60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Lovefool”—The Cardigans

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Listen as Rob lets us in on his dream of being the guy that plays piano at a party and serenades all the ladies. And if that isn’t enough for you, stay as he looks back at the 1996 film ‘Romeo + Juliet’ and the Swedish rock band the Cardigans while celebrating their hit “Lovefool.” SIGNED BOOKPLATE COPIES are available for preorder via Premiere Collectibles: https://premierecollectibles.com/harvilla Don’t forget to get your tickets to the '60 Songs' live show on November 16! Get your tickets here: https://teragramballroom.com/tm-event/the-ringer-presents-60-songs-that-explain-the-90s-x-bandsplain-live/ Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Maura Johnston Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to The Wedding Scammer on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, a couple quick announcements. My book, also called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, will be released on Tuesday, November 14th. It is available for pre-order now. If you would like a signed copy, we have partnered with Premier Collectibles to offer signed bookplate copies of the book. That link will be available in the show notes. and I will also put it up on Twitter where my handle is simply at Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-A.

Also, 60 songs that explain the 90s is doing a live podcast event in Los Angeles, California on Thursday, November 16th at 8 p.m. at the Teragram Ballroom. Tickets are available now at the venue's website. That's T-E-R-A-G-M ballroom.com. I will be joined by your best friend in mine,

Yassi Salick, host of Bansplain and 24 question party people, and our special guest Chris Ryan, co-host of The Watch. Please join us at the TerraGram Ballroom in L.A. on Thursday, November 16th. Thanks a lot. I bought the sheet music for like $5 at Camelot Records in the mall because I imagined myself as,

of the sort of sweet dude who'd saunter into your house party and immediately I'd stride on over to the piano. You have a piano. There's a piano at this house party and unprompted I'd just bust this song out. Triggering the amazement and delight and eternal respect and paralyzing lust of everyone in attendance. So first off, all the chicks at this party just faint, right? Instantly, just... The chicks all collapse onto various couches, sliding slowly down the walls, melting onto the floor like the clocks in that melting clock painting. A mass fainting episode amongst the chicks.

excuse me the ladies the ladies are overcome never in their lives have the ladies beheld such a virile and yet sensitive and non-threatening specimen of manhood such as myself as i hold court at your piano that you have throwing down the dulcet and yet virile when i play it tones of the intro to the song Kissing You by Desray. Silence in the room. Otherwise, as this occurs, nobody speaks, nobody moves, nobody dares breathe as I kick out this jam. The split second before I hit that first chord, somebody had thrown a red solo cup full of beer across the room. Not at me, certainly. And now even this cup of beer is hanging there.

Frozen. Suspended gracefully in midair. The individual droplets of natural ice glistening in the frisculating dusk light. Who is he? It's just me. What is this sumptuous

and rapturing? Rob, please stop using the word virile music. It's kissing you by Desre. How did he ever learn to play such beautiful music? She, music's like five bucks. A camelot, man. Don't speak. Just listen. Just luxuriate. Dig this bass note, man. I'd like you to know that I particularly excelled at that bass note. I did an excellent job playing that bass note. It's a low D. FYI. The note is a startling,

electrifying, sonically and dramatically resonant, overwhelmingly passionate piano note the way I played it, just bong. The chicks who had all just roused themselves from their collective fainting spell, the chicks all faint again upon the striking of the D. A lone spotlight now bathes my head and celestial light

or the celestial light bathes the Cleveland Indian hat on my head. I got no style. Sorry, as I sink deeper into the really truly super dope 1996 Desrey piano ballad kissing you. How many of these enraptured fainting chicks do you suppose I can fit into my two-door in 1985, Chrysler-Liberin? Did their hearts love till now?

Forswear it, sight, for they ne'er saw true beauty till this night. And that's his first. far as I ever got. I excelled at playing those last three chords. Also, boo, boo, boo, excellent chord playing by me. I could play just that much of this song, haltingly, on my parents' piano in our house with no one watching or listening ever. I played just that part, that introduction a lot. But it vexed me once the vocals kicked in, right? No way am I going to try to sing like Des Re, even as a joke.

But so am I supposed to also play the melody line on the piano, along with the chords and the D and whatnot? I can't handle all that. Also, looking ahead to the solo, no way is this happening. I mean, who do you think I am? Liberace. I don't think so. Let's stick with the first 30 seconds of kissing you by Desrey, shall we?

Let's stretch those 30 seconds or so out. to four hours or so. Let's allow those fumbling when I play them chords to resonate. Let's really explore the studio space of my parents otherwise unoccupied living room. Desire, all right, where do we start with Desire? Do you think Desray will mind if we start with not Desire? This song kick me off, wishing well, the kiss and tell.

This song kicks so much ass, it's unbelievable. Wishing Well by the artist then known as Terrence Trent Darby from his 1987 debut album, Introducing the Hard Line, according to Terrence Trent Darby. Wishing Well is one of the greatest pop songs ever born. Is that hyperbole? Of course it's hyperbole. Too bad.

Listen to this chorus. This is one of the raddest choruses to a pop song ever born, and that is for sure not hyperbole. Where's the sheet music to this action? I'd pay $10 for this shit. I'm going to show up at your house party with an 80s Cassio keyboard and rock the house with one finger.

Oh ha ha. Oh ha ha. I played a lot of Mike Tyson's punchout as a kid on the original Nintendo. The game then known as Mike Tyson's Punchout. And when you fight. Bald Bull. He's Turkish. And when Bald Bull beats you in Mike Tyson's punch out, Bald Bull gets right up in your face on screen and laughs at you in this infuriating

syncopated pattern. And I always thought it'd be cooler if Bald Bull laughed at you to the exact rhythm of the chorus to wishing well. I was such a weird kid. Man, there's no getting around it. He's going to change his name in a few years, but let's take Terrence Trent Darby as we first encountered him in 87. For like 35 years, I've had this vivid memory of this three second clip from the wishing well video where he does the thing where you're singing and you kick your microphone stand straight down and you do a full spin and then do the splits and then rise back up out of the splits and yank the still falling microphone stand back up towards you with your foot. and grab the mic the split second before you start singing again. You know that move? Like an ultra-badass James Brown or Prince type move? All the chicks faint for real when you do that move.

I can clearly picture Terrence doing that move in the Wishing Well video, except he technically doesn't. He does suavely bat around his mic stand with his foot in an ultra rock star sort of way. And he does do the splits, etc. but not at the same time. Nonetheless, fantastic video, fantastic song, zero hyperbole, and I'd let Bald Bull kick my ass ten times a day

if he laughed at me like this. Phenomenal. Yeah, so introducing the hard line, according to Terrence Trent Darby, is one of the best albums of 1987. And like, appetite for destruction, sign of the times,

Michael Jackson's bad, Fleetwood Max Tango in the Night, and Death Leopards hysteria, also came out in 1987. So what a killer debut album. This guy's going to be kicking ass for a long time. You want another song from introducing the hardline? Sure you do. You want sign your name. Trust me. And starting now, things get weird. Intrigingly so. Terrence is quite the shit talker, I have to say, press-wise. In this self-agrandi. sense. Famously, infamously, he announces that introducing the hardline is the most monumental album since Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, The Beatles album. I don't know about that,

but I don't believe that John, Paul, George, or Ringo could do the splits. I just Google, did the Beatles ever do the splits? It didn't work. I'll work on that. Terrence compares himself to the Beatles, to Michael Jackson, to Madonna. He self-aggrandizes. He was born in Manhattan. He won a Golden Gloves lightweight championship in Florida. He joined the army. He ended up in London. And consequently, he talked his shit in an affected English accent.

In 2007, talking to the great critic and author Miles Marshall Lewis for the believer, formerly Terrence says that L.L. Cool J was a formative influence, swagger-wise. Quote, besides my Muhammad Ali schstick, which I leaned on, when I first came through. Actually, a lot of what I was doing was L.L. I took some of L.L.'s persona because I was so moved by the lovable arrogance

of his image. I deliberately cultivated this. I'm arrogant. So fucking what? If you were young and magnificent and gifted like me, you would be too. And still, I'm a lovable rogue. End quote. The Lovable Rogue's

second album comes out in 1989 and is called Neither Fish nor Flesh Parentheses, a soundtrack of love, faith, hope, and destruction. Uh-oh. Critics didn't care for it. Critics found it pretentious.

Critics found Terence's arrogance less lovable. But too bad. Terence digs this record enough for everybody. Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. And this guy does all the cooking. Per Wikipedia,

In the liner notes, to neither fish nor flesh, parentheses, a soundtrack of love, faith, hope, and destruction. Terence Trent Darby, and a few more of his aliases, including the Incredible E.G. O'Reilly and Eckneret Teneret, Yibrud. That's Terence Trent Darby backwards. Our guy is formally credited with vocals, all arrangements, guitars on tracks 1, 2, and 6 through 8, percussion on tracks 2 through 6, 8 through 10 and 12. Various sound effects, 2, 3, 7, and 9. Keyboards, 3, 4, and 7 through 9.

Organ, 3 and 9. Citar, 3, symbols 3, timpony 3, scratching, 3. Acoustic piano, 4, 7, and 9. Drums, 4, 6 through 9, and 11. Obviously, I regret doing this, but it's too late to stop now. Vibrophone 4, handclaps, 5, handclaps.

Clavonet, 6, 8, and 10. Tambourine 8, 10, and 11. Fender Rhodes 9 and 1, Marimba, 9, and finally, Kazoo, 10. Track 10 is called You Will Pay Tomorrow. Here's our guy,

singing and playing a bunch of shit, including Kazoo. The kazoo really ties the room together, sonically, there. I used to rather be dead than humble, but now I'd rather be dead than proud. That's a great line.

Sheesh. Don't let the kazoo. overshadow that line. Neither fish nor flesh, et cetera, bricks commercially and critically. Terence blames his label in part for their wholesale rejection of the record, which is one reason he revolts and changes his name to Sananda Mitrea. That's how he appears unlike streaming services now under the name Sananda Mitrea, even if you search for Terence Trent Darby, which you very well might, given that this dude has multiple albums with the full name Terrence Trent Darby in the album title, including 1995's Terrence Trent Darby's

Vibrator. Wow. Track two off vibrator is called Supermodel sandwich. Wow. The genius annotation of that line is thorough. That's all I have to say about that. If you don't know what if you're not a girl, I'll never let you touch my pearl means, genius has got you covered.

Okay. Well, for sure, let's move on. Just kidding. Track 10 off Vibrator is called Supermodel Sandwich with Cheese. Once again, genius is happy to clue you in. If you find best, best, best of all, your buy, bye, buy to be a little oblique. Wow. Okay. This record, Terence Trent Darby's Vibrator, is a modest success. But so far as the 90s go, the artist henceforth to be known as Sananda Mitrea Peaks, chart-wise and critic-wise, with his 1992 album, Symphony or Damn. I heard this song on alt-rock radio quite a bit, and I was always quite pleased to hear it, in part because we've got a dark horse candidate here for dirtiest rock song of the 90s. Ladies and gentlemen, this one's called She Kissed Me. Don't overthink it. I don't have time to look this one up on genius,

but I have a few theories about she kissed me there the way no other girl has kissed me there. Sheesh. Wow. But Symphony or Damn is best known for giving Sananda Mitrea his last true pop hit, his last single in the Hot 100.

We have established, in the liner notes to his albums, that this guy generally doesn't need any help, but we're going to get him some help anyway. This song is called Delicate, and it too sounded phenomenal on the radio, and it kicks ass quite suavely. Now you, the listener, are the mic stand, being nudged and caressed and gently kicked and amorously hoisted to and fro. I am fascinated by this dude, Sananda Mitrea. There's a fascinating clip on YouTube where he's on Arsenio Hall in 1993, and he and Arsenio are having a quite intense

conversation about whether black male pop superstars in the prince and Michael Jackson vein need to emasculate themselves to achieve superstardom. Arsidio did great interviews. Golden Era for late night talk shows, the 90s. Sananda has put out more than a dozen albums now. Many of those double or triple albums, including a 2015 double album called The Rise of the Zugibrian time lords. I apologize to the Zubrijan time lords. I apologize to the Zubribeian time. Time Lords, if I am mispronouncing Zugibrian. Please don't go back in time to when I was eight years old

and kick my ass. Zugibrian, time lords. Give that a listen sometimes. But for now, let's get another cook in the kitchen because this song, Delicate is, in fact, a lovely and mesmerizing duet with a London-born R&B singer named Desre.

Ah, yes, Desire. Thank you for your patience, Desrey. She was born Desiree, annette weeks in south London but just Desiree will do she wanted a two-syllable name and she's earned the right to be mononymous and anyway a rose

by any other name would smell as sweet great song Desire's parents are both from the West Indies she spent a lot of time in Barbados as a kid she listened to Calypso she listened to reggae she loves Stevie Wonder she loved Bob Marley

she loved Gladys Knight and the Pips she started out a little shy as a performer which gave her lots of alone time to write songs, which served her well when, despite her shyness, she set out to be a pop star and released her first album called Mind Adventures in 1992. This is probably not the first Desrey song you'd think of, but it sets the stage for probably the first Desire song you'd think of. Show me your company. Come and tell me who you be.

and take things easy. I'll be loose, I'll be carefree. This song is called Feel So High. Desire co-wrote it, and it's her debut single and first modest hit, starting in the UK, but reverberating outward. Two things strike me immediately

about Desire's voice, the depth of it, the low end, the richness, the gospel reverberation. But then there's also this lightness, this buoyancy, this fundamental joy. She sings the word carefree with great intensity of feeling, but she also sounds carefree.

It is quite challenging, in both an artistic and purely physical sense, to convey heaviness and lightness simultaneously. Her voice is a gilded beach ball. Her voice will keep you grounded and earthbound and spiritually rooted, if that is what you require. her voice can do the exact physical opposite if you'd prefer that instead. All right, I dig Desire's debut album, Mind Adventures quite a bit. Rad ballads, much sumptuousness, an old soul, but with a childlike glee to her. Yes, yes, yes. But I am impatient.

And I need to hear this person. Sing the words, bad, bold, wiser, hard, tough, and stronger as soon as possible. So if you're me and you hear this chorus, instantly you just think VH1, the kinder, gentler music video channel, VH1. Less Axel Rose, more bonny rate. Fantastic. If you're me and you hear this chorus, instantly a circa 1994 boxy ass not at all flat screen television that weighs 800 pounds just appears in your house just materializes in the room you're sitting in and your floorboards are groaning and VH1 is on and it's the video for Desrey's Divine 1994 top five pop hit you got to be from her 1994 album I ain't moving you know it you love it

You know the black and white video where her outfit keeps shifting from black to white and back. And there's four of her dancing. And according to VH1's beloved trivia show pop-up video, during the You Gotta Be chorus, Desire's dance moves in sign language spell out, worry nothing, Abraham. Any person can finish the cracker. Really makes you think. Yeah, that video. Perhaps, if you're like me, you also hear this song and think of Conan

O'Brien. You think of the early Conan gag where his sidekick Andy Richter did a full, heartwarming, remarkably wholesome parody of the You Gotta Be video. Is it a parody? There's no mocking element. There's no real joke necessarily. It's just a You Gotta Be video, but now Andy Richter's doing it. It's awesome. It's life affirming. Andy fully committed to the choreography. Conan's the best, but 90s Conan is extra the best, you know? Golden Era. But shit, I'm impatient again, and now I got to hear Desrey sing the words cool, calm, and stay together as soon as possible. Sheesh. She sings the words cool and calm like she is, in fact, the coolest and calmest human being that ever walked the earth. In the gloomiest, snarkiest depths of the 1990s, at the zenith of our cynical

sarcastic, eye-rolling, mirthless, faithless, loveless, maximum stereotype, alternatives. Desire sang the words, love will save the day. And everyone was like, you know what, she's right. He totally will. And then it did. And that's the story of how love saved the day. Remember when we went to that party and that weird, gawky, tall dude who talked to himself all the time, showed up and he tried to play piano, but he sucked and all the chicks laughed at him and he got kicked out. Remember the song he was trying to play? This is that song, Kissing You by Desrey. Matter of fact, I want you to imagine you're at another party. A fancier party. A party at the Capulet Mansion. If you want, you can imagine you're on ecstasy.

Your friend Mercutio gave you ecstasy. The ecstasy is optional. The ecstasy is not canon necessarily. You're in the bathroom at the Capulet Mansion and there's a fish tank in the bathroom. The fish tank ain't canon. Who put a fish tank in the bathroom? That's unsanitary. Those poor fish. The fish are like, dude, get us out of here. This is gross.

You would not believe what goes on in here. But wait. Soft. What light from yonder bathroom breaks? Who's that? Peering at you adorably from the other. side of the fish tank. It's your true love. Is your true love in the same bathroom? Is your true love in a different bathroom, but these two bathrooms somehow share a fish tank? Who is responsible for the interior

design of the Capulet Mansion? But shh, listen, that's it. That's the song. And you fall in love, because when Desray bids you fall in love, you fall in love. You smooch a little, you banter. You find out you're from warring families and your love is illicit and will tear your families apart, get a bunch of people killed, yourself included. Tough break. Doesn't matter. You smooch some more. You smooch on a balcony. You smooch in a pool. You say a bunch of flowery shit to each other. You part. It would be such sweet sorrow. Next day you send your nanny out to your true love to assess your true love's vibe and your true love. And this is a great sign. for your budding romance.

Your true love tells your nanny to tell you to do the following. Bid her to come to confession this afternoon. And there she shall at Friar Lawrence's cell be shrived. Shrived means to confess, to have your confession heard, to be given penance by a priest. It means one of those, or all of those.

I had to look it up. In high school, I kept strategically bouncing between Honors English and Not. honors English to avoid Shakespeare. Okay, sorry, what else is going to happen? A confession. What else? What else? And then you get married and love saves the day.

My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 107th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, and this week we are discussing Love Fool. By the great Swedish pop band The Cardigans. From their 1996 album, First Band on the Moon, and also from the 1996 soundtrack to Romeo and Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Daines in the titular roles.

This was my favorite movie when I was 18. Top five movies in the 90s, no order. Pulp Fiction, Gross Point Blank, Army of Darkness, well, hello, Mr. Fancy Pants, being John Malkovich and Bazelerman's Romeo and, and Juliet. Top three songs on the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. No order.

Love Fool. Kissing you. And what's the other one? What's the other one? Right. Talk show host by Radiohead. I probably tried to play that on guitar poorly at a party at some point to impress some chicks.

Booboo. And I probably got kicked out of that party also. All right. let's not keep the cardigans waiting around much longer, but let me quickly ask, what do you suppose the deal is with Sweden? I suppose we do need to start with Abba with, oh, why not take a chance on me? A personal favorite of mine from Abba's fifth studio album from 1977 called Abba Colin the album, which is not to be confused with their third studio album from 1975, called Sim. simply Abba. That's the record with Mamma Mia on it. That is confusing. I used to walk around singing,

take a chance on me to myself, but going, do do do do, do take the pants off me. That's immature. This is back when nobody would talk to me as opposed to now. Let's not bite off more than we can chew Abba wise. We ain't got the bandwidth for Abba. Quite the wormhole, Abba. Let me just say this. The Spin Alternative Record Guide put out by Spin Magazine in 1995, edited by Eric Wisebard and Craig

Marks, an encyclopedia of every important, quote-unquote, alternative artist, plus the top 10 alternative albums. This is the Bible for rock critics of my generation. This book is biblical in scope and

influence. You want to know how about that life I am. rock critic wise the microphone i am speaking into right now is propped up in part on my copy of the spin alternative record guide i'm sitting at my desk the mic stand is too low so i got it sitting on a couple giant books including my copy of the spin alternative record guide you want to hear it hold on listen to that that is a smr for rock crick critics. Anyways, this book is arranged alphabetically and the first entry is Abba. And this is my theory. That quirk of language, you pick up a deified encyclopedia of alternative music and the first entry is Aba. That laid the groundwork for a generation of rock critics, slowly realizing that pop music could be alternative music. That's my theory. I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Don't worry. Instead, I'm going to talk about rock set. We ain't got the bandwidth to talk much about Roxette. We ain't got the bandwidth to talk much about Roxette. either, but they sure do kick-ass

the super Swedish co-ed pop duo rock set, don't they? It must have been love. From the soundtrack to the 1990 rom-com Pretty Woman, heard of it? You know my favorite thing about co-ed blockbuster Swedish pop groups when the dude sings?

Just a little bit. The dudes don't sing very often in co-ed blockbuster Swedish pop groups, ideally, but every so often you need just a brief flash of gruff counterpoint, don't you? There he is. There's the guy in Roxette. You know the meme of Leonardo DiCaprio sitting on the couch holding a beer in Once

Upon a Time in Hollywood and he's pointing at the TV? That's me whenever one of the dudes in a co-ed blockbuster Swedish pop group sings briefly, ideally. I love Roxette. The dude in Roxette sings most of the look for. from 1988, that song also kicks ass. The dude in Roxack can do more than provide brief

gruff counterpoint. Just to clarify. We got to move on. We got to move on to the rudest song of the 1990s. This song is rude. Wow. Sheesh.

Mind your own business. Lady. Come on. All that she wants. By the extra Swedish quartet Ace of bass. From their 1992 debut album, Happy Nation, the album fudst with and reissued in America as the sign, which sold like nine million copies in America. I got another theory. The Swedish super producer Dennis Pop worked with Ace of Bass. Dennis died of cancer in 1998 at only 35 years old,

but he had a massive influence on Swedish pop songwriters and producers, including one Max Martin, another ace of bass collaborator who himself would ascend to global pop dominance by the end of the 90s, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, on and on and on. Max Martin would teach the world about melodic math, about how the syllables matter more than the words, about how the sounds of the words matter more than the meanings of the words. And that's how you get mega blockbuster hit songs with choruses of Hit Me Baby one more time. And, I never want to hear you say I want it that way

respectively. And my theory is that all that she wants by Ace of Base subtly prepares America for this cognitive lyrical dissonance. Because all that she wants is another baby actually makes perfect sense as a

chorus. It's rude, but it makes sense. But the first time you hear the words, all that she wants is another baby, you do inevitably assume she's talking about a baby, like a miniature human. And then you're picturing a woman running down the street holding like six babies, being like, stop singing about me. Mind your own business. And then the second time you hear the chorus, you're like, oh, baby isn't smooching, et cetera. But that extra baby

cognitive dissonance sticks with you. Your experience with that cognitive dissonance will prove useful later. Until then, you can picture the sign however you want. Is this song about a cult or something? I know that it isn't, but also I'd rather not know if it is.

The Ace of Bass album called the sign sold 9 million copies in America. Dude, as with any decade, any era, the farther we get from the 90s, the more all the hit songs of the 90s blur together, both sonically and

statistically. We lose nuance. We lose our sense of scale. It deteriorates our ability to distinguish between a hit song that helped sell like two million records, respectable, versus a hit song that helped sell nine million records. Ace of bass, bigger than you remember. What is it about this song, the sign that catapults ace of base from the two million plateau to the nine million plateau? I'll tell you, I'll tell you exactly what sells an extra 7 million copies of this record. The vocal harmony on the words without understanding. Boom, 7 million extra records sold. That's all it takes.

That's the magic of pop music. Great harmony on those words. But you know what I really want. I still haven't found what I'm looking for with Ace of Bass. Give me another bonkers hit single. All right. All right, let's try this one. Don't turn around.

All right, this is promising. I got high hopes for the bridge to don't turn around. That's it. That's it. I am pointing. Yes, gruff male counterpoint. Just absolutely stupendous gruff male counterpoint there provided by one of the guys in Ace of Base.

He's rapping gruffly, arguably phenomenal. forget the without understanding harmony. That's how you sell 9 million records in America. Gruff, Swedish rapping, outstanding. I am concerned that this is quite a broad and superficial overview

of only the most spectacular Swedish incursions into American pop music. As a guy speaking into a microphone propped up on his copy of the spin alternative record guide, I cannot abide merely jumping from Abba to Roxette to A-Set to A-Cet

to ace of bass. I am a professional rock critic, which means that I know other professional rock critics. The great critic slash editor slash blogger, et cetera, Mara Johnston. We'll be talking to her later. I reach out to Mara and I say, hey, you want to talk about the cardigans? And she's like, yeah, awesome. I get to talk about Swedish pop. I get to talk about eggstone. where you were I just had to watch. Yes, Eggstone. One word. Ultra cool Swedish pop dudes who debuted in 1990 with a single called Bubble Bed, one word,

and laid the template for the scruffier, wilerier, more omnivorous, more alternative end of the Swedish pop universe. Here regaling us with a graceful and jaunty tune called Wrong Heaven. In 1996, guitarist Patrick Bartas told Billboard magazine, We won't change something around that's not correct English, just for the sake of it. We like using new combinations of words

that haven't been used before. We'd rather be incorrect than use a cliche. End quote. And this chorus is, indeed, not a cliche. The sweeping and ultra-romantic strings, almost mocking this dude's love Lorne angst. That's the good shit right there. The song Wrong Heaven appears on Eggstone's 1992 debut album,

which is called In San Diego, which is, for reasons I can't begin to explain, the most Swedish, the Swedishest album title I've ever heard in my life, in San Diego. That is almost unbearably Swedish. Don't overthink it. All right, I feel a little better. sometimes Swedish pop serves up maximum bombast and sells millions of records and dominates MTV and soundtracks our biggest swooniest rom-coms and sometimes Swedish pop is a wilerer, scruffier, darker, somehow both sweeter and more caustic affair. And very occasionally, you get a Swedish pop band that manages to do pretty much all of that shit simultaneously.

The cardigans form in Zhengshaping, Sweden in 1992. Two umlauts over the O's, both alike in dignity in fair Junshaping, where we lay our scene. The cardigans consist of guitarist

Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Zvenningsen, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars Olaf Johansson, and lead singer Nina Person.

Nina had never sung before, but Peter and Magnus were like, trust us on this. Peter and Magnus both started out as metal dudes. They played in heavy metal bands, as did Max Martin come to think of it, but they get sick of metal. And now they'd like to play in the pop-iest pop band ever born. And the cardigans will devote their lives to proving that pop and metal are quite tonally similar, at least the way they do it. That song's called Rise and Shine, and this one's called Black Letter Day. And here's the whole ball game, really, with Nina Persson, lead singer, the Cardigans.

She sings beautifully and exquisitely and elegantly and delicately, even when she's singing what could totally be Metallica lyrics. James Hetfield totally would have written and barked out a song called Black Letter Day if he'd thought of that title first. James Hetfield got so mad when he heard this song. The first Cardigan's album called Emmerdale comes out in 1994. The album cover is a blurry photo of a dog. It's an extremely 1994 album cover.

I have to say, a blurry photo of a dog perfectly sums up the dominant vibe of alternative rock in 1994. Time for a piano ballad. After all you were perfectly right. The song is called After All, and it sounds like Nina is singing directly into your ear, which means that the T in the word insanity is really going to pop when she sings the word insanity. Is she singing, I'm scaring? close to insanity because if she is James Hetfield is so pissed he didn't think of that first. James Hetfield is pissed regardless, obviously.

You want the chorus? Do you think you can handle the chorus? Well, let's find out. And this too is an extremely 1994 type vibe. Yes? Tremendous darkness in a tremendously bright package. This bait and switch approach is not exclusive to the cardigans, nor exclusive to Sweden for that matter, but it feels exclusive. It feels fresh and freshly unsettling when the cardigans do it. Talking in early 2023 with a newspaper called the New European, Nina says, isn't it a universal thing, really? If you made stats, there are few pop or rock songs that are only bright. That's very rare. The rest of them are dark. I've always. had a hard time talking about the Scandinavian mentality, but I think it's art in general. I think

what we are drawn to, which might be a Scandinavian thing, is to sort of Trojan horse your product. Put it in a costume of something that's light and upbeat, end quote. All right, so time for something light and upbeat. Name that tune. And then the Trojan horse opens up and oh shit, it's the Cardigan's cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Black Sabbath. Told you pop and metal were quite tonally similar. Take it, Ozzy. I feel as though Ozzy and Nina would really get along. I don't think Nina person would bite the head off a bat or snort a line of ants or be foul the alamo.

But she sings as though she's considering doing all of those things. All right, we got ourselves an intriguing and sweetly confrontational Swedish alt-rock band with sophisticated pop overtones. Time for the second Cardigans album. You know the greatest feeling in the world? You want to know my favorite thing? I've said this before, but I'm saying it again. It's when you love a song,

but you totally forget about that song, and then you hear that song again years and years later, and you fall in love with it for the first time, but also realize that you'd already fallen in love with it. Simultaneously. Yo, this song rules. It's called Carnival. I'd forgotten about it, but now I'm loving it for the first time, whilst also reminiscing

about how I already loved it. And that feeling rules. I believe we got guitarist and co-songwriter Peter Svensson on backing vocals there. Not very gruff vocals as dudes and co-ed Swedish pop bands go, but it's cool, man. You ain't got to sound gruff if you're not feeling gruff. The second cardigan's album is called Life. It comes out of it. out in 1995 and we have leveled up in terms of brightness, cheeriness, catchiness, and also possibly subversion. There's an exclamation point in this song title. That song's called, Hey, Get Out of My Way. The exclamation point comes after, hey, there's Nina on the cover of the Life album, smiling extra brightly, lying on her stomach in a powder blue dress with furry sleeves,

propped up on her elbows with a little sunflower pinky ring, her feet crossed and dangling in the air, and she's wearing ice skates. And it occurs to you pretty immediately that ice skates are just blades for your feet. Hey, hey, get out of her way. This song's called Tomorrow. And it's as close as Jun-Shaping Sweden has ever gotten to Motown. Is morning a sugar kiss, though?

really the cardigans are not setting the world or the pop charts on fire at this point they're not necessarily setting the pop charts in sweden on fire but they are building towards something in this precise three years span 1994 to 1996 post grunge pre new metal post alternative explosion pre napster this is a great time to be building towards something pop subversion wise. The third cardigans record released in 1996 is called First Band on the Moon. Nina, in a 2014 interview, she says, every record we have made with the cardigans has been a counter reaction to the previous one. And by then, we were really tired of everybody calling us cute. After having done sort of cute and ethereal, we felt like we weren't easy listening. We weren't taken serious. So we wanted

to be taken seriously. We wanted to be sort of more gritty and rocking. End quote. This song is called Binet, and it is more gritty and rocking. I had never seen the video for Binet, and it turns out that the theme of the Binet video is scary puppets. And I'm quite unnerved, quite frankly. God damn it, they got me again.

As an added bonus, this song has the most Black Sabbath-esque guitar riff on this whole record. Get a load of how rad this guitar riff is. You know how Black Sabbath-esque that guitar riff is? It's the most Black Sabbath-esque guitar riff on an album where, just for emphasis, the Cardigans cover Black Sabbath again. Yes, the Cardigans do Iron Man. And I used to play the Cardigans cover of Iron Man all the time on college radio, and I just be tremendously pleased with myself.

as an added bonus. This record, First Band on the Moon, has another track that went semi-arbitrarily viral on TikTok in the spring of 2023. And I love it when semi-arbitrary 90 songs

go viral on TikTok. That doesn't make me feel weird or old at all. It's called Step On Me. And Nina means it literally. That's the sped-up TikTok version of Step On Me. I feel great.

This phenomenon of speeding up songs for TikTok. I understand that perfectly. I don't feel like my bones are grinding themselves to dust and blowing away in the wind at all. That quote of Nina's about wanting to be taken seriously and be more respected and gritty

and rocking on this record. There's one last part to that quote actually. She says so we wanted to be taken seriously. We wanted to be sort of more gritty and rocking. But then we made loveful on that record. So we like totally dug our

grave. And maybe there is nothing that I could do. The mass appeal of Love Fool was immediately painfully obvious to everyone. And that includes the band. This song's mass appeal was painfully obvious while they were still writing it before they sped it up. Talking to Billboard in 2016, Nina says, we definitely were aware that it was a single and a catchy song when we wrote it. But the direction it took is not something we could have predicted. It wasn't necessarily our character. It felt like a bit of a freak on the record, which objectively it still is. Before we recorded it, it was slower and more of a bossanova. It's quite a sad love song. The meaning of it is quite pathetic, really. But then when we were recording, by chance, our drummer started to play that kind of disco beat, and there was no way to get away from it after that. End quote. First of all, the patheticness also painfully obvious at any tempo. Blunt, blan, blan, blan. Actually, let's play that part, too,

because this is my favorite part of the song, and the disco beat only intensifies the patheticness, right? Do you need to hear the chorus to loveful again? I suspect that you do not. Do the members of the cardigans ever want to hear the chorus to loveful again? I suspect that at first they did not. Talking to Billboard in 2016, Nina says, it took over our whole existence,

and it wasn't something we totally identified with. End quote. Suddenly they're on morning talk shows and the videos playing in American clothing stores, and then the whole band cameos on Beverly Hills 90210. And Nina says, we were kind of snobs. We felt like these things were glitzy, and we felt like, no, no, we're a rock band, end quote.

Fuck it. Who am I kidding? I'm playing the chorus. It's a pretty rad chorus, man. And of course, Love Fool took over the Cardigan's whole existence because it appeared on the soundtrack to the cinematic masterpiece, that is Baz Luhrmann's, William Shakespeare's, Romeo, and Juliet. A film Roger Ebert gave two stars, saying, quote,

the desperation with which it tries. to update the play and make it relevant is greatly depressing. In one grand but doomed gesture, writer-director Baz Luhrman has made a film that, A, will dismay any lover of Shakespeare, and B, bore anyone lured into the theater by the promise of Gang Wars MTV style. This production was a very bad idea.

End quote, tell us how you really feel, Raj. That's why Roger Eber, is the best. He tells you how he really feels both about the movie and often in general. I've written so many album reviews where people read it and

they're like, I have no idea if you even like this album or not. Whereas every negative Roger Ebert review is just him going my foot hurts and this movie sucks balls. That's why he's the best. He's wrong about Romeo and Juliet, but he's still the

best. As an added challenge to the cardigans, love fool and the semi-glamorous Love Fool video also intensified the issue of Nina being the focal point of the band in interviews and on album covers and whatnot. Peter, the guitarist, in a tiny mixtapes interview promoting the band's next record, 1998's Grand Turismo, he says, it was a big problem to us that there was so much focus on Nina. And Magnus, the bassist, says, we've become more at ease with the fact that Nina will be on the covers.

Grand Turismo, this is the album Nina recently described by saying, I was very fucked up throughout the entire recording. I remember finding a dead bat in the woods near the studio one day. I took it back, nailed it to the wall, and sang every word to the bat and to nobody else. End quote. Ozzie and Nina would get along great, dude. That's all it's called My Favorite Game.

and in the video, Nina's driving a convertible, and the other four dudes in the band are in a van, and they get in a head-on collision. Everything worked out fine, pretty much, somehow. The Cardigans put out a couple more records, the last one being super extra gravity in 2005, and they've all gone on to do cool shit. Can I say one thing super fast, actually?

Let me tell you a micro love story. This band's called Shutter to Think. They're from Washington, D.C. This song's called X French T-shirt from 1994. Modest MTV hit. It's awesome, dude. The front man, Craig Wedron, is the most pornographic-looking human being I have ever laid eyes on. His head is shaved.

It's something about the shape of his head and the severity of his goatee. That's the best I can explain it. But not him, not him. The lead guitarist here who kicks ass and goes blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. A whole lot is named Nathan Larson. Nathan and Nina got married in 2001. They're still married.

Coolest couple in alternative rock. I consider myself an authority on such matters. Nathan and Nina started a band called A-Camp. This song's from 2001, the year they got married, and it's called I Can Buy You. Dig the Petal Steel, man. These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder. which, as they kiss, consume.

The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness, and in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore, love moderately. Long love doth so, right? Don't take it from me. Take it from Bill Shakespeare, but I agree. Fainting chicks-type lust is fleeting. True love is forever, and a little more chill about it.

Let's just say I consider myself an authority on those matters, too. We are delighted to speak today with Mara Johnston, a critic, editor, blogger, professor, DJ, and Pop Scholar. She teaches in the journalism department at Boston College. She's written and or edited for the Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, I doubted her, and many thousands of other places. Mara, it's great to talk to you. It's so good to talk to you, Rob. It's been too long. Way too long.

It's great to see you. So I am very curious about Swedish pop and how the cardigans fit into the broad lineage of Abba, Roxette, Ace of Bass, and then on to Max Martin, etc. Do the cardigans fit into that lineage? Are they part of this larger Swedish pop universe or not so much? I would say yes, although they're kind of an arm of it. I mean, there was definitely a boom in what's called indie pop, you know, also like Tweed in the nine. which was hooky and lighter music and it was played by the cardigans, certainly on their early records. There were bands like Eggstone, Club Eight, Cinnamon, which you would get singles and compilations of them.

And all of that was definitely in like that post-slager tradition of a rock set later, you know, Max Martin. But it was more intimate. It was a little like, it was a little less like, hey, you know, it was much. a little more sort of like bedroom, I guess. There we go. Bedroom poppy.

Yeah. Yeah. You were very excited to talk about Eggstone, I believe. I have to confess, I'm not very familiar with Eggstone. What's the deal with Eggstone? They were just a really great Swedish indie pop band who's, they put out a record in 1994 called Somersault. And it's so fun.

It's really hooky. They have a couple of, they, that record was kind of ecologically themed in a way. But just really crisp production, very great harmonies and amazing hooks. Like I would check out Somersault by them. I think that's a really great introduction to what to do. And they're still putting out records today. They're still doing stuff. So it's nice to hear that some of these acts from back then are still.

They're still around. During along, yeah. Yeah. I think two of the founding cardigans dudes were heavy metal guys, you know, and Max Martin, of course, has a metal history, maybe closer to spandex in his case. But just because I know you are fluent in both pop and pop metal, like, does that surprise you when metal dudes turn out to make some of the best and shiniest pop songs? Or is that not surprising at all? Not surprising at all. I mean, I feel like there's a sense of catharsis in both, you know, look at Nuno Betancourt and the work he's been doing with Rihanna, right? Of course. Amazing. And, you know, it's funny because, like, the cardigans reference that history in their, in their records. They did a Sabbath bloody Sabbath cover that was really kind of lovely.

And then first band on the moon, which is the album that Love Fools on, has this really kind of psych pop tin shuffling cover of Iron Man. Iron Man. I loved that. I played that all the time on college radio. Yeah, yeah. I mean, cool in that moment. That was college radio in a nutshell. It was like, check out this cover.

of this unexpected song in this unexpected way. Yeah. That was the great college radio moment for me. Were the cardigans on your radar prior to Loveful? That song, Carnival, off their previous record. Like, I really love that song, and then I forget it exists, and then I stumble across it, and I love it again. Like, were you a fan of theirs broadly?

Yeah, I had a friend in college who, you know, we would talk about music a lot, and he knew that I loved Eggstone. And so he marched into my dorm room and was like, you have to buy this record right now. And it came out on Minty Fresh. I went to school of Chicago. So there were lots of Minty Fresh releases just around. And I really loved the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath cover, which was on the American version of life. And then I also really liked Hague it out of my way, which just had this great.

It's great title, first of all. Yeah, excellent. Oh, their titles are just so great. Yes. But it had this really great ensucian vocal by Nina Pearson and an excellent modulation near its end, which is always the sign of pop scholarship. Excellent modulations. That's the key to pop greatness. I was a college radio DJ when Love Fool blew up in 96. And the cardigans totally coded to me as like alternative rock, college rock, like Buzzbin, whatever. Like is this a pop song by a rock band? Is this a pop song by a pop song by a pop? band that just happened to appeal to alt rock fans. Like, does any of that genre stuff matter here, really?

Yes and no. I would actually say that Loveful kind of captures the moment when they went from being like an, like a pop group with a hit song to a more alt rock band with pop tendencies. Certainly their music that followed was a lot more textually rough, particularly when it came to Nina's voice. And like on their last record, which came out in 2005, Extra Gravity, which had another song with a great title, I Need Some Fine Wine and You You Need to Be Nicer. That's an excellent title. Yeah. All right.

That song is very like classically indie rock crunchy. Okay. So as opposed to, you know, Erase and Rwine from Grand Tarismo, which is this kind of glittery, synthy song. They were experimenting with country. on their record. Yeah. So I think they were a band in transition, and I feel like

Loveful kind of captured that wrinkle. Yeah. I'm curious what you make of Nina as both a singer and as like a persona. Like, I've always really appreciated how delicate, but how caustic her voice can be. Like, even the way she sings,

pretend that you love me. Like, do you connect her with Alanis, with Liz Phara, with Cheryl Crow, or anybody else battling the whole 90s women in rock deal? Or does Nina sort of stand alone for you? I think she stands alone. I think maybe out of that list you said, Liz Prefair is probably her closest analog.

But I think that she also has a subtlety in her voice that you hear a lot in the earlier records, that you hear a lot in like indie pop from that era, where it's sort of reserved, but the nuance is there that, conveys the depths of the emotions that are happening. Yeah. What do you make of what Love Fool did to the cardigans? I know it's, you know, all these stories of how destabilizing it is to have a hit that big,

even for a band that's been around for two or three records already. Like you sort of said they got crunchier as they went along. Did it feel like their later stuff is reacting, you know, to this whole new audience they've been exposed to? I would say probably to some point, yes. I think that that's inevitable once you get into that, oh, this was successful to do this.

And like my favorite game is, you know, kind of a little bit more of a peppy version of where Loveful is like Langeras. My favorite game is kind of like that on 45 instead of 33 and in almost a way. There we go. Yeah. That's a good way to think about it. Yeah.

And then like, did you know that in 1999 they covered burning down the house with Tom Jones? I just saw this. I did not. I found out about this three hours ago. It's bonkers. Yeah, it's bonkers. It's so weird.

It's great, but it's just bonkers. Totally. Totally. I wonder if they got along, like in the studio, you know, are they just hanging with Tom Jones?

That's hard for me to picture, but I don't know. He seems like a sociable guy. He's very friendly. He probably greeted Nina with a what's new pussycat, you know? There we go. I'm sure she was thrilled by that.

I really love that she's married. to the dude from Shudder to think, they formed their own band A-Camp and worked with Mark Linkus from Sparkle Horse. I love those two bands as well. Does she deserve more credit as one of the best and most versatile singers of her time? You talked about the country

influence, which is great. She can sing a lot of different, in a lot of different styles, a lot of different voices. Yeah, I think she has that kind of supple voice that lends itself to a lot of different styles of pop, and she's definitely explored those.

in an interesting way. When I've talked to people about this moment, like mid to late 90s, alternative pop, like the new radicals, steal my sunshine, all-star summer girls, with some people, there's like this sense of total chaos that like a huge hit song could come from anywhere, anyone. Like the flukes seemed a little flukier, you know, from 96 to 99 and then post-Napster that sort of went away. Like, do you see it that way?

Do you see this era of pop, you know, one? hit wonders or whatever as distinct? So I think that there was definitely like brightness in the mix in the early 90s with like cannonball, start chop it, no rain. But this was the time around when Billboard changed its rules for the Hot 100 to allow singles that hadn't been released physically to chart. So the pop impact was. more felt on the charts than it might have been for like an album cut that had a video on MTV in

1994. And as a result, and you know, I think that that phenomenon also led pretty directly into Napster because you had, you know, basically $19.99 for a CD single where it was like, oh, this is the one song I want and I can't get it unbundled from everything else. But I do think that the harder stuff really started coming in in force in like 96 when Metallica put out load and was on La Paloosa. And then by Woodstock 99, it had just been completely poisoned. Right, right. And the Love Fool arc is interesting because it was on their record in 1995, but it's on Romeo and Juliet at 96.

I just, I don't remember exactly how sort of the chart arc worked with them, but I, you know, it's, they sort of, that that song didn't get as huge as it was going to get until like a year later. Yeah. Yeah. It took a while. Yeah. Thinking about the Romeo and Juliet of it all, I didn't want to get your perspective in like the golden era of the alt-rock movie soundtrack, because I think Romeo and Juliet is one of the best ones along with clueless singles, judgment night, the crow, et cetera. Like, what, what did these sound? Why did these soundtracks flourish in the 90s and why did they die afterward?

Is that a CD-era, like, Napster thing? I think it's a CD-era Napster thing for sure. I think it's, you know, it was a way for a lot of songs from disparate bands and disparate artists to be, and catalog and new to be featured in one place, right? And again, it goes back to that whole thing where it's like, I heard this one song, I can't buy it as a single, I'll buy the soundtrack, and then I will get introduced to Gar-Garkey. or the coral rework of everybody's free. Or when Doves Cry is on there as well. That's a weird soundtrack, man. There's a lot going on.

The butthole surfers are there somehow. It's wild. But 96 was a really good year for soundtracks. Because you had that. You had train spotting. You had that thing you do. And, you know, even like the Beavis and Butthead do America soundtrack. Is that the one with Cher?

Is that the one with... No, that was the next one. Okay. It was the one with lesbian seagull. Somebody for Comberdink, yeah. Of course. How could I forget? How could I forget lesbian seagull?

That's on me. Mara, what is your personal favorite 90s movie soundtrack, by the way? I think we can take your word as gospel. I mean, for me, it has to be singles as number one. Sure. That was just such a encapsulation of my taste at that point in time. And also, it has that. incredible version of Drown by the Smashing Pumpkins.

I will say for 90s, though, I have to go with train spotting just because of the inclusion alone of like mile end by pulp just vaults ahead of everything else. So it's not necessarily just born slippy. It's the whole school. It's the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that another song on that Cardigan's record, a song called Step on me had like a minor viral

TikTok moments. And like that's always a very strange out of body experience for me when like a song from 30 years ago, like the kids discover it at random. Like what do you make of the 90s song to current viral sensation pipeline? Aside from old. There may be no other way to feel than just old. I mean, it's interesting because, you know, sometimes I'll like see if my students are, you know, are into it, get into it from, you know, just talking. about music and class and stuff. Because certainly with playless culture and the way that, you know, the people at Spotify

and other places are bringing the old and the new together, the youth of today definitely are much more conversant with the music of 25 years ago than I was back then. Right. How do your students remember the 90s distinct from how you remember actually living through the 90s? That's got to be weird for you. I mean, they call it. Like classic rock.

Yeah, that's not great. Not a good feeling. No, not a good feeling. But they, but you know, it's interesting because they do have a lot of curiosity about different acts from that era. Whether it's DiAngelo or Stointable Pilots or Red Hat Chili Peppers are definitely big with the kids. Of course they are. Yeah. They're immortal.

I guess, do they know love for? Like Love Fool is doing pretty well on streaming services, you know? You know, I wonder if what they would know Loveful best from is the office. Ooh, is it in the office? Because there's that scene where Jim starts singing it to annoy somebody. Somebody starts singing it to annoy somebody else. And then everybody's singing it. And then Andy Bernard goes, whatever happened to those guys.

And that's like that was the cold open. Once again, I feel silly for not knowing. this. I didn't know lesbian seagull, and I didn't know that. But that's the answer. That's why this song has half a billion plays on Spotify is the artist. And Romeo Juliet, though, people love that, you know, that movie. They do. It's interesting to go back and read reviews of that movie at the time, and they're sort of mixed. It's like, oh, it's MTV style editing or whatever. But now I, do you feel like that movie was respected at the time, or is that one of these movies where it took the fullness of time for people to appreciate it?

Oh, the latter. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Roger Ebert didn't even like it at the time, which is not a good sign. Just because you mentioned him earlier, Nuno Betancourt, you have a cat named Nuno. Am I correct? He's right there. He's sleeping on the cat. Hello. Hello, Nuno. All right. That's the greatest honor you can pay to any musicians to name your cat after him. So I hope that Nuno. Have you met Nuno? Have you gotten a chance to tell him? I met him before I adopted Nuno the Cat. But, you know, Extreme plays around here a lot. I saw them at my Fenway Park last year. All right. Did they do Silent Lucidity?

Did they have like an orchestra or anything? That's Queens-Rike. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I'm sorry. Did they do whole, did they do whole-hearted? I'm going to get fired. I know.

You won't get fired. Did they do? They did more than words, but I don't, they must have done wholehearted. They must have done whole. They opened for aerosmith. So it was a shorter than usual set, but. It's great to talk to you, Mara. It's so much for doing this.

Yeah. Thanks very much to our guests this week, Mara Johnston. Thanks, as always to our producers, Jonathan Kerma and Justin Sales. Thanks to Chloe Clark for additional production help. And thanks very much to you for listening. And now I must insist that you go listen to Love Fool by the Cardigans. We'll see you next week.