Super Extra Gravity [Extra tracks, Import]

Cardigans | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 27, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Import
• Label: Universal Int'l
• ASIN: B000B8I99K
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,092 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Losing a Friend

2. Godspell

3. Drip Drop Teardrop

4. Overload

5. I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer

6. Don't Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)

7. Little Black Cloud

8. In the Round

9. Holy Love

10. Good Morning Joan

11. And Then You Kissed Me II

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sweden's the Cardigans broke big in America in 1996 with First Band on the Moon and the hit "Lovefool." A slippery, slick pop tune, the song was also unmistakably twisted, as vocalist Nina Persson described a desperate, submissive affair in honey-flecked tones and happy-day hooks. The dichotomy was a neat little joke that went right over a lot of merrily nodding heads. A decade later on Super Extra Gravity, the band still likes to play with expectations of what a pop band is supposed to be. But while the melodic camouflage for Persson's dour lyrics once made for an effective disguise, Gravity struggles to maintain the illusion. The music here is self-consciously ambitious, constantly reshuffling and losing its momentum, leaving Persson in charge of connecting each song's too-disparate parts. It's a task for which her Chrissie-Hynde-meets-Harriet-Wheeler voice is not well-suited. "Drip Drop Teardrop," for instance, needs either a belter to accentuate the song's jagged edges or a chanteuse to smooth it out, and Persson can do neither. There are pieces of songs that still rope us in. The chorus of "Little Black Cloud," for instance, generates an exuberant energy that matches Persson's tale of a girl spinning and dancing her way toward a vaguely sinister conclusion, while "In the Round" mines an appealingly sparse and slow guitar drawl. However, the pieces don't add up to a convincing whole, and while this album is never quite boring, Gravity tries a bit too hard and ends up an interesting misfire. --Matthew Cooke

Product Description

International pressing. 'Super Extra Gravity' was produced by Tore Johansson who worked with Franz Ferdinand & previously with The Cardigans on 'Gran Turismo'. Aside from the single 'I Need Some Fine Wine...', other highlights include the sparse album opener 'Losing A Friend', 'In The Round', 'Good Morning Joan' featuring a wall of guitars and the sad and beautiful 'Don't Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)'. Every listen of the new record reveals another gem - The Cardigans have succeeded in their aim: to make a beautifully deranged album that never ceases to surprise the listener. 11 tracks in all. Universal. 2005.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cardigans always give you something different, December 5, 2005

By 

J. Gosselin "jabsco" (New Haven, Connecticut USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Super Extra Gravity (Audio CD)

I've been a Cardigans fan since their 1995 album "Life". Every album this band puts out is quite different from the others; and Super Extra Gravity continues this tradition. It doesn't sound like any other Cardigans record.
If you're already a Cardigans fan I can explain Super Extra Gravity like this...
It rocks harder than Long Gone Before Daylight.
It doesn't rock as hard as Gran Turismo.
It's nowhere near as poppy as Emmerdale, Life, or First Band on the Moon.
If what I just wrote makes no sense to you...
If you're a new Cardigans fan I would recommend you buy their 1995 album "Life" first. If you like it - move onto "First Band on the Moon" and proceed chronologically; going back for 1994's "Emmerdale" last. In my opinion getting the Cardigans CDs in this order lets you truly experience the growth of this band. Very cool.
The Cardigans continue to develop as a band; and with each new record they take their fans in a completely new direction. That's one of their best qualities; and why Super Extra Gravity is an excellent record. In my opinion it's not their best; but it is very good.
Favorite tracks are "I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer" and "Godspell".

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the album I've been waiting for., November 6, 2005

By 

C. Lynch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Super Extra Gravity (Audio CD)

I've never written a review before for a cd, but felt compelled as the latest work from The Cardigans struck me as something great and I feared they would be spoken of badly or misinterpreted by someone, hindering another from experiencing this revolution in music. So in an attempt to rescue the underdog-let me bring this album into the light and assure you that you're making a wise choice in considering this cd.

I've been a Cardigans fan for nearly as long as they've been around, which is close to a decade. Their music seems to move with the general feeling of the musically inclined at that point and time, even so far as initiating the next wave of emotion. When I was younger and needed a different sound from everything so commercial that was being spoon fed to us, I was given Life, their second album. As I grew up, it seemed their music transitioned as well rather than recreating itself and becoming diluted. Life was such an innocently tainted album with a hush of warm anger that you would be long basking in it's light before you felt sly schemes already manifesting themselves in your mind and disrupted your organized view of love and friendship. For the Cardigans, their inspiration was found in hard rock, death metal groups and a desire to go against everything their small lives had led them to up until their converging, so I wasn't as surprised when they began inching toward the darkness with covers of black sabbath and anthems against love.

It had been years since Gran Turismo when I learned they'd released Long Gone Before Daylight. I was skeptical because I didn't find myself relating to them as much when Gran Turismo came out, and sensed that maybe as an artist, they we're more a tool for commercialism rather than the love of music. But trusting them, I bought the cd and soon it took the reigns of my emotions that I'd unsuccessfully controlled, and steered me into a direction that I almost wasn't sure that I was allowed to feel. Giving her failed love a physical manifestation (And then he kissed me) by solemly singing of how this emotion beat her and left her bruised evokes an understanding of how relationships, in their endings, are powerful enough to seemingly affect you in that manner. It was perfectly calm yet deeply upset, the antithesis of what's been playing and produced, and exactly what I needed to hear . It felt like emotions could be expressed by just listening to that album and that I understood what was being expressed.

So, much to my surprise, Super Extra Gravity was right around the corner to being released, because apparently LGBD was not released in the US until a year after it had come out in Europe.
Putting that cd in drew so much anticipation from me and I knew that their opening chords were the start of something great. The first track is a collection of chaos, timing, depth and intelligence that sets you up for the rest of the album. Godspeed, the next track, is one of my favorite songs. I've read that it's about the town they are from, which is engrossed in the christian religion. The song- a declaration of rebellion and opened eyes to their dogma. The following songs are amazing without trying to be and that's what I love about them. Each one breaking the mold of traditional song structure, allowing an obsessive love over a song to develop from something as obscure as the last chords strummed not once throughout the entire song, but used to seal the end of a track. They're not wrapped in the production so much that it begins to lose it's original spark, yet not so fearful of being understood that they short change themselves.

This album is angrier and louder than LGBD, and in a lot of ways, resembles the same process we take in getting over a relationship in that LGBD was a quiet, hurtful rage that spurned Super Extra Gravity into orbit as a way of healing. Super Extra Gravity was the perfect transition from LGBD and my faith in The Cardigans as true musicians has deepened even further. I would love one day to hear them go back to their breezy-afternoon-cocktail-lounge roots as a testimony that they're who they've always been, only showing the human quality of another emotion.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars incredible album, November 2, 2005

By 

Brad - See all my reviews

This review is from: Super Extra Gravity (Audio CD)

super extra gravity is the cardigans best work since gran turismo, which is just ridiculous. they've dropped the good (but pretty annoying) fluffy pop sound and have recorded an almost perfect rock and roll album. rock and roll albums are hard to come by nowadays. rock, yes, rock and roll, no. check out little black cloud, in the round, good morning joan (for a true schooling in song structure/writing), godspell, hell every song is just so good. i see people complaining about the obscenity of some of these songs. that's ridiculous. i'm sorry they offend your narrow view of what you find acceptable, but that's what good music does. offends. i have given this 4 stars because 5 stars are saved for truely perfect albums, but if there was a 4 3/4 stars, i would give it that.