Roxette – Listen To Your Heart played 6 million times on US radio

BMI yesterday paid tribute to the top UK and European songwriters, composers and music publishers of the most-performed songs of the previous year with the 2020 BMI London Awards. Among others, honourees for Million-Air Awards were celebrated across BMI’s digital and social channels. To recognise their remarkable achievements, BMI created a special page on its website where fans can watch video messages, listen to award-winning songs and take a look back at the best award show moments throughout the years. Click HERE to reach the site.

American radios played Listen To Your Heart now more than 6 million times! That means more than 62 years if it were constantly played! Amazing, isn’t it?

Roxette reached their 2nd No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with LTYH on 4th November 1989. In 1998 they 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.

Listen To Your Heart was covered by an American hard rock band, Through Fire and they put the song back on the US charts in March 2020. The cover spent 16 weeks on Mainstream Rock Billboard music chart and peaked at No. 32.

Congratulations to Per Gessle and Mats MP Persson for creating this wonderful song that never gets old and for reaching the 6 million mark! And of course, neverending love to Marie Fredriksson!

Thanks for the hint, Tina Engmann!

Roxette received Honorary Award at the Swedish Grammis

Roxette received the Honorary Award at Grammisgalan in Sweden last night. The justification was:

“Brilliant timeless pop songs with effective angelic choruses and puns that have crossed all borders of the world. This year’s Honorary Award Winners have had all this. They therefore succeeded with the journey from a Swedish small town to the whole world’s pop heart again and again and again for three decades. With credits like 75 million records sold, 4 US No. 1’s – unique for a Swedish act! – 6 singles in the top 10 in England, and hundreds of concerts in all parts of the world, this year the Honorary Award goes to: Roxette! ”

Per Gessle wasn’t present at the gala, but we could see Åsa in the audience. While manager Marie Dimberg walked up on stage, the whole audience stood up to applaud Roxette.

Marie Dimberg held a touching speech while accepting the award in the name of Roxette. She talked about the first time she met Per and Marie. She met Per at Café Opera in 1984, when she was new at EMI. She met Marie Fredriksson later in the same year at the reception of EMI. Ms Dimberg told that Marie and Per met in the late ’70s when they shared a rehearsal studio. 2 successful Swedish artists, they established Roxette in 1986. Their dream, ”Today Sweden – tomorrow the world” came true. ”2 good friends, 3 great chords and 12 brilliant songs” was the slogan of their break-through album, Look Sharp!. The rest is history. Marie Dimberg told about Roxette’s journey, their US No. 1’s, their concerts all around the world filling football stadiums and playing for millions of people, selling more than 75 million albums, doing thousands of interviews and TV programs. Per and Marie were the ultimate combo, where 1 + 1 makes at least 3. Per’s fantastic songwriting complemented Marie’s unique voice and strong stage presence. The better Marie was singing, the better songs Per was writing. Their songs are loved all around the world. Their international greatness could be seen also now when Marie sadly passed away on 9th December 2019. She and Roxette were honoured all around the world. They meant a lot to many generations over so many years. Now a voice went silent, but the music and songs live on.

When Marie Dimberg finished her speech, everyone stood up again to give a huge applause.

During the night, Tro was also performed by a boy, Love Bjurman and Marie’s picture was shown on the screens. At the end of the song everyone stood up and raised their glasses to Marie. The program leader told Marie is a legend who touched so many people all around the world not only as an artist, but also as a person and will never be forgotten.

Watch Marie Dimberg’s speech HERE and Tro HERE. You can watch the complete broadcast HERE.

 

 

Stills are from TV4’s broadcast.

Per Gessle nominated as Hallandian of The Year!

It’s the first time that Halland Marketing Association (Marknadsförening i Halland, MiH) in cooperation with Hallandsposten and Hallands Nyheter will award a prize to Hallandian of The Year. To receive the prize, the recipient must have done good publicity for Halland county and worked publicly for the county’s best.

There are 6 nominees who were chosen from a list of 40 suggested by Hallandsposten readers earlier this autumn. It was difficult to pick these 6 people. They all did great PR for Halland over the years in their own way.

Nominees

  1. Janne Andersson – coach of the Swedish national soccer team
  2. Linnea Henriksson – singer, songwriter
  3. Boris Lennerhov – CEO of Scandinavia’s largest department store Gekås Ullared
  4. Kålle Gunnarsson – producer, director (theatre)
  5. Per Gessle – one of Sweden’s most successful artists and songwriters, musical genius, world artist
  6. Lisa Lemke – freelance food creator, food stylist, pizzeria owner, television chef

The jury’s motivation for nominating Per: “One of Sweden’s most successful artists and songwriters. A world artist and musical genius who has gilded many people’s lives with Roxette, as a solo artist and as a front figure in Gyllene Tider for 40 years. This summer’s successful farewell tour GT40 attracted a record number of visitors. Per has received several prestigious awards such as Grammys, Rock Bears and the King’s Medal. Per is one of three Swedish artists who topped the Billboard charts, the most powerful in the music world. In addition, he writes songs for a wide range of other artists, owns Hotel Tylösand and produces his own wines and champagne with a local touch.”

To vote, you have to send an SMS with this text: “HP ÅH Per” to the number 72010 in Sweden. You can vote until 29th November and the gala where the winner will be announced is held on 19th December in Halmstad Arena. Hallandian of The Year will be awarded a unique painting by Halland artist Dagmar Glemme and his / her photo will be installed at Halmstad Airport. The idea is to place all future winners’ photos there too.

Good luck, Mr. G!

Vote for Roxette and Roxers!

Nomination period started for this year’s Rockbjörnen (music prize awarded by Aftonbladet annually). Last year Aftonbladet introduced a drop down menu for those who find it hard to nominate a band / artist / etc. by themselves and if you check it, you can see they still have Roxette on the list for the bands and Roxette fans on the list for the fans of the year. So, please, fill in at least the live band of the year and fans of the year boxes at the voting link. You can surely fill in other boxes, too, e.g. Swedish song of the year: ”It Just Happens – Roxette” or when the album is out, you can pick another song as well. 😉

Vote HERE each day until 10th July!

If you can’t speak Swedish, we help you which boxes to fill in and how you can proceed with your voting:

  • Årets livegrupp = Live band of the year: Roxette
  • Årets bästa fans = Fans of the year: Roxette fans
  • Årets svenska låt = Swedish song of the year: It Just Happens – Roxette (or any other new song after the album is released)

After filling it in, click on ”Nästa” (= ”Next”) and fill in your name (first name & surname), e-mail address, mobile number, year of birth (födelseår) and whether you are female (kvinna) or male (man) or other (annat), then reply to the control question (e.g. 2 + 2 = 4). If you want to receive info and offers from Aftonbladet, leave the tick in. ”Tillbaka” means ”Back”, ”Rösta” means ”Vote”. It’s simple as that.

 

Pic by Patrícia Peres; Göteborg 24/07/2015

 

For a little Rockbjörnen history check out our article from 3 years ago.

 

Vote for Roxette and Roxers!

Nomination period has started for this year’s Rockbjörnen (music prize awarded by Aftonbladet annually). 2 years ago we wrote about Roxette’s Rockbjörnen history and last year our collective voting for Marie was enough for her to be on the shortlist. Unfortunately, in the end she didn’t win the award, but now here is the chance to vote again. Since Rockbjörnen is focusing on live acts and Roxette is now on tour, we can vote easily. So, please, fill in at least the live band of the year and fans of the year boxes at the voting link. You can surely fill in other boxes, too. This year Aftonbladet introduced a drop down menu for those who find it hard to nominate a band / artist / etc. by themselves and if you check it, you can see they have Roxette on the list for the bands and Roxette fans on the list for the fans of the year. Yay!

Vote HERE each day until 22nd July!

If you can’t speak Swedish, we help you which boxes to fill in and how you can proceed with your voting:

  • Årets livegrupp = Live band of the year: Roxette
  • Årets bästa fans = Fans of the year: Roxette fans

After filling it in, click on ”Nästa” (= ”Next”) and fill in your name (first name & surname), e-mail address, mobile number, year of birth (födelseår) and whether you are female (kvinna) or male (man) or other (annat), then reply to the control question (e.g. 2 + 2 = 4). If you want to receive info and offers from Aftonbladet, leave the tick in. ”Tillbaka” means ”Back”, ”Rösta” means ”Vote”. It’s simple as that.

roxette_in_milan
Pic by Patrícia Peres