. “We sat up all night discussing [his] problems.”
Out of that sadness, his friend, and Roxette, found a positive, Gessle noted: “When it got to No. 1 in the States, I got this fax from him telling me, ‘Hey, you and me and Marie are No. 1 in America!’”
Adding to its profile, the official video for “Listen to Your Heart” was filmed during a performance at the striking ruins of the Borgholm Castle on the island of Öland.
Roxette added two more Hot 100 leaders: “It Must Have Been Love” in 1990 and “Joyride” in 1991. The twosome charted nine top 40 hits through 1992.
Meanwhile, “Listen to Your Heart” made history as the first Hot 100 No. 1 – following 705 previous leaders dating to the chart’s 1958 start – not available for purchase on 7-inch vinyl. It was released at the time only as a cassette single.
To date, the enduring ballad has totaled 2.3 billion in radio airplay audience in the U.S., according to Luminate, along with 189 million official streams and 406,000 downloads sold.
In 2005, the song returned to the Hot 100’s top 10, as covered by D.H.T. Sparked by both an uptempo dance mix and a stripped-down piano-driven take, it hit No. 8 that August. It also spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Pop Airplay chart.
Fredriksson passed away in 2019 following a nearly two-decade battle with cancer.
In 2022, Gessle released the LP Pop-Up Dynamo! under the artist billing PG Roxette, an ode to his and Fredriksson’s legacy. Helena Josefsson and Dea Norberg, who had previously worked with Roxette, contributed vocals on the album. “It’s impossible to replace Marie,” Gessle shared. Of Josefsson and Norberg, “It felt natural to let them take a step forward,” he said. “They’re both incredible singers. It was a pleasure to have them shaping new material into something very special in the Roxette style.”
Meanwhile, “To write … contagious pop songs after being on the case for 40 years is not that easy,” Gessle admitted. “I’ve written so many songs … are there any notes left for me to play?”
As for the set’s title, he shared, “I’ve always liked the word ‘pop.’ That’s the music I do, that’s the music where I come from, and that’s the universe where I belong.”
