Stories of famous songs: Crash! Boom! Bang! (1994)

It was recorded for almost a year, between February 1993 and January 1994, in several places – from the home studio Tits & Ass in Halmstad, through Stockholm and London's Mayfair Studios, to Capri Digital Studios right on the Italian island of Capri. It was thanks to this Italian episode that the album gained its unique, sometimes almost operetta-like sound.

Sleeping in My Car – a hit written in less than an hour at the last minute

The opening single is one of the fastest songs in Roxette's entire history – Per wrote the song in less than an hour, and it was even the very last song the band recorded for the album. Nevertheless, it became their second number one at home in Sweden and reached number two in Canada. But it also has a sadder first: it was the last Roxette song to ever reach the US Billboard Hot 100 (it finished at number 50), after which none of their other singles hit the charts in the US.

The clip was shot in a parking garage at night. The video for the song was shot by Irish director Michael Geoghegan and was conceived with the utmost moderation. In it, the couple plays and sings right in an empty multi-storey parking garage in the dark. It was only the first of four clips he shot for Roxette Geoghegan the following year, and the simple, raw garage aesthetic became his hallmark for the album's other videos.

Crash! Boom! Bang! – a ballad that had to be recorded twice

The album's title track was released as the second single, and although reviewers praised it as one of the best ballads Roxette had ever recorded, it did only slightly well in the charts, peaking in the top 20 in Austria, Belgium, Finland and Sweden.

A clip inspired by a Polish experimental director that had to be shot again. The video was again shot by Michael Geoghegan and was inspired by the work of Polish director Zbigniew Rybczyński, famous for his complicated visual tricks. The result is a clip consisting of a single uninterrupted shot in which Marie Fredriksson climbs an endless staircase. However, the ambitious concept encountered technical difficulties so fundamental that the entire clip had to be shot again from scratch before release.

Fireworks – a clip with a dark plot that the band itself prefers not to resemble

The third single from the album charted only slightly – it reached the top 20 in Austria and Finland, and 30th place in the UK. It is the only internationally released Roxette single that is missing from their large selection box The Rox Box and from any other compilation (except for one remix). Per himself explained in an interview in 2009 that he thought the song was simply not a big enough hit to make it to the selections.

A clip with a story that seems controversial today. The video, again by Michael Geoghegan, tells a much more elaborate story than the usual Roxette clip: it follows twins who leave the Swedish countryside for London in search of fame and fortune. In the city, we see them in characteristic places such as Piccadilly Circus or in the London Underground. However, the sisters are assaulted and sexually assaulted under one of the bridges. They eventually return to Sweden and in the final scene it turns out that their younger brother is Per Gessle. Such a dark and literal narrative is a complete exception among Roxette's videos and is probably one of the reasons why the song is still not so reminiscent of the band to this day.