Tim: Last time we met Roxette, their new song kept getting pulled from YouTube so we had to make do with an old (albeit good) track. It’s finally found a permanent place, though, in the form of a proper video, so let’s have a look.
Tom: First of all, I think we’ve already found the award winner for Cleverest Track Title of the Year.
Tom: How are Roxette still good? This somehow manages to have rocky verses, electronic arpeggios in the chorus, and the usual slightly-androgynous vocals, and it’s still bloody good. Incidentally, how ace are those arpeggios? (I think that’s what they’re called, anyway.)
Tim: Agreed, the choruses are good, but the pauses annoy me – singing along (it is very singalongable), it seems as though the ‘but the radio’ should just follow so naturally from ‘she’s got nothing on’ that it feels a bit odd when it doesn’t.
Tom: It’s easy to think Roxette were a one-hit wonder with “It Must Have Been Love” and maybe a couple of others – but they’re not. They’ve been going for years, have a World Music Award, and – no kidding – achievement medals from the King of Sweden.
I’m docking a few points for the terrible call-and-response bit in the first verse (“Really?” “Oh.” “Yeah?” in the right channel) though.
Tim: That’s a thing that’s a bit odd – the intro and verses could come straight from a Pink song (Get This Party Started, perhaps), but the choruses and bridge sound like something entirely different, almost like something the new Pet Shop Boys track could (should?) have been.
Tom: Other than that it’s a pretty solid track. More like this, please.