Friday, October 16, 1998
USA Today

Cardigans 'Game' video flunks crash test
The Cardigans music video for their new single, My Favourite Game, is having a tough time finding airplay.
MTV in New York says it is still in the review process, but in Europe, only a much -edited version of the video started playing this week.
The problem is that in the four-minute music story, lead singer Nina Persson goes for a reckless drive in a convertible through the desert. She puts a big rock on the gas pedal and weaves onto the wrong side of the road, dodging about a dozen cars, forcing them off the road and sending them flying. At the end, she sits up on the car's sear, arms wide open in a crucifix-like pose, driving with her boot on the steering whell and crashed head-on into a van. Her body goes flying through the air. She sits on the road, dazed, until the rock comes flying and bonks her on the head. She dies.
James Linn, a vice president at Mercury Records, doesnt' blame MTV. "They've always been supportive of the Cardigans, but they do have thier set of standards."
While reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's work, the video, says Linn, "is intended to be a Wile E. Coyote cartoon." He says MTV told them theat "some of the more violent images need to be taken out."
Directors Jonas Akerlund, who did Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up' and Madonna's 'Ray of Light' has been working with Mercury to revise the video. Akerlund made six different endings, uncluding one in which Persson gets up and walks away; the others show her with varying degrees of blood. But non of those pass the standars test. Linn says that the edited version playing in Europe "has not car carashes and no implied violence." They're trying "to split the differences" rather than run that one.
The band will it all on a live chat Monday on www.torget.se/cardigans. And they'll be in the USA for eight dates in November to launch their album Gran Turismo, out Nov. 3. Plans are also in the works to give away the video with the album, starting Nov. 24 in selected stores.