Songoftheday 10/23/16 - I know there's something in the wake of your smile, I get a notion from the look in your eyes...

"Listen To Your Heart" - Roxette
from the album Look Sharp! (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's song of the day comes from the Swedish pop duo Roxette, who had landed a #1 hit in America with "The Look", and followed that up with the top-20 "Dressed For Success" in the summer of 1989. The third American single from their Look Sharp! album was originally released the previous fall as the fourth single in Europe, reaching #3 in their native country. "Listen To Your Heart", written by the pair's Per Gessle along with Mats Persson and sung by Marie Fredriksson, the "power-ballad" fit in the mold of similar bombastic adult-pop choices from Heart and Cher, and mainstream radio listened...

"Listen To Your Heart" became Roxette's second #1 pop hit in the U.S. in November of 1989. The song also climbed to #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, the single went to #1 in Canada as well, and top-10 in Austria (#2), Ireland (#5), The Netherlands (#5), Germany (#7), Switzerland (#8), and Australia (#10). In the UK, it originally peaked down at #62 in 1989, then in 1990 on a re-issue rocketed up to #6.

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Here's Roxette appearing live on European telly to promote the single in 1989...

..and again in 1993 appearing on MTV Unplugged...

In 2005, Belgian duo DHT released a hi-NRG dance cover of "Listen To Your Heart", which was a huge success, reaching #8 on the American pop chart and #1 on the Dance Airplay radio list, while a stripped-down ballad version went to #6 on the Adult Contemporary and #13 on the Adult Top-40 charts...

Mexican singer Yuridia translated the song to "Habla El Corazon", which went to #17 on the Latin Pop chart and #44 on the Latin songs list in Billboard in 2007...

Glee took on the song in their final season...

Finally, here's the original version released in Sweden in 1988...

Up tomorrow: Texan pop musician with the unfortunate name gets a little Romantics.