Life

by

The Cardigans

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If I could give an album more than five stars, Life would be the first candidate to receive it.

This CD is just brimming with an innocent joy that is as infectious as it is melodically brilliant. Just try to resist tapping your toes to "Carnival" or "Tomorrow", and it's hard to quell the urge to sing along with the delightful chorus of "Daddy's Car".

This is one of very few great pop albums. The atmosphere of the album is great, but don't take this to mean that the musicians aren't talented: one only needs to hear "Sick & Tired" for some great guitar work. A listen to "Tomorrow" will garner you with some of the best drum work of a band today. And on "Carnival", lead singer Nina's Persson's voice is taken to a whole new level of feeling, apart from her normal whisper.

This album is sheer genius. Credit also goes to the Cardigans for "Our Space" a trippy, and thoughtful song that revels in Nina's minimalist voice. The kitsch of "Gordon's Gardenparty" is wonderfully shameless.

DEFINITELY worth your time and money.

i can't understand the different song line ups. the first "life" i bought a very long time ago was a cassette that had 11 songs. the flow of the album is so perfect i loved it so much i overplayed it and had my cassette player eat it. so i bought the cd and there's another different song line up (gasp!) and later would i find out that it's the UK Version of "life" which had additional songs from the earlier album "emmerdale" including a different take on Rise & Shine (which is nice) and ommitted Pikebubbles, Sunday Circus Song and Closing Time. and now this - the minty fresh release of "life". it ommitted Traveling with Charley, replaced the new version of Rise & Shine with the old version and added more songs from "emmerdale" (i really don't think that Our Space fits right in "life" kinda wrecks the happy-go-lucky mood) the first version of "life" IMHO is still superior and i'm aware, as well as the band do, that the minty fresh version acts as some kind of a compilation between the cardigans' first two albums, if you really want to experience the real "life" please do check out the one that starts with carnival and ends with closing time, me thinks it's some kind of a concept album, a very happy one. the songs from "emmerdale" wrecked the happy mood, as we all know "emmerdale's" not that happy at all.