Revisit of the Week: The Cardigans - Life (1995)

I have an irrational aversion towards The Cardigans' second album, Life. Or the copy I have of it, anyway. The Cardigans' debut album Emmerdale was released in 1994 by Trampolene Records, a tiny subsidiary of the then-independent Stockholm Records - in Sweden only (and Japan where it randomly took off). The album did decently in Sweden and encouraged the label to give the band a bigger push overseas. The follow-up Life was recorded quickly thereafter and released the following year under the primary Stockholm Records roster. This was The Cardigans' first international release... but the thing is, that debut did have some material essential to the band that really ought to be heard by wider audiences. Thus, two different versions of Life were released. Sweden got Life 'proper', the 11-track successor to the debut which basically just slightly polished the twee pop of the first album; the rest of the world, however, received a 13-song edition which removed three of the new songs and…