“The Look” And “ Listen To Your Heart” both came from Look Sharp!, the 1988 album that the above-mentioned Minnesota exchange student took to his radio station. Roxette’s first three chart-toppers all originated in the time when nobody in America had heard of the group. And as it happens, Roxette’s final Billboard #1 hit was the best and brightest and silliest of all of them. Gessle and Fredriksson knew their way around a hook, and their production was big and sharp and intensely sugary. More often than not, though, those quasi-parodies worked better than the real thing. Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson’s charged-up, hyper-focused guitar-pop sometimes came off as an affectionate parody of American studio-rock, especially once you factored in the verging-on-gibberish lyrics. They didn’t leave a whole lot in the way of lasting impact I have never once, for instance, seen any sort of artist claim Roxette as an influence. In the grand scheme of things, that’s fucking incredible.Īs a pop-chart force in America, Roxette burned fast and bright. But in that two-year period, Roxette racked up a grand total of four American #1s - three more than fellow superstar Swedes ABBA. Ultimately, that still wasn’t that long Roxette’s period of American visibility really only lasted about two years. Maybe Roxette had no business on the Hot 100, but once they got there, they stayed there for longer than anyone could’ve logically thought possible. After that bit of good fortune, their giddily nonsensical banger “ The Look” somehow made it all the way to #1. The Swedish duo blew up stateside because an American exchange student brought their CD to his Minneapolis radio station. Roxette had one of the all-time great random-ass pop-chart origin stories. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.

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