If nothing else, this will be one of the most expensive Roxette music videos ever made. With a budget over $520,000 dollars, most of the footage for the soon-to-be-released “Center of the Heart” video was shot at a unique, ecclecticly-decorated hotel on the California coast. Director Jonas Åkerlund, who has done nine Roxette videos, is now busy working with a post-production house on the editing of the film.

  Roxette, along with Åkerlund and his film crew, took over a good portion of the Madonna Inn (named after the family that owns the property) located in San Luis Obispo, a town situated on the Pacific Coast Highway in California, almost exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  The Roxette entourage and film crew rented 48 of the guest rooms in the resort hotel, a popular destination for honeymooners. Each of the Inn’s 109 rooms is uniquely decorated with a special theme and color scheme – some of them with showers constructed with rocks to resemble a waterfall.

  EMI Sweden, anxious to encourage positive press coverage – especially in Sweden where interest is high – invited reporters from two of Sweden’s tabloids to the hotel. Both Aftonbladet and Expressen have featured coverage of the video shoot in their Entertainment sections.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Magnus Sundholm, Aftonbladet’s reporter/photographer, incorrectly refers to the inn as a “porno hotel.” Having stayed at this property myself, I can only surmise that Sundholm’s impression of the décor in some of the rooms was that of a bordello. That some of the rooms feature “unusual” themes is an understatement, as you’ll see if you take the “tour” offered in the link below. Pictured here is of the luxurious Austrian Suite, where some of the filming was done. Photo ©1992 by Phyllis Madonna, used with permission. – LEO

• Madonna Inn (tour their rooms online)
• Aftonbladet story (focuses on Marie beating her own sales record in Sweden)
• Expressen article (includes photos taken during a break in the filming)