Roxette
Charm school
EMI
Reunions are a tricky thing, especially if it's been a decade, a health scare and a few middling solo releases in between albums. Roxette will always be one of Sweden's most successful and beloved commercial pop bands; no one can take that away from them. Fans were understandably eager to see them reunite, but once you get past the "oh, it's Per!" and "ooh, it's Marie!" nostalgia trip of the new album's opening tracks, it's a long slog through shadows of former glories (chiefly, "Listen to your heart", repeated ad nauseum in slightly different formats). It all sounds like what I feared it might -- a Per Gessle album. Why, when you're known for your bright, shiny pop songs, record an album of plodding, quasi-rock grasping for credibility that it'll never achieve? To many critics, Roxette will never be "credible, and that's part of the reason we fans like them. I wish they would have embraced their glossy pop side (which pokes through on tracks like "Big black Cadillac" and the should-have-been-better lead single "She's got nothing on (but the radio)"). At least if you're going to repeat yourself, have some fun with it.
- Nick James
