CD shelves long for it!

Roxette. You can listen to their songs and put their music into two categories. A band of ballad songs, who makes you fall in love with them (and with someone else too, if you do have a heart); and a band of pop/rock songs, which you can't tell if they are pop or rock, but you can realize that once you listen to songs like "How do you do!" you get them stuck in your mind all day long.

The Pop Hits Collection fits in the second category. It is a brilliant and finest album gathering a compilation of a 17-year-old career. Every single track affords a glimpse of energy and history, either through sweet-voiced Marie Fredriksson or the smooth performance of Per Gessle's vocals (the supporting musicians of the band play leading role, you can tell). In most of the tracks, these talented, successful and skillful duo of singers/songwriters are mixed together in such a tuned up style, you can't imagine one without the other (in spite of their brilliant solo careers).

To sum up, Roxette has proven that it doesn't take all sorts to make the music world, but people of quality and capacity just like them. If you like Roxette, you have a fine, exigent taste for music and, well, if you don't... don't worry, many other people do.

POPortunity Nox

The compilation album I like to call The Sequel. Its "younger sister", The Ballad Hits was/is very successful when it came out in 2002. The Pop Hits is right up there with it. When The Ballad Hits came out I predicted this one coming...because I don't know how anyone would get away with releasing a compilation album without their first #1 single, "The Look".

Just like The Ballad Hits, this album also features 2 new tracks, 13 of their up-tempo singes from 1988 to 2001, and on some versions (for a limited time) a bonus 4-track EP with B-sides and previously unreleased songs. Its only single outtake is the opening track, "Opportunity Nox". Just like "A Thing About You", it is the only one to be released from it.

This album is absolutely ideal for parties - especially "retro" themed ones (in reference to the first half of the album). Another 5-star album from a 5-star band. Grab yourself a copy today! :)

Thought Roxette was gone? Think again...

"The Pop Hits" is the latest compilation of Roxette's Pop Hits (meaning up tempo numbers). Its sister compilation is "The Ballad Hits".
Anyways, on this CD you have them almost all - "The Look", "Dangerous", "Dressed For Success" etc etc. Songs most people know and still deny it! On this CD you also get the new songs "Opportunity Nox" and "Little Miss Sorrow". While "Nox" flirts with dance music and heavy keyboard arrangements, "Ms Sorrow" is a guitar filled gem, sounding a lot like Oasis. Mysteriously missing from the album are "Fireworks" and "She Doesn't Live Here Anymore"...
If you ever liked any of Roxette's faster songs, this is a given for you!

Well, even if this isn't perfect it is rather irrisistable.

Yeah, I love Roxette. This has for eons now, it seems, been something considered deffenitely silly in Denmark, something you ought to be slightly ashamed of and deffinitely would keep to yourself if possible. Not that I can for the life of me understand why, considering what comes out of my speakers when I turn on my radio these days ...

This is then the pop hits collection, and I dare say that this must be labeled as an 'impossible to dislike' CD. I can't imagine anybody not being cheared up by listening to this music. And that's pop music at it's best.

Of course, all the hits are here ... 'The Look', 'Dressed For Succes', 'Joyride', 'Stars', 'The Centre Of The Heart' and just for the measure a couple of new songs as well, featuring the delighting 'Opportunity Nox' ... oh yes, Roxette rocks on.

Of course one will always have complaints regarding compilation CDs - personally I should have prefered the single mix of 'Dangerous' (as on the former compilation), but that's a minor detail; also I would have been delighted to have the single mix of 'Stars' included, since this was notably different from the album version (no children choir at all) - not that I dislike the album version, I think it's terrific, but I should have loved to have both versions.

Then there is the thing about left out songs. In this case I have two songs that I would have included, had I had any choice - though neither of these songs were released as singles (can someone explain me why?). This is 'Crush On You', the fantastic openor from Have A Nice Day, and 'Make My Head Go Pop' from Roomservice - both songs I think are among the very best pop songs from the Roxette factory. There is after all plenty of room left on the CD, that only runs for 55 minutes or so.

About the bonus EP ... well, these songs are not exceptional. Note bad perhaps, but not nearly as good as the songs included on the Ballad Hits bonus EP, and not even close to as good as the songs on the CD.

A final note about the copy protected CDs. They play pretty well, but not perfectly, on my DVD/CD player - it skips tiny parts every now and then, making notable and annoying disturbancies in the rhythm of the songs. On my computer is sounds pretty awful - the included player doesn't work well at all, and the sound is very distorted. Fortunately, I have no problems in ripping the files from the CD to my harddisc ... and then I can burn my own normal version - including the extra songs I miss. Then I have my perfect pop hits collection!