Track Listing
1. Your New Cuckoo
2. Been It
3. Heartbreaker
4. Happy Meal II
5. Never Recover
6. Step On Me
7. Lovefool
8. Losers
9. Iron Man
10. Great Divide
11. Choke
Review
You know what I didn't expect? To like this album just as much as I did. The only song I really knew here was Lovefool, the big single and part of the soundtrack to Romeo + Juliet, with such overplay that that particular song got, it is hard to listen to it with new ears.
You are kind of able to do it, however, in the context of what is a pretty great album. The Cardigans mix sweet vocals and what at first seem to be quite pretty music with heavy metal riffs, Black Sabbath covers and some of the most depressing lyrics ever. Surprisingly it all works really well.
It is the contrast between the several elements of the album which really catches you, and as you pay more attention you realise that each little song is really well crafted and that the Black Sabbath references are not limited to the strange cover of Iron Man, the beginning of Heartbreaker reminds one of Black Sabbath only to devolve into a quite sweet song (if you don't listen to the lyrics). And then the cutesy voice of Nina Persson lulls you into a fake sense of security which is slowly peeled away, this album was a great hit in Japan, where I bet it was all seen as Kawaii... if only they understood it. Slut (that's "The End" in Swedish).
Track Highlights
1. Step On Me
2. Happy Meal II
3. Heartbreaker
4. Lovefool
Final Grade
9/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
With this album, the band had developed into a more complex, darker animal, the songs included themes of heartbreak, infidelity and despair. "Lovefool" was a hit across the globe, especially in the United States and again in Japan, where the album reached platinum in only three weeks. However, it was unrepresentative of the album as a whole and, although it helped it achieve gold sales status in America, many critics branded them saccharine soft-pop on the basis of "Lovefool".
Iron Man Cover:
2 comments:
i listened to a lot of the cardigans back in 94/95. emmerdale & life are probably a significant part of the soundtrack of my life from back then. after lovefool came out, i stopped caring - maybe shouldn't have?
i remember a friend from school going all annoying on me because she had heard me talk about how much i liked the cardigans before, and thought lovefool was the most annoying song she ever heard. i think i got bored with trying to explain cardigans were better than lovefool back then.
You should really listen to the album, Lovefool is not representative at all. Well, we'll be there on tuesday night, I can put it on then :P
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