As the Cardigans go back on the road, their frontwoman will answer your questions on her remarkably varied career
After more than 30 years of melodious guitar pop, the Cardigans are returning to the stage – and their frontwoman Nina Persson will be joining us to answer your questions.
The Swedish band instantly marked themselves out from the rest of both pop and alternative music when they broke through in 1995 with their album Life: sophisticated lounge-pop informed by bossa nova and disco (including sprightly Black Sabbath cover versions) was the very opposite of boorish Britpop or rave culture, and Persson’s vocals – girlish yet faintly careworn – carried so much drama within them.
Third album First Band on the Moon contained their first true hit, Lovefool, which reached No 2 in the UK after framing Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes’ romance as Romeo and Juliet in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaptation – and has endured, now closing in on its billionth play on Spotify.
Their next album, 1998’s Gran Turismo, was just as sophisticated but switched into a darker-hued digital palette, as on singles My Favourite Game and Erase/Rewind. Shortly after, Persson duetted with Tom Jones on a cover of Talking Heads’ Burning Down the House, which was included on his mega-selling Reload album. Then there was another tonal switch, to lamplit folk-rock and brawny Americana on 2003’s Long Gone Before Daylight; and another on 2005’s Super Extra Gravity, full of bright pop-rock.
