First Band on the Moon

I like the beats and energy and her voice got really old after a while, for me.

Favorite track(s): Your New Cuckoo, Been It, Never Recover, Step on Me, Lovefool

I don’t love the vocals but there are some great tracks in here.

Turns out these aren’t 1 hit wonders at all.
At least 5 or 6 hit wonders.

Not sure id call it a ‘must hear’ but I look forward to catching The Cardigans play at 2pm on the 3rd stage of some festival at some point in the future.

Really nice, loved the first handful of songs, and lovefool literally had me skipping down a mountain

Not sure I understand the black sabbath cover though

4

Pretty cool, wouldn't turn it off if I heard it again

This is unexpectedly terrific. I love the singer's voice, and the slightly fuzzy, laid back vibe of it all. Very, very pleasantly surprised at this one, but it's excellent.

An unfair one-hit wonder label. It's quite a good album, and they've had a few more good ones since.

I don't think they were even on the moon at all!

That said, yay. These songs all sound a lot like 'Lovefool', but that is one of the first radio songs I remember liking. So, I'm into it. Plus this is very Eurovisiony. The 'Iron Man' cover is not working for me, though. 'Choke' sounds more like 'Iron Man' than 'Iron Man'. I give it a high 3.

I thought I had never heard The Cardigans before but then I got to Lovefool and went ”Ohhhhhhhhhh it’s THAT song”

3/5. The Cardigans biggest hit, Lovefool is straight up one of the best pop songs of the 90’s. Insanely catchy and lyrically an interesting look into being just way too down bad for someone to the extent that she’s begging them to pretend to love her. The rest of the album unfortunately never hits that same high but it’s still some solid enough 90’s pop-rock. Though shoutouts to the weird ass cover of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man near the album, was kinda funny and surprising.

Couldn't get into it

Wow I loved this so much!

the Justin Bieber interpolation song album! You know... he had that one song... you knowww...

Anyway this album is cool. Starting with "Your New Cuckoo," a song with great vocals, great production, and a really awesome riff, and then moving to "Been It," which I like a lot (the chorus is wonderful). "Heartbreaker" and "Happy Meal II" are both cute, but "Never Recover" is fucking insane. Sounds like an Alvvays song, but it happens to also be really well-written (which Alvvays songs are, but like the writing stands out here). "Step On Me" is really good too, and then "Lovefool" is obviously a huge fucking home run. From there we have "Losers" which is a pretty alright song. "Iron Man" as a song is pretty tight too, and I'm told it's a cover of Black Sabbath's seminal metal song of the same name. It's pretty cool. My only real problem with any of this is that the lulls are sooooooooo apparent, and they kind of become drawbacks for me. It's all pretty good, but the experience it adds up to can tend to be taken away from by the inconsistency of the song quality sometimes. It's still pretty awesome though.
7.9/10

Pleasant & easy listen! Reminds me a bit of Mars Argo's music. I like the singer's voice. My favorite song of the album is Step On Me.

Gran Turismo has everything I like about the Cardigans on it, this one had everything I dislike. There's cool influences here, the album sounds almost Jazz-esque at times. It's fucking boring though. The vocals can put me to sleep and the gentle way in which the entire album plays out doesn't help. The Iron Man cover is a fun gimmick and all I'll probably revisit here.

A lot of the same. And the one famous song.

A very pleasant surprise. Turns out Lovefool is almost the perfect pop song. The band plays some actual music on here. The cover of Iron Man is excellent and Nina's vocals are fucking brilliant all the way through. I toyed with giving this a big fat 5, but I'm gonna be sensible.

The Good: The great news that not only astronauts get to be on the moon!
The Bad: Knowing that the band is wearing cardigans…
The Ugly: You know… cardigans…

Setting aside the dresscode… what a nice little trip down ‘90s memory lane this has been.

The production is top notch, the songs are just right… nothing to complain about here… except that, well… it is a little bland… like a cardigan.

So, I will give these venturing Swedes a 3* and off to rate one of the other 25 albums I have been skipping lately…

First Band On The Moon is an album i listened to and reviewed back in 2023 a bit before starting this project and i wasn't really that much of a fan. Though, like Illmatic, i think my opinion has improved slightly because i thought this album was fine. I think that there was some solid musicianship here especially with the bass. I did think that the lyrics in some of the songs were not the greatest though. There was a lot of Black Sabbath influences in these songs oddly enough including an Iron Man cover. I wasn't really a big fan of it as i felt it sounded too chill which doesn't fit considering what the lyrics are actually about. I still thought this album was a perfectly fine listen, just nothing too special.
Best Song: Great Divide
Worst Song: Iron Man