Albums are graded on a five-point scale of "Awful-Eh-Good-Great-Classic". I'm highly biased, so don't take it too seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

The Cardigans

[#] Gran Turismo (1998)

Sonically repressed.

Reviewed March 18, 2024

In 1999, the most unlikely of songs—the lead single to the darker, edgier follow-up to a pop rock record from a group of Swedes calling themselves the Cardigans—fell into the laps of American PS1 racing game fans (hello) when "My Favourite Game" became the theme to Gran Turismo 2. Female-fronted bands and electronically-adorned rock music were both coming into big fashion in the 90s (Nina Persson isn't nearly as sultry as Shirley Manson though, so do put the Garbage comparisons aside), and the fittingly-named Gran Turismo (as far as I can tell, no relation to the game) is both snug in that vein and absolutely worth remembering for more than "Game" and its bizarrely violent video. Was this the album that earned them that funky collab with Tom Jones? Well earned.

I'll be honest, not a lot of albums have this one's sonic profile. The dry as a bone, digitally-manipulated backdrop of fuzzy basses and drums both acoustic and looped should be heavy on paper, but wind up strange and bodyless—anti-loud, if you can imagine. Drums come through the walls, not through your speakers, crunchy riffs feel distant, and the feedback squelches sound small. It all perfectly matches Persson's neurotic, frankly repressed vocal presence, as she struggles with indecision on "Erase/Rewind", one-too-many new beginnings on "Starter", and the dread of eternally uncontrollable emotions jeopardizing each one on "Hanging Around", to name a few highlights. Gran Turismo is all very sweet at its core, I promise—and love might not save the world, Nina, but it sure does create a neat-as-hell juxtaposition of sounds.