Life is good.

MP3: The Cardigans - Rise & Shine
MP3: The Cardigans - Celia Inside

IT'S THE CARDIGANS WEEK HERE AT FUCK YEAH! GO TEAM!

And it wouldn't be a themed week without it starting late: For the rest of the week, we focus on the Cardigans and their albums, except for a couple. Today we start with "Life", the first exposure of them for myself and most of us in the States. I first heard the record from an old girlfriend and later picked it up in the used bin when I lived in Portland, which sparked my deep love affair with the Cardigans.

"Life" is certainly one of the more memorable Summer records for me; anytime while walking that a song from it comes up on shuffle from the iPod, I typically wait for it to end and then start the record from the top. One of the songs featured today, "Celia Inside", was a shuffle track for me which caught me on the perfect day and now when I hear it, it always feels like a perfect day. It almost sounds like a singles collection, which is fitting as some of these songs were their first ever written and re-recorded for this lp. It truly is a shining entry in the pop genre and is as solid an effort as any of their albums that came after.