The Cardigans

Swedish indie pop band, The Cardigans started life in October 1992 in Jonkoping, Sweden, when heavy metal musicians, guitarist Peter Svensson and bassist Magnus Sveningsson decided to do a u-turn in musical direction and form a pop band. They enlisted art-school friend, vocalist Nina Persson , as well as keyboard player Lars-Olof ‘Lasse’ Johansson and drummer Benght Lagerburg to produce a stylish, bittersweet, ambient rock sound which is hard to pigeonhole.

Their debut album ‘Emmerdale’ released in 1994, won them fans in Sweden but it was their upbeat breakthrough album ‘Life’ released in 1995 that went on to release one and half million copies worldwide, going platinum in Japan. After success in America, the band was signed to Mercury and they released abstract arrangement ‘First Band on the Moon’ in September 1996. The album went gold in the US and Platinum in Japan in just three weeks. ‘Lovefool’ was taken from the album and included on the blockbuster Romeo & Juliet film soundtrack in 1997, catapulting the band towards international superstardom.

Following the release of ‘Lovefool’, the band were branded as sweet soft-pop but the release of fourth album, the dark and moody ‘Gran Turismo’ showed that the band couldn’t be categorized. The band had more hits off ‘Gran Turismo’ including ‘My Favourite Game’ and ‘Erase/Rewind’ but began to slip away from the charts in the UK over the following years. Their varied mature sound continues to have success in Sweden where their last two albums ‘I Sing Because Of You’ and ‘Long Gone Before Daylight’ have had huge success going 2x platinum and gold respectively.