My Favourite Game
Encyclopedia
"My Favourite Game" is an alternative rock
song written by Peter Svensson
and Nina Persson
for The Cardigans
' 1998 album Gran Turismo
. The song is the album's eighth track, and was released as its first single.
The music appeared in the intro video of the "Arcade" game of Gran Turismo 2
(
PlayStation, except Japanese version), in the unreleased beta of Need for Speed: Carbon
, and in the European version of Band Hero
.
between May and July 1998. The song, like the other songs from the album, was recorded in Tore Johansson
's (then) newly developed Country Hell recording studio in Skurup
, Sweden
. The song was written about the band's love of playing Gran Turismo, especially while on their tour bus.
Before recording on the song commenced, Svennson presented the song to producer Tore Johansson
by playing the track on acoustic guitar. Although the song was originally taking shape as a slow country/rock shuffle, similar in style to Neil Young
's "Old Man
", the tempo was doubled upon request of Tore Johansson. It was soon after changing the musical direction of the song when the song's distinctive guitar hook evolved.
Both the drum and guitar parts were recorded in a "'70s-style dry room" while the vocals were recorded in the attic of the studio.
Even though the drums were recorded using analogue
tape compression, the rest of the song's production, including the "fat fuzzy bass line" and the coda
, was completed using Pro Tools 24
.
and moves at 143 beats per minute. The song is not written in standard verse-chorus form
and its instrumentation includes guitar
, bass
and organ
.
Persson coos to a spurned lover, "You're losing a saviour and a saint", while the song is driven by its two-note guitar riff which is the basis of the "electro-rock powerhouse". Its verses are significantly faster than the slow, bass-heavy chorus where the drums run at half-time.
Modern Rock Tracks
.
In Sweden, it debuted at number twenty-one on the Swedish Top 100 Singles Chart and peaked at number three in November 1998. It spent at total of eighteen weeks in the chart. In the United Kingdom
, it debuted and peaked at number fourteen on the singles chart.
for "My Favourite Game" was directed
by Jonas Åkerlund
. It was filmed over a three-day shoot in the Mojave Desert
near Barstow, California
at a reported cost of £220,000.
The video opens with a scene of lead singer Nina Persson, at the side of a desert road, trying to find a suitable rock. Meanwhile the radio DJ, who is heard from the car radio, warns drivers that desert temperatures are very hot that day so they must remember to drive safely. When Persson finds a rock, she walks over to her car, a dark blue 1974 Cadillac Eldorado
convertible, places it on the accelerator to keep the pedal down and drives off as the song begins. During the video, she weaves back and forth onto the wrong side of the road, forcing many other drivers off the road and causing some to crash in the process. At one point in the video, she throws the Felix the Cat
stuffed toy out of the car which was then run over by another car. In some versions of the video, the Felix the Cat doll is blurred out. At various stages of the video, she is also depicted using her feet to steer the steering wheel. There is a large and colorful tattoo on Persson's arm that was added for the video. She also drives at pedestrians causing them to jump out of the way while driving through a small town. At the beginning of the last chorus, she turns the car around and drives back down the road where she caused so much destruction. Towards the end of the song, she stands up in the car seat, keeping the car in control with her foot on the steering wheel. She steers into a collision course with an oncoming van, containing the other members of The Cardigans, with drummer Bengt Lagerberg
as the driver. While the van's occupants react in horror, she calmly stretches out her arms and makes a cruciform
for a moment before the two vehicles collide.
There are five different outcomes of the car crash at the end of the uncensored video. In ending one, Persson's body goes flying into the air and over the van roof where she is then depicted as being dead on the road. In ending two, she also flies over the van roof, except she tries to pick herself off the ground but is knocked out by the rock that was used to keep the car pedal down, cartoonishly. In ending three, she also flies over the van roof except she manages to pick herself up from the ground and walks away from the accident, and wipes the blood away from her face. This version is censored. In ending four, Persson is depicted being decapitated by the top of her car windscreen and a mannequin head, is seen in the next shot, rolling along the road. In ending five, it is censored all out, along with the car crashes, and Nina still is in the car, bloodless, driving and nodding along to the radio.
The music video caused much controversy when it was first released. Many European channels, including MTV UK, only played an edited version of the video where all of the car crashes and reckless driving depictions were taken out despite director Jonas Åkerlund's attempts to meet the censorship standards by making five differently edited cuts of the video with varying degrees of violence and blood. The reason MTV UK rejected the video was because of fears that the video could encourage joyriding and cause car accidents amongst teenage drivers, so ending five was most played on MTV UK.
But, in the U.S., the music channels were noticeably less restrictive as many of them either played the completely uncensored version of the video or a slightly censored version with only a few of the car crashes removed.
Despite the controversy, the music video managed to debut at number twenty-nine on MuchMusic
's Countdown
in October 1998 and peaked at number twenty-three on November 27. Also, the video has appeared on many "Greatest Music Video" lists including ranking at 68 in Slant Magazine
's "100 Greatest Music Videos" sharing the position with U.N.K.L.E's "Rabbit in Your Headlights", and ranking 95 in Channel 4
's "100 Greatest Pop Videos".
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
song written by Peter Svensson
Peter Svensson
Anders Peter Svensson is a guitarist with the band, The Cardigans.His role in the group is as a guitarist and composer, but he also plays keyboard, vibraphone, and bass guitar, plus he provides some backing vocals...
and Nina Persson
Nina Persson
is the lead singer and lyricist for the Swedish pop group The Cardigans. She has also worked as a solo artist, releasing two albums as A Camp and appearing on the tribute album to Serge Gainsbourg entitled Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited...
for The Cardigans
The Cardigans
The Cardigans are a Swedish rock band formed in the town of Jönköping in October 1992.Their debut album Emmerdale gave them a solid base in their home country and enjoyed some success abroad, especially in Japan. It was not until their second album Life that an international reputation was secured...
' 1998 album Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo (album)
Gran Turismo is the fourth studio album by the Swedish band The Cardigans, released internationally on October 1, 1998 and in November 1998 in the U.S.. It features a darker and more moody type of music, mixing with more electronic sounds...
. The song is the album's eighth track, and was released as its first single.
The music appeared in the intro video of the "Arcade" game of Gran Turismo 2
Gran Turismo 2
is a driving simulator / racing game for the Sony PlayStation. Gran Turismo 2 was developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment in 1999. The games serves as a sequel to Gran Turismo...
(
PlayStation, except Japanese version), in the unreleased beta of Need for Speed: Carbon
Need for Speed: Carbon
Need for Speed: Carbon, also known as NFS Carbon or NFSC, is an Electronic Arts video game belonging to the Need for Speed series. Released in 2006, it is the tenth installment, preceded by Need for Speed: Most Wanted, succeeded by Need for Speed: ProStreet in release order and succeeded by Need...
, and in the European version of Band Hero
Band Hero
Band Hero is a spinoff video game as part of the Guitar Hero series of music video games, released by Activision on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS consoles...
.
Songwriting, recording and production
"My Favourite Game" was written by guitarist Peter Svensson and lead singer Nina Persson during the recording sessions of the band's fourth studio album Gran TurismoGran Turismo (album)
Gran Turismo is the fourth studio album by the Swedish band The Cardigans, released internationally on October 1, 1998 and in November 1998 in the U.S.. It features a darker and more moody type of music, mixing with more electronic sounds...
between May and July 1998. The song, like the other songs from the album, was recorded in Tore Johansson
Tore Johansson
Tore Johansson is a Swedish record producer, composer and musician based in Malmö, Sweden.-Biography:In an interview with HitQuarters, Johansson claimed that the main impetus for his becoming a music producer was the lack of good recording studios in the Malmö area at that time in which to record...
's (then) newly developed Country Hell recording studio in Skurup
Skurup
Skurup is a locality and the seat of Skurup Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 6,978 inhabitants in 2005.- References :...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. The song was written about the band's love of playing Gran Turismo, especially while on their tour bus.
Before recording on the song commenced, Svennson presented the song to producer Tore Johansson
Tore Johansson
Tore Johansson is a Swedish record producer, composer and musician based in Malmö, Sweden.-Biography:In an interview with HitQuarters, Johansson claimed that the main impetus for his becoming a music producer was the lack of good recording studios in the Malmö area at that time in which to record...
by playing the track on acoustic guitar. Although the song was originally taking shape as a slow country/rock shuffle, similar in style to Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's "Old Man
Old Man (song)
"Old Man" is a song written and performed by Neil Young on his 1972 album Harvest.The song was written for the caretaker of the Northern California Broken Arrow Ranch, which Young purchased for $350,000 in 1970. The song compares a young man's life to an old man's and shows that the young man has,...
", the tempo was doubled upon request of Tore Johansson. It was soon after changing the musical direction of the song when the song's distinctive guitar hook evolved.
Both the drum and guitar parts were recorded in a "'70s-style dry room" while the vocals were recorded in the attic of the studio.
Even though the drums were recorded using analogue
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
tape compression, the rest of the song's production, including the "fat fuzzy bass line" and the coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
, was completed using Pro Tools 24
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
.
Structure and lyrics
"My Favourite Game" is an alternative rock song composed in the key of C Minor. It is written in common timeCommon Time
"Common Time" is a science fiction short story written by James Blish. It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros ; in The Penguin Science Fiction...
and moves at 143 beats per minute. The song is not written in standard verse-chorus form
Verse-chorus form
Verse-chorus form is a musical form common in popular music and predominant in rock since the 1960s. In contrast to AABA form, which is focused on the verse , in verse-chorus form the chorus is highlighted...
and its instrumentation includes guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
.
Persson coos to a spurned lover, "You're losing a saviour and a saint", while the song is driven by its two-note guitar riff which is the basis of the "electro-rock powerhouse". Its verses are significantly faster than the slow, bass-heavy chorus where the drums run at half-time.
Chart performance
In the United States, "My Favourite Game" was the most commercially successful single from Gran Turismo. Peaking at number sixteen, it became the album's only single to enter the BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
.
In Sweden, it debuted at number twenty-one on the Swedish Top 100 Singles Chart and peaked at number three in November 1998. It spent at total of eighteen weeks in the chart. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, it debuted and peaked at number fourteen on the singles chart.
Music video
The music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for "My Favourite Game" was directed
Music video director
A music video director is driven by a given music track. These are called music videos and are then used as promotional tools for popular music singles...
by Jonas Åkerlund
Jonas Åkerlund
Jonas Åkerlund is a Swedish film and music video director, and drummer. He is best known for directing music videos, which are often mock forms of movie trailers and short films...
. It was filmed over a three-day shoot in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
near Barstow, California
Barstow, California
Barstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 22,639 at the 2010 census, up from 21,119 at the 2000 census. Barstow is located north of San Bernardino....
at a reported cost of £220,000.
The video opens with a scene of lead singer Nina Persson, at the side of a desert road, trying to find a suitable rock. Meanwhile the radio DJ, who is heard from the car radio, warns drivers that desert temperatures are very hot that day so they must remember to drive safely. When Persson finds a rock, she walks over to her car, a dark blue 1974 Cadillac Eldorado
Cadillac Eldorado
The 1953 Eldorado was a special-bodied, low-production convertible . It was the production version of the 1952 El Dorado "Golden Anniversary" concept car, and borrowed bumper bullets from the 1951 GM Le Sabre show car...
convertible, places it on the accelerator to keep the pedal down and drives off as the song begins. During the video, she weaves back and forth onto the wrong side of the road, forcing many other drivers off the road and causing some to crash in the process. At one point in the video, she throws the Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...
stuffed toy out of the car which was then run over by another car. In some versions of the video, the Felix the Cat doll is blurred out. At various stages of the video, she is also depicted using her feet to steer the steering wheel. There is a large and colorful tattoo on Persson's arm that was added for the video. She also drives at pedestrians causing them to jump out of the way while driving through a small town. At the beginning of the last chorus, she turns the car around and drives back down the road where she caused so much destruction. Towards the end of the song, she stands up in the car seat, keeping the car in control with her foot on the steering wheel. She steers into a collision course with an oncoming van, containing the other members of The Cardigans, with drummer Bengt Lagerberg
Bengt Lagerberg
Bengt Lagerberg, , is best known as the drummer in the Swedish rock band The Cardigans. He is currently living in Malmö.The band The Cardigans has toured worldwide and has become very famous for their acclaimed albums Life and First Band on the Moon...
as the driver. While the van's occupants react in horror, she calmly stretches out her arms and makes a cruciform
Cruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
for a moment before the two vehicles collide.
There are five different outcomes of the car crash at the end of the uncensored video. In ending one, Persson's body goes flying into the air and over the van roof where she is then depicted as being dead on the road. In ending two, she also flies over the van roof, except she tries to pick herself off the ground but is knocked out by the rock that was used to keep the car pedal down, cartoonishly. In ending three, she also flies over the van roof except she manages to pick herself up from the ground and walks away from the accident, and wipes the blood away from her face. This version is censored. In ending four, Persson is depicted being decapitated by the top of her car windscreen and a mannequin head, is seen in the next shot, rolling along the road. In ending five, it is censored all out, along with the car crashes, and Nina still is in the car, bloodless, driving and nodding along to the radio.
The music video caused much controversy when it was first released. Many European channels, including MTV UK, only played an edited version of the video where all of the car crashes and reckless driving depictions were taken out despite director Jonas Åkerlund's attempts to meet the censorship standards by making five differently edited cuts of the video with varying degrees of violence and blood. The reason MTV UK rejected the video was because of fears that the video could encourage joyriding and cause car accidents amongst teenage drivers, so ending five was most played on MTV UK.
But, in the U.S., the music channels were noticeably less restrictive as many of them either played the completely uncensored version of the video or a slightly censored version with only a few of the car crashes removed.
Despite the controversy, the music video managed to debut at number twenty-nine on MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
's Countdown
Countdown (MuchMusic TV series)
The MuchMusic Top 30 Countdown is a ninety-minute music video program block, that airs on Canadian music television station MuchMusic. Countdown is one of the oldest programs that continues to be aired on Much Music since its debut...
in October 1998 and peaked at number twenty-three on November 27. Also, the video has appeared on many "Greatest Music Video" lists including ranking at 68 in Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's "100 Greatest Music Videos" sharing the position with U.N.K.L.E's "Rabbit in Your Headlights", and ranking 95 in Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's "100 Greatest Pop Videos".
Formats and track listings
These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "My Favourite Game".- CD single, Pt. 1
- "My Favourite Game" - 3:36
- "War" (First try) - 4:07
- "Sick & Tired"(live) - 3:24
- CD single, Pt. 2
- "My Favourite Game" - 3:36
- "My Favourite Game"(Wubbledub mix) -
- "LovefoolLovefool"Lovefool" is a pop rock song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for The Cardigans' third studio album First Band on the Moon, released as a single on 14 September 1996, in the United Kingdom and internationally on 5 October 1996...
"(live) -
- CD maxi single
- "My Favourite Game" - 3:36
- "War (First try)" - 4:07
- "War" - 3:56
Credits and personnel
- VocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
: Nina PerssonNina Perssonis the lead singer and lyricist for the Swedish pop group The Cardigans. She has also worked as a solo artist, releasing two albums as A Camp and appearing on the tribute album to Serge Gainsbourg entitled Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited... - GuitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
: Peter SvenssonPeter SvenssonAnders Peter Svensson is a guitarist with the band, The Cardigans.His role in the group is as a guitarist and composer, but he also plays keyboard, vibraphone, and bass guitar, plus he provides some backing vocals... - BassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
: Magnus SveningssonMagnus SveningssonMagnus Sveningsson is best known as the bassist in the Swedish rock band, The Cardigans, and has also recorded under a solo project entitled Righteous Boy.... - Guitar: Lars-Olof JohanssonLars-Olof JohanssonLars-Olof Johansson is best known as a member of the alternative rock band The Cardigans. Johansson's role in the band is keyboardist and guitarist. Johansson grew up in the Swedish town of Jönköping. He is also a member of acoustic/country band Up The Mountain.-References:...
- DrumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
: Bengt LagerbergBengt LagerbergBengt Lagerberg, , is best known as the drummer in the Swedish rock band The Cardigans. He is currently living in Malmö.The band The Cardigans has toured worldwide and has become very famous for their acclaimed albums Life and First Band on the Moon... - Recorded at Country Hell, SkurupSkurupSkurup is a locality and the seat of Skurup Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 6,978 inhabitants in 2005.- References :...
, SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund.... - Producer: Tore Johansson, Peter Collins
- Engineer: Tore Johansson, Peter Collins, John Holbrook, Janne Waldenmark
- Assistant engineer: Lars Göransson, Jim Caruana
- Recording engineer: Tore Johansson
- audio mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
: Tore Johansson - Mixing assistant: Jim Caruana
- Mastering by: Roger Jonsson
Charts
| Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Belgian Singles Chart | 44 |
| Canadian Singles Chart | 19 |
| Dutch Mega Singles Top 100 | 15 |
| France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
27 |
| New Zealand New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga... |
36 |
| Swedish Top 100 Singles | 3 |
| Tokio Hot 100 | 3 |
| UK Top 75 Singles | 14 |
| U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 16 |