R.I.P.: Marie Fredricksson, Roxette Singer

Marie Fredriksson May 30, 1958 - December 9, 2019

Marie Fredriksson — the Swedish vocalist who scored a string of late Eighties and early Nineties hits with Roxette — died today following a 17-year battle with cancer. She was 61.

Fredriksson’s management company, Dimberg Jernberg Management, confirmed her death. Her Roxette bandmate, Per Gessle, also issued a statement on social media:

According to Rolling Stone, Fredriksson and Gessle were good friends when they launched Roxette in 1986 and found quick success in Sweden with their debut album, Pearls of Passion, released that same year. International success would soon follow, but it would take a remarkable bit of happenstance for it to come to fruition: An American exchange student studying in Sweden heard the band’s hit “The Look,” bought a copy of 1988’s Look Sharp!, brought it back to the States and gave it to a DJ in Minneapolis. Soon, “The Look” was Number One on the Billboard Hot 100.


Look Sharp! would produce another U.S. Number One, “Listen to Your Heart,” and a Number Two, “Dangerous,” while the band scored another chart-topper with “It Must Have Been Love” from the Pretty Woman soundtrack. Their 1991 album, Joyride, featured one more Number One, the title track, and another Number Two, “Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave).”