One Hit Wondering – The Cardigans

One Hit Wondering is a series of columns where I listen to the album of a one hit wonder, and find three songs, other than the hit, that people should hear. 

The Cardigans’ Gran Turismo is one of my favorite albums of all-time. Whether you want to call it dark pop, bummer pop, or ABBA on depressants, the 1998 release – the fourth full-length album from the Swedish band – is a masterpiece, with Nina Persson’s wonderfully sweet vocals singing lyrics that betray the beauty of her voice. 

Gran Turismo, however, is not the album I’m going to be writing about today. This is because, despite its musical greatness, it didn’t spawn a hit. A number of folks may be familiar with the album’s lead single, “My Favourite Game,” but that’s because it was in a lot people’s favorite game, Gran Turismo 2 for the original Playstation.

When most people think of The Cardigans, they think of the band’s 1996 mega-hit “Lovefool.” The song reached #2 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, #1 on the Top 40 Mainstream chart, and spent eight nonconsecutive weeks at #2 on the Adult Top 40 chart, while also having a video that was a mainstay on MTV.

“Lovefool” was off The Cardigans’ third album, First Band on the Moon, which was released in September of ’96, just one month after the release of the song. The album would quickly go gold, and eventually achieve platinum status.

An inclusion in the Baz Luhrmann film Romeo + Juliet made even more people fall in love with “Lovefool.” The Cardigans, however, had mixed emotions about the fame stemming from the song, as they were suddenly being defined by the unbelievably catchy, yet sad pop tune despite it being a complete outlier for the band (during my interview with Persson in 2014 she spoke about this).

So while ascending to the moon seemed within reach for the quintet from Jönköping, they wanted to map out that journey for themselves.

An example of this would be the lounge pop version of the Black Sabbath classic “Iron Man” that was on First Band on the Moon.

If you think that’s interesting – and how could you not? – here are three more songs from First Band on the Moon, other than “Lovefool,” that you should hear.

“Losers”

 

In retrospect, “Losers” might have been the clearest indication of where The Cardigans were going to go next with their music. Being that where they went next turned out to be fantastic, “Losers” is an absolute winner.

“Your New Cuckoo”

 

“Your New Cuckoo” is a great pop-rock song with a sprinkling of retro vibes. The third single from First Band on the Moon, it was only released internationally, which I think is crazy, because in the U.S. it would’ve been a perfect follow up to “Lovefool,” working as a really nice bridge from their outlier song, to the rest of their work.

“Happy Meal II”

 

I normally steer clear of fast food, but I’ll gladly place an order for “Happy Meal II.” A complete left turn from the previous two songs, it serves as yet another example of the wide breadth of the music of The Cardigans, and why not just First Band on the Moon, but all of their albums are must-listens.

Until next time, here’s to discovering more great music from one hit wonders!