100 million views

Roxette reached 100 million views of Listen To Your Heart

by

It was 4 months ago when the official video to It Must Have Been Love reached 100 million views on YouTube. At that time Listen To Your Heart had 81.9 million views. Both videos were uploaded to YouTube on 4th March 2009. Today, 7 years later LTYH also reached 100 million views! Isn’t it a.w.e.s.o.m.e.? 100 million views! Seeing the view count of IMHBL (126.6 million), the future is so bright you gotta wear shades!

The song was written on 3-4 May 1988. This is what Per says about it:

I co-wrote this with MP Persson in May of 1988 and it immediately felt very special. The lyrics came from an all night conversation I’d had with a friend who was going through a heartbreaking divorce. In the studio with Roxette it sounded awesome, with Marie taking the lead role and Clarence creating that beautiful piano intro.

Our ambition was to make it sound really ”American”. I guess we succeeded…

It has become our most popular song all over the world and was our second No. 1 in the US.

The original lyrics contained some different words, so instead of ”Is there a whisper / That cannot be heard ? / You find the meaning / But you can’t find the words” the final lyrics became: ”And there are voices / That want to be heard / So much to mention / But you can’t find the words”. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?

We can find a little discussion about the song and the video to it in the Don’t Bore Us – Get to the Chorus! compilation booklet:

PG: The Big Bad Ballad. This is us trying to recreate that overblown American FM-rock sound to the point where it almost becomes absurd. We really wanted to see how far we could take it.

MF: It sounds a bit dusty today, but it was our second #1 in the US…

PG: … which of course we couldn’t ever dream about since it was more or less made for Sweden. When it hit big in the States we suddenly found ourselves lumped together with bands like Heart and Starship, which wasn’t the intention behind Roxette at all. But we got out of that one… I hope.

MF: The video was great. Shot with an American crew at the Borgholm Castle. The director thought we had built the ruin just for the video.

PG: It took some time to convince them that the place actually was for real.

MF: Today we perform it in a stripped down version, with acoustic guitars. Still love the melody.

Aw… Borgholm… It would have been so amazing to see them perform live there.

On 4th November, 1989 Roxette reached their 2nd No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Listen To Your Heart. What was historically significant about the song is that it was the first No. 1 available only as a cassette single, not on a 45-RPM vinyl single.

A Belgian dance group, DHT did a trance cover of LTYH and it became a hit in the US and in some other countries. This way in 2005 Listen To Your Heart returned to the top 10 on the Billboard (reaching No. 8) as DHT’s remake.

The song is such a hit that American radios played it already more than 5 million times. In 1998 Roxette received an award from BMI for this song being played over 2 million times on American radio. Phil Graham of BMI said it was very unusual for a song to get over the 2 million mark in such a short space of time. In October 2006, helped by DHT’s cover, Roxette were awarded again by BMI for the song’s 3 millionth broadcast on American radio. Per and MP got the Million-Air Award for 4 million plays in 2008 and for 5 million plays in 2014.

We all remember the performances on each tour, how awesome LTYH sounds live, either in its original power ballad style (1988, 1991, 2001 (Barcelona, Stockholm) , 2009 (accompanied by a symphonic orchestra at NoTP), 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016) or in an acoustic, unplugged arrangement (1993 (MTV Unplugged just can’t be missed), 1995, 2000 (Virgin Megastore)).

This fanthem will never go out of style! Wishing many more hundreds of millions of views and radio plays of Listen To Your Heart! Congrats!

LTYH_100_million_views

 

Roxette reached 100 million views of It Must Have Been Love

by

Roxette’s official video to It Must Have Been Love was uploaded to emimusic YouTube channel on 4th March 2009. Today, almost 7 years later the video reached 100 million views! Awesomeness! 100 million views!

IMHBL_100_million_viewsAs we all know, the ballad started out as a Christmas song with the title It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted), recorded in 1987. Roxette’s German record company suggested them to write a Christmas song, to help the duo get played on German radio. It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted) was a hit in Sweden, but German stations still refused to play Roxette. This is how Per remembers it:

EMI Germany asked us to make a Xmas record. “It’s gonna be easier for you guys to get airplay in this market”, they said. Danke Schön. So I wrote It Must Have Been Love and made a slightly clumsy demo. We then recorded it properly with Marie and Clarence at the brand new digital Audio Sweden Studio in Stockholm, released it in Sweden and had a huge Xmas hit! Germany? Nah, they didn’t want it! No release there. Sorry guys, next time…

The video to the original version of the song was shot also in 1987. As Per says:

It was made for a Swedish Chart-show called “Listan” and was later used a semi-official video-clip. Low budgets. High hair. My Veillette-Citron guitar is present!

Regarding how Pretty Woman came in sight, Mr. G says:

After we had made it in the US with The Look and Listen To Your Heart, we got invited to write a song for the Pretty Woman-movie (it was called something else at the time, can’t remember what…)* But I didn’t have any time left since we were busy doing promo all over the world, so we offered them It Must Have Been Love with slightly new lyrics (Christmas day became winter’s day). Life was never the same again.

*[3,000 Dollars – it was the title of the script back then. PP]

IMHBL_01_rs  IMHBL_02_rs

Garry Marshall, the director of the movie liked It Must Have Been Love and called Per after 3-4 months and said he just had to call him to tell he loved the song so much he even re-edited the movie, because he didn’t want any dialogue during the song being played. He wanted the song to speak for itself. Per didn’t really know what Garry was talking about since he hadn’t seen the film, but a couple of months later the movie came out and it became a blockbuster. With this, It Must Have Been Love became a blockbuster, too. Per says:

It shows that you have to have the song and you also have to have a little bit of luck and you have to be in the right position at the right time, which is really rare for anyone in any profession. It’s all about timing. It was exactly the same song in 1987 when no German station wanted to play it. Of course we made a new intro to it, rerecorded it and Humberto Gatica, the hippest mixing engineer at the time, used his ‘lucky snare’ on it, but the song was the same.

Of course the song had to get a proper video clip and so the second video which became the official one was shot in a warehouse. According to Marie, shooting the video was a weird experience:

The director wanted all movements in slow motion so I had to lip sync the vocals in double speed. My first lesson in how to sing an emotional ballad Mickey Mouse style. A strange way to make a living.

IMHBL_03_rs  IMHBL_04_rs

It Must Have Been Love became Roxette’s third No. 1 in the US and spent two weeks at this position on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1990. Billboard magazine listed the song as the No. 2 Hot 100 single of the year. The single also topped the charts in more than 20 other countries around the world.

This is what Marie says about the Billboard success:

Our third #1 in the U.S. … not bad for a song that was lying around, gathering dust.

Not bad indeed. There are different versions of the song on several Roxette records. It’s an obvious track on the greatest hits albums and we still can’t get enough of it. It can’t be missed on the live setlist on tours and we love hearing the intro talk to it:

It started out as a Christmas song in the ’80s and found its way to hot hot Hollywood!

A fantastic crowd sing along is always guaranteed!

The song’s unbreakable success is also shown by the number of American radio plays. Per got BMI’s Million-Air Award for 4 million plays in 2005 and for 5 million plays in 2014.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of It Must Have Been Love, a limited edition vinyl single was released in May 2015.

The hit is a real evergreen. Many try to do covers and participate in different talent shows with the song, but no one can make such outstanding versions as Roxette themselves and sing it from the deep bottom of the heart as Marie does.

Wishing many more hundreds of millions of views and radio plays, as well as further heartwarming sing alongs all around the world!