>>> the Swedish roxet vocalist died at the age of 61 and fought cancer for 17 years
In my middle school years, when I was scavenging for English songs in the name of learning English, the cassettes of the Roxette band were also the kind of treasures that searched for and tried to get a plate. It was still the 90s of the last century, and the resources of European and American music were very small, and the only channel we had was to listen to the radio except waiting for the Chinese Record Corporation to introduce a few albums. I still remember what the radio host said when introducing the band, and after playing a soft-hearted "Fading Like A Flower", he said that Swedish musicians are more likely to succeed in the world because they can easily record in English, and the pronunciation is very standard, which does not make fans in English uncomfortable.
Roxacht debut album cover.
But in fact, there are only three popular bands with such a reputation produced in this Nordic country, before Roxseter had ABBA, and after Roxseter had Ace of Base, and apart from this, no one has ever achieved world-class recognition. Of course, they also have a slippery stream of loud death metal, which belongs to another system.
Like today's young people, there was a chain of contempt when listening to songs at that time, and those of us who listened to indie rock despised and listened to pop rock, but listening to a pop like Roxet would not make others look down on them, because they were not from English-speaking countries, there was an exotic (exotic) feeling, and more importantly, their female lead singer was really too handsome. Marie Fredriksson, when she was 28 years old, formed a duo with her best friend Per Gessle, shown off with a beautiful silver short hair, which hasn't changed since. The impression is that they are always skinny leather jackets, straight and slender. As a teenager, I envisioned being so handsome and determined as an adult, and she unconsciously set me a benchmark image of an independent woman.
Mary. Photo: Mattias Edwall, image source on its official website
Born on May 30, 1958 in the Swedish town of Össjö, the child of an ordinary working-class family, Mary revealed the tragic story of her family in her 2015 oral autobiography Kärleken till livet, in which her 20-year-old sister died in a car accident while picking out her wedding dress, and her parents never recovered from this blow, but this incident prompted her to have a different understanding of life and death than her peers.
Mary showed extraordinary musical talent from an early age, with a very wide vocal range, destined to be a good seedling for singing, and her idol in her youth was Joni Mitchell. After graduating from music school in 1977, Mary began to venture into the independent music scene, joining several bands, first as the punk band Strul, then as a keyboardist for MaMas Barn, ABBA guitarist Finn Sjöberg was also their album producer, and finally in Lasse Lindbom she achieved commercial success, becoming a well-known artist in Sweden, that is around 1982. She then began a solo career, but soon formed Roxett with Pey Gesler, whose debut album Pearls of Passion, released in October 1986, sold 200,000 copies and reached the second highest ranking in the domestic charts. But EMI USA believed that they did not have the potential for international popularity and refused to introduce Roxet.
In 1989, a dramatic scene occurred, an American exchange student studying in Sweden brought the single "The Look" from Roxet's second album to a radio station in his hometown of Minneapolis to play, and he did not expect that the audience would go crazy as soon as he listened to it. The on-demand rate skyrocketed, and soon the single was pushed to the US Billboard magazine charts, and 8 weeks later it reached the top of the charts, at which time EMI USA could no longer sit still, rushing over with a lucrative contract... After that, as we all know, Roxette presented the theme song "It Must Have Been Love" for the hit movie "Pretty Lady in the Wind and Moon" in 1990, which was actually a re-arrangement of an old single from a few years ago, and has since become famous. Full of rhythm, they have become a dance party hit, a movie soundtrack hit, adapted by artists from all over the world, and the Hong Kong female singer I admire most, Kwan Shu Yi, has changed one of their "Listen to My Heart", and the Cantonese song is called "This is My Heart Dialogue".
Album cover of The Look is included.
Almost all of the popular Roxette songs are about love, which makes people speculate about the relationship between Mary and Pai. To be honest, for many years I have silently regarded these two musicians with one face as a match made in heaven, which has greatly satisfied the imagination of the fans, but in fact they are just a working partnership. In a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Mary firmly denied the speculation. They had known each other for 12 years at the time, and from the beginning, they were strong friends, and even she came out of lindbom to fly solo, all because of Pey's strong support and encouragement. But she also had moments when she was extremely sad for Pey — in 1994 Mary married Mikael Bolyos, keyboardist for another band, and her wedding didn't even invite Pey and his wife to attend, although she later explained that she wanted to keep the wedding private, but this oversight was enough for Pey to complain about for a lifetime.
On December 9, 2019, Pey wrote this passage on his Twitter homepage: "Time flies so fast. Not long ago, we spent countless days and nights in my little apartment, sharing impossible dreams. What a wonderful dream we ended up sharing! I am honored to meet your talent + generosity. All my love is dedicated to you and your family. Things don't stay the same forever. There was no trace of complaining about this sad passage, and Mary finally passed away after 17 years of battling brain tumors, leaving behind her eight solo albums, ten Roxset albums, and an autobiography.
Cover of Mary's autobiography.
On the cover of Kärleken till livet, Mary is surprisingly thin and wrinkled, and I was extremely shocked when I first saw this photo, I used to think that the beautiful Mary would never grow old. Diagnosed with brain cancer in 2002, she recovered after several years of treatment and returned on a tour in 2010. At one point, she even took to the stage in a wheelchair due to radiation therapy. In 2012, Roxseter also came to China, remembering that he saw their huge posters in the subway, but he could only miss them because of a business trip, and he still had the illusion that he would have the opportunity to see them again in the future.
And now only her high-pitched, unparalleled singing voice still echoes in the speakers all night long, which is the one that I have to loop endlessly after every time I am frustrated, so desperate, and so full of courage to be born again:
At some point
Where the sun goes down alone
I went out of my house and ran a long, long way
To find a heart made of stone
I will try
I just need a little time
Erase your face from my mind
See the world from a different perspective
□ Xiaozhuang (Former European and American music editor of Audiovisual World magazine, co-founder of Fruit Shell)
Beijing News Editor Wu Longzhen Proofreader Liu Baoqing