Songoftheday 9/5/20 - Dear I fear we're facing a problem, you love me no longer I know and maybe there is nothing that I can do...

 

 

"Lovefool" - The Cardigans

from the albums First Band On The Moon and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: Music From The Motion Picture (both 1996) 

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #2 (eight weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 38

Today's song of the day comes from the Swedish indie-pop band the Cardigans, who came together in the southern city of Jönköping in the early 1990s. Featuring lead singer Nina Persson, the band led by guitarist Peter Svensson and bass player Magnus Svenningson locally released their debut album Emmerdale in 1994, where it reached the top-40 on the sales chart there at #29. With that success, the band, including keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and drummer Bengt Lagerberg released their sophomore effort a year later, but this time internationally, and Life included some of the tracks from their debut. Emmerdale cut "Sick and Tired" gave them their first minor chart hit at #96. That was followed by new song "Carnival", which became their first British top-40 hit at #35. The band re-released "Sick And Tired", which also climbed into the top-40 at #34, followed by a re-release of their first Swedish single, "Rise and Shine", which scored a hat-trick of UK top-40 hits at #29. The Life album hit the top-20 in Sweden, and made it to #51 on the British albums sales list. 

In 1996, the Cardigans returned with their third record, First Band on The Moon. The lead single would be the perky and bubbly "Lovefool". Written by Svensson and Persson, the song sounded retro and fresh at the same time, and reached #21 in the UK and surprisingly was their first single to chart in their homeland at #15. Soon director Baz Luhrman was knocking on their door to use the song in his new film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, including it in the soundtrack and upon the success of the movie, promoting the song to radio as the second "promo single" after Garbage's "#1 Crush", where it became a massive success here in the States...

Since "Lovefool" wasn't released in the U.S. as a commerically available "single", the song wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the track got so much love at mainstream radio that it spent two months in the runner-up position on the airplay component of that tally starting in March of 1997, helping to eventually convince the trade periodical to revise their requiements by the end of the following year. The song spent six weeks at #6 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio format chart, while peaking at #23 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list. The record even crossed over to rock radio, reaching #9 on the Alternative Rock chart. The remixes of the song, done by Todd Terry, helped the song go to #5 on the Dance Club Play list as well.  Internationally, the song topped the charts in New Zealand for two weeks, and made the top ten in the UK (#2), Canada (#3), Hungary (#5), Germany (#6), and Austria (#7). It also got into the top-40 in Australia (#11), Ireland (#13), Belgium (#16F/#30W), the Netherlands (#21), Switzerland (#22), and France (#31).

Another song from the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, a remake of "Young Hearts Run Free" from American singer Kym Mazelle, climbed into the top-40 in Australia (#11), New Zealand (#16), the UK (#20), and France (#29), The "Love Theme" from the film, "Kissing You" from British singer Des'ree, got to #17 in Australia. Lastly, the redo of Rozalla's "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" from Quindon Tarver was used by Luhrman later that year for his own concoction "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", which topped the British chart and nearly made the top-40 in America at #45. The Romeo + Juliet soundtrack spent three weeks at #2 on the Billboard 200 albums sales chart, and was so popular it spawned a "volume two" of songs from the film, which also made the top-40 there at #27. 

As for the Cardigans, the second single "Been It" released before the R+J success stalled at #56 in the UK, while the post-boom release "Your New Cuckoo" (actually a better song anyway) returned the band to the British top-40 at #35. The First Band On The Moon album was able to sell enough in the U.S. to place at #35 on the Billboard 200, going on to sell over a million copies, while climbing to #2 in their native Sweden and #18 in the UK. 

The group returned in 1998 with their next release, Gran Turismo, which landed them a #1 album in Sweden, and a top ten placing in the UK at #8. In America, where the lead single "My Favorite Game" reached #16 on the Alternative Rock chart in Billboard, the set stopped at #151. However in Sweden that song was their first top ten hit at #3. The following year, they teamed up with Welsh pop legend Tom Jones on a remake of the Talking Heads' "Burning Down The House" from his Reload album, which hit #2 in Sweden, #7 in the UK, and #8 in Australia. In 2003, the Cardigans came back with their fifth record, the more nuanced Long Gone Before Daylight, which scored a pair of Swedish top ten hits with "For What It's Worth" and "You're The Storm", with the former being their most recent British top-40 hit at #31. The album went to #1 in Sweden, as did their next and most recent set, Super Extra Gravity in 2005. The extravagantly-titled "I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need To Be Nicer" landed at #3 in Sweden, while being a minor British hit at #59. After a break, the band started to tour again though amicably without Svensson, but so far no new music has come from them. Persson has released two solo album as "A Camp", with the self-titled first topping the Swedish chart and almost making the British top-40 with "I Can Buy You" in 2001. 

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the Cardigans performing "Lovefool" live on German TV in 1996...

Here's the "Tee's Mix" from Todd Teddy that made the song hit the top-5 on the dance chart...

Back to the band on Conan O'Brien in 1997...

And in concert in London in 1996...

and finally at the Pinkpop Festival in 2003...

Up tomorrow: Oversized rapper is head honcho in his final big hit.