Cogs can think.

Yesterday, as a sort of personal birthday present, I bought myself another album by The Cardigans: Long Gone Before Daylight, released in 2003. Critically, this album was not as well received as their other albums, so I did not really know what to expect. Obviously critics are full of shit 99.9% of the time, so I went out to buy it anyway at my local independent record store, Pop-Eye in Big City Alkmaar.

And while listening to the album at the store, it hit me; I knew why critics did not like this album.

Obviously, it had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the music I was listening to. You see, Long Gone Before Daylight was their first studio album after their big international hit album Gran Turismo in 1998. But instead of doing what fairly mediocre and uninspiring bands do after a big hit album (Coldplay and Keane come to mind) they did not continue down the same path; they did not create Gran Turismo II. Long Gone Before Daylight is darker, less accessible than the sometimes frivolous sound of Gran Turismo.

And “critics” do not like this. They want you to change, but not too much; they want you to stay the same, but not too much. I see a few men nodding; exactly, critics are like women. Gran Turismo was a massive success, and it takes guts to stray from a successful path in the music industry. Especially to come out better than before, and not to come running back to your old and tried style after you “critics” hit you.

Because their last album, Super Extra Gravity, my favourite, is different all over again, but nothing like anything they ever made. And this is what makes a band great: the will to experiment– but not forgetting what you’re good at.