Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Metallica and Rolling Stones. Director Jonas Åkerlund is world famous for his own music videos, and most of all he has done for Roxette. Over the years he has visualized ten of Roxette's singles, and the relationship with both Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle has been close. Åkerlund received Tuesday's death bid for friend Marie Fredriksson with sadness:

- In addition to all the music, I remember all the countries we were in, and everything we did together. I am so incredibly grateful for all these wonderful memories that Marie and Per offered me. That I got the chance to participate is incredible, says Jonas Åkerlund to the Culture News.

Music videos and visual albums

Wish I Could Fly, The Center of the Heart is a suburb to the brain and Run to you are some of the Roxette songs whose music videos have been directed by Jonas Åkerlund. But the collaboration with Marie Fredriksson began much earlier. In the early 1990s, Jonas Åkerlund was an unknown name in the music industry, and it was Marie Fredriksson's autobiographical, visual album The Constant Journey that was his breakthrough in 1992.

- Marie was the first to give me a real chance. We made a visual album, which everyone does now, right then. I had never worked with an artist who was so talented. Thanks to that, I got to know Per, got to make Roxette videos and eventually everything else I did, says Jonas Åkerlund.

"Everything came from the heart"

The collaboration continued for 24 years, all the way to the documentary Roxette Diaries 2016, where Åkerlund portrayed the duo's tremendous career through Per Gessles and Marie Fredriksson's private films from the 80s and 90s. Today Jonas Åkerlund remembers the years with Roxette and Marie Fredriksson with warmth:

- She was so damn fine, so solid, one of the incredibly few artists that I worked with who were really, where everything came from the heart. There are few concoctions for artists at that level, and for artists at all.