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Dressed for success: Sweden from Abba to Roxette

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Robert Burnett
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Extract

Roxette is surely one of the most successful new Euro-bands to arrive in recent years. Sales of the 1988 album ‘Look Sharp’ are over 6 million units, while the 1991 album ‘Joyride’ has already surpassed that mark making it one of the biggest selling albums of the year around the world. Still Roxette has a long way to go before reaching the hundreds of millions its Swedish predecessor Abba sold over their twelve-year-long career. While Roxette are dressed for success into the nineties they most certainly learned their career moves from Abba. This is a topic we shall have cause to return to but first I would like to discuss the transnational music companies and their European strategies. Then I shall examine recent developments and changes in the Swedish market-place before returning to a concluding look at different career models of Swedish pop stars.

Type
Research Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 1992 , pp. 141 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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