vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:20:

go there, type Roxette and then click on albums...once u click on room service u can see the review

DaCapo21 said on September 15, 2002 14:26:

At least someone praises this album.... it’s a shame that the so called Roxette fans didn’t do it at that time....

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:30:

open: once u go to the link type “roxette” on “search” then it will take u to their page and u can go to “albums” and see each review.

open600 said on September 15, 2002 14:33:

I’VE FOUND IT AND YES, IT’S GREAT TO HEAR GOOD REVIEWS ABOUT ROXETTE. HERE IT IS:

about ROOM SERVICE

If proof were needed that Roxette are the new ABBA, the lack of critical respect should be enough. Like Abba, Roxette is a masterful pop band (with just the right amount of kitsch in its armor) that routinely gets slagged off for lacking substance, whatever that may be. Room Service showcases a band at the top of its form with its feet firm on the pedal: this album is a case study in songcraft and pop smarts. With its na-na-na choruses and sparkly guitars, Room Service is also trademark Roxette, a mostly no-surprises package that divides its time between the soaring, emotive power ballads and the rife-with-hooks rock-dance stompers that the band pretty much took patents out on back in the ’80s and ’90s. This is a group that has gotten really good at what it is doing, without getting bored doing it. Result? Probably the best Roxette album since Joyride. Opening tracks “Real Sugar” and “The Centre of the Heart” with their now-rock, now-disco, always-pop attack are effortless up-tempo smashes that deliver an unstoppable one-two sucker punch. On the other hand, “Milk and Toast and Honey” and “Bringing Me Down to My Knees” are big-ticket slow-burners that are as good as adult contemporary gets. “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” burgles the “Just a little bit” refrain from Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and uses it to spike the sort of lush, half-pensive ballad that Roxette can toss off in its sleep by now. “You Make My Heart Go Pop” is a noisy, overproduced Top-Ten-here-we-come sparkler that’ll zoom straight to the trash-magnet center of your brain and stick there for weeks on end. This album also shows a lyrically sharper Roxette, less eager than before to compromise the words for the hooks. Sure, they may occasionally slip into cliché and overt sentimentalism, but they’re never less than tuneful. Both Per Gessle and Marie Frederiksson are in fine vocal form, especially Marie, who’s equally proficient whether she’s doing elegiac laments or burning the house down. Room Service is an exciting, immediate, high-gloss pop gem that contains very little filler indeed. On it Roxette may not be making any great leaps forward, but when you’re in such a great place why bother moving? ~ Leslie Mathew, All Music Guide

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:36:

about LOOK SHARP:

Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson exploded onto the pop radar screen with Look Sharp!, which spawned four big hits: the bright, shiny “The Look,” the punchy, hopeful “Dressed for Success,” the A/C-leaning “Dangerous,” and the bland, overproduced “Listen to Your Heart.” The cuts that weren’t released as singles aren’t necessarily filler, but they also aren’t as strong as many of the cuts that made up Roxette albums that followed, particularly Joyride and Tourism (Songs From Studios, Stages, Hotelrooms & Other Strange Places). The non-releases are nothing memorable, and they don’t age well, “Paint” and “Dance Away” in particular being pretty average in terms of production and melody. Only “Chances” and “Shadow of a Doubt” show glimmers of the skills the duo would soon flourish. Gessle and Fredriksson became artists at crafting superb pop melodies and surrounding them with amazing production, so think of this album as basic training. ~ Bryan Buss, All Music Guide

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:37:

about HAND:

In the five years between Roxette?s last album, Crash, Boom, Bang, and this, their “comeback” album, pop music had changed considerably. Crash, Boom, Bang failed, in part, because it was completely out of step with the times; in 1994 grunge, alternative, and rap ruled the charts, but Roxette always produced a relatively crisp and clean brand of pop/rock. In the five years since then, however, Brit-pop brought alternative rock back towards pop, electronica made dance music “cool” again, and bubblegum pop bands like the Spice Girls made unabashed pop fun again. Also, Per Gessle was fresh off from his very rock-oriented 1997 solo album. What resulted, then, was really rather ambitious. Have A Nice Day is an effort to encapsulate Roxette?s trademark sound with Brit-pop and electronica, and, by gosh, it works. It?s easily as good as any other Roxette album, save maybe only the stellar Joyride, and it shows that artistically the band is still on top. There?s a good deal of emphasis on dance music here, but instead of the indistinguishable dance-pop of the band?s early days, the beats seem to be borrowed straight from Fatboy Slim records. That, mixed with Gessle?s gritty guitars, makes for a good deal of up-tempo rockers (“Crush on You,” “7Twenty7,” “Stars”). There are also some excellent pop songs, such as the single “Wish I Could Fly” and Gessle?s unforgettable “You Can?t Put Your Arms Around What’s Already Gone,” quite possibly the best song he?s ever written. As is the case with any Roxette album, however, there are flaws, namely the presence of filler, mostly in the form of pace-destroying ballads. It?s a small price to pay, however, for the return of one of the best mainstream pop bands in the past decade. ~ Jason Damas, All Music Guide

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:38:

about POP:

Roxette’s debut album, issued in late 1986, is a portrait of a band in its formative stages. Both Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson had previously pursued solo careers in their native Sweden, and Pearls of Passion was the band’s attempt at international stardom. It was preceded in the summer by a very ’80s pop single called “Everlasting Love,” which became the band?s first bonafide hit...at least within Sweden. When the album was released later that year, things were much the same; while the album was a hit in Sweden, the rest of the world failed to pay much attention at all. And listening to the album, it?s not that hard to tell why: nothing here is bad, but it lacks nearly all of the elements that made albums like Joyride and Look Sharp into massive hits just a few years later. Roxette’s most intriguing qualities are that they are a pop band that can rock and that Gessle is a crack songwriter that almost never produces a bad tune. Here, however, there’s a lot of dry material and a lot of undistinguishable dance-pop. Their trademark gritty guitars are completely absent, and what results is really only three great songs: “Soul Deep” (which was later re-recorded for Joyride, “Everlasting Love,” and the magnificent “Secrets That She Keeps.” The rest, however, is of significant interest only to serious fans. (A 1997 reissue of the album includes eight bonus tracks, new album packaging, and liner notes from Per Gessle himself.) ~ Jason Damas, All Music Guide

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:39:

open600 thanks for pasting the review on ROOM SERVICE ;-)

vaxjoe said on September 15, 2002 14:47:

its the 1st time that i found good reviews on ALL rox albums so im thrilled! it makes me proud of being a rox fan

Pascal said on September 15, 2002 16:36:

Fantastic! Thank you Vaxjoe!!!

There’s even a review of The World According To Gessle on the site. Again, a very positive one:

Per Gessle always was the most interesting part of Roxette. While that band did produce some of the catchiest mainstream pop music of the late 80s and early 90s, they often fell back upon weak, overly slick production and on their more Top 40-pop oriented side, paying less attention to Gessle’s excellent rockers. Gessle’s gravelly voice and full-throttle guitar attack was always the reason why Roxette stood out from their peers in the early ’90s, and it’s the same reason why Gessle’s first English solo album does just the same. Relying mostly on up-tempo rockers and much less on ballads, this album is a catchy delight that’s a must-have for both Roxette fans and power pop fans – yes, POWER pop, not just mainstream pop. The album kicks off with one of the best sequences ever; the chord-heavy “Stupid” transitions to the Roxette-styled rocker “Do You Wanna Be My Baby?” before hitting the unabashed anthem “Saturday” and ending with the disco-driven “Kix.” At its best moments, The World According to Per Gessle sounds like the Cars in their heyday, and that’s quite a complimentary comparison. Gessle, however, still doesn’t quite have as much lyrical skill as the Cars’ Ocasek. The album is weighted down by lyrics that range from pedestrian to downright banal (especially in the musically excellent “Reporter”). Still, Per Gessle was never about being DEEP, he was about creating fun nuggets of three-minute pop, and he’s never done it so well as on The World According to Per Gessle. Absolutely essential. ~ Jason Damas, All Music Guide