those are are cool. late 80s and 90s pop music definitely has a nice vibe.
but what attracts me the The Cardigans is that they sound like jazz musicians who decided to make 90s pop for some reason. it's the weirdest combination imaginable, but it sounds really good, like it was meant to be. that track I posted features sections with an odd number of measures, chords taken from other keys, brief key changes based around those chords (tonicization?) and generally interesting harmony and rhythm.
(I just looked it up and their main songwriter, Peter Svensson, does indeed have a background in music theory and jazz)