March 14, 1999

Have A Nice Day

They don't mess about, do these [a]Roxette[/a] types....

7 / 10 They don't mess about, do these Roxette types. Nary 30 seconds into opening track 'Crush On You' we find them hollering, "I'm messing with a neighbour/Who killed my amp and Fender/He looked so sweet and tender/It's hard to tell his gender". Snakes alive! What newfangled madness is this?

Roxette are from Sweden. Their lawyer lives in LA, their fan club is based in Holland, bits of this album were recorded in Spain, terra firma lies crushed beneath the weight of 40 million of their albums and they sing in funny doodoo English because, much like pollution, corruption and war, Roxette are a big thumping global concern.

Fittingly, 'Have A Nice Day' is another clever-clever bastard of an album which defies Doctor Rock. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, this record fundamentally consists of pop songs about falling in love ('Salvation', 'I Was So Lucky'), and songs about breaking up ('Anyone', 'It Will Take A Long Time'). Crucially however, the Roxeys don't attempt to mimic the sickly ooh-look-at-me-I'm-a-princess! wailings of Whitney, Celine, Mariah et al, preferring instead to take a good old-fashioned deadpan Scandinavian view of this whole romance malarkey. Or, as Roxette would put it, "I carry your wounded dreams like the devil's deeds in the pocket of my jeans".

Oh look - my coat!