The Cardigans

First years: 1992–1994

Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson, both heavy metal musicians, formed the group on 31 October 1992 in Jönköping, Sweden, with drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and lead singer Nina Persson.^[4] Persson did not want to be a musician growing up, having an interest in art instead, which resulted in her attending art school. "I never really strived to be a musician; I was just, sort of, recruited into this band. I was bored out of my mind in this small, safe place (Jönköping). I was like, 'Awesome, I get to hang with fun guys.'"^[5]

Living together in a small apartment, The Cardigans recorded a demo tape with Persson providing lead vocals on only one of the songs towards the end of the track list. A&R man Ola Hermanson heard the demo and signed the band to his Trampolene imprint. They released their debut album Emmerdale in Sweden and Japan in 1994; it was re-released internationally in 1997. The album included the Swedish radio hit "Rise & Shine", which was later voted the best of 1994 in a poll in Slitz magazine.

Commercial success: 1995–2000

The remainder of 1994 was spent touring Europe and recording Life, which was released worldwide in 1995. Life became an international success, selling more than a million copies and achieving platinum status in Japan. In 1996, Life was released under the label Minty Fresh in the US, but this release was essentially a compilation of tracks from Emmerdale and Life.

After their success with Life, The Cardigans signed with Mercury Records, under which they released First Band on the Moon worldwide in 1996. "Lovefool" was a hit worldwide, particularly in the US and Japan, where the album reached platinum status in three weeks. The album also achieved gold sales status in the US. "Lovefool" was shown on MTV in the late 1990s as a music video with clips from the 1996 hit film Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. It was also featured in the film Cruel Intentions (1999).

In 1997, the band played themselves in an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 as the featured entertainment at their college graduation party, hosted by Kelly Taylor's dad. The band performed "Lovefool" and "Been It." Their song "Carnival" was featured in the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The band was also asked to submit the theme song for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies but rejected the request due to exhaustion that would be exacerbated by the potential added workload; Persson has called her decision to turn down the offer "one of my biggest mistakes."^[6]

1998's Gran Turismo was followed by a long hiatus during which the band members pursued solo side projects. The same year they also released a compilation album of rare B-sides, The Other Side of the Moon as a Japan-only release. The video of the song "My Favourite Game" was censored by MTV for showing reckless driving. Despite this, it went on to become their second global hit song. "My Favourite Game" was featured on the soundtrack of the PlayStation video game Gran Turismo 2 in the intro movie on CD1. That year also saw their song "Deuce" appearing on The X-Files: The Album. Their song "Erase/Rewind" was featured in the 1999 films Never Been Kissed and The Thirteenth Floor. In 2018, German author Thorsten Nagelschmidt published a book titled Der Abfall der Herzen, a reference to the band's song "Junk of the Hearts" featured on Gran Turismo.

In 1999, the Cardigans recorded a duet cover of Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" with Tom Jones for his album Reload.^[2]

Back to spotlight and hiatus: 2002–2006

The Cardigans returned in 2002 to record Long Gone Before Daylight (2003), a collection of songs mainly written by Persson and Svensson. Long Gone Before Daylight became one of the best selling albums in Sweden in 2003.^{[citation needed]} After a two-year hiatus from their last album, it was released in Japan on 19 March 2003 and in Europe on 24 March 2003. Later it was also released in Canada (22 April 2003) and the United States (25 May 2004).

The album differs from the band's earlier works. Their familiar "happy" pop sound takes on a change to pop songs with more of an American country music influence. It is a much darker album than their previous works, and quieter than Gran Turismo. Indeed, even lead singer Nina Persson dyed her once light blonde hair to jet black, reflecting the band's change of mood.^[7] The album was produced by Per Sunding after the group's regular producer Tore Johanssen stepped down, feeling himself unable to provide the country sound the group wanted.

Criticism was generally mixed. Some found the change of direction welcome, and felt the band had matured, making songs that were even better than other experienced country-pop styled artists. Others missed the old pop sound, and accused the band of possibly being ashamed of their former "happy" pop sound. The first single of the album, "For What It's Worth" was released on 17 February 2003. The second single was "You're the Storm" released on 2 June 2003. The third and final single was "Live and Learn" released on 3 December 2003. In the summer of 2004, The Cardigans toured with Liz Phair, Katy Rose and Charlotte Martin on the Chicks With Attitude tour.

On 28 April 2005, the band's iTunes Originals album was released through iTunes. On 19 October 2005, the band released their sixth album Super Extra Gravity to generally favourable reviews.^[8] Super Extra Gravity went straight to the #1 spot on the Swedish album chart and was certified gold (sales over 40,000).^{[citation needed]} After the band finished promotional activities in Autumn 2006, the band entered an extended hiatus and devoted themselves to other projects.^{[citation needed]}

Reunion, tour and future: 2012–present

In 2012, the Cardigans received a lucrative offer from Hultsfred Festival to perform the album Gran Turismo in full.^[9] After initial hesitation, the band decided to accept the offer "as it felt like a good way of tearing us out of our strange new everyday life," according to Persson.^[10] Peter Svensson declined to participate, although he had no objection to the band touring without him. They recruited singer-songwriter Oskar Humlebo to fill in for Svensson, and asked their agent to seek more shows for them to play.^[9] Ultimately, the band made their live comeback with shows in Lund and Copenhagen ahead of Hultsfred, before playing in Poland, Finland, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan, with a scheduled concert in Israel cancelled by the promoter.^[11] Most of these shows involved performing Gran Turismo in full, followed by an assortment of hits from their other albums.

Still with Humlebo in place of Svensson, the band played career-spanning sets when touring resumed during late 2013 with shows in Japan, China and Russia, followed by more dates in 2015 which took them to South Korea, Europe and Latin America. In interviews promoting her 2014 solo album Animal Heart, Persson suggested that the success of their most recent live dates opened the possibility for future Cardigans recordings, though there were no firm plans. "It's really fun to do greatest hits things, since there's nothing else, but I think if we continue having this much fun we would like to make another record, because we like to create new things," said Persson.^[12] The band's only scheduled show for 2016 was at Qstock (Oulu, Finland) on 29 July.^[13] In 2017, they performed in Stockholm, in Turku, and at the Yammatovo 3 festival in Croatia.

In June 2018, the band announced their only live shows of the year: a four-date UK tour in December to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gran Turismo in which they would perform the album in full again.^[14] In an interview to promote the tour, Persson stated, "There won't be any more Cardigans records, I'm pretty sure. But we'll keep doing little tours and shows as long as it's fun, as long as we can do it well and feel that it's something that's current to us."^[15]

In May 2023, Nina Persson confirmed Peter Svensson would never rejoin the band, and that as a result there would be no new Cardigans albums. The idea of making new music without Svensson was overruled too.^[16] The band keeps on touring sporadically.^[17]