Best Cocteau Twins album

i voted "heaven or las vegas" here but i listened to all songs today in a non-album kontext and the result was quite surprising. for each song there was only the option to either love it or not to love it.

1. 90% (9/10) four-calendar café
2. 88% (7/8) garlands
3. 80% (8/10) heaven or las vegas

the only album which nobody voted for in the poll is my favourite at the moment. very weird.

i forgot the others. also strange, the poll winner is my least favourite album by them:

4. 50% milk & kisses
5. 44% victorialand
6. 40% head over heels
7. 30% blue bell knoll
8. 25% the moon % the melodies
9. 20% treasure

Oh my god, we're talking about Cocteaus on this board again? Please stop encouraging me! I don't know if I want to play Milk & Kisses or Blue Bell Knoll or Garlands or whatever the fuck. I really don't know.

My favourite is definitely Blue Bell Knoll for reasons outlined here:

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/cocteau-twins-head-over-heels-round-21-grahams-choice/

i really don't understand why nobody voted for four-calendar café. i still think it is their most consistent album. and it has one of their most amazing songs on it: theft, and wandering around lost.

maybe it's just because it's the first one i heard way back when, but blue bell knoll is probably my favorite, just wall to wall classics. it's so cool how the cocteau twins have such artfully subtle sonic variations on each of their albums so that choosing a favorite is almost down to what specific texture grabs you the most on a particular day.. like different alloys or something.

xp to brimstead - title track on Blue Bell Knoll is probably one of my favourite songs by Cocteaus.

I could totally go for a whole album of this country-fried dream rock though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7igZdDJyz4

I probably would've voted for "Treasure" but really the answer is the singles box.

Completely agree. So many classic bsides

listening to four calendar café and milk & kisses for the first time ever and ...they're not as bad as i assumed they'd be? nowhere near the highs of heaven or las vegas, but not bad at all

I'm with you on "Musette And Drums", an excellent closer, but the others don't do it for me like "When Mama Was Moth" or "Sugar Hiccup". I'm hardly saying they're bad but there's a noticeable drop-off in quality for me.

Another vote for Victorialand. Love the absence of drums

moon and melodies is super underrated. in time tho my heart is with heaven or las vegas, which is probably their most perfect distilled dream pop statement - never fails to brighten up any day

Feel you on M+M. 'Why Do You Love Me' is one of my all-time favorite instrumentals.

It's funny to see old threads like this revived... apparently, I was "over the Cocteaus" in about 2002. Well, they came back. I've been listening to them a lot in the last 2-3 years.

And it's still BBK.

That sounds like 'I'm over my skeleton' to me.

Not a big fan despite loving all the other usual suspects from that scene/era, and only heard half of these I think, but Heaven or Las Vegas would be the easy choice for me. More muscular and groovy than all the other stuff I heard.

I would say the early Heggie stuff was easily the most muscular.

oh totally RAG, "blind dumb deaf"

It's Victorialand but HoLV is stiff competition.

Its nice to see my few old polls I ever did on ILM bobbing back up now and then!

Heaven for me but Victorialand is close.

those two records are always doing battle in my head. depressive me says victorialand, the me that loves great pop says holv

Victorialand always.

BBK forever but I did listen to Head Over Heels for the first time in a few years on a solo wander around Epping Forest, after a lunchtime pint, and it was glorious!

They were always one of those bands where I'd change my mind on which my favourite album was. I think Head Over Heels was my favourite when I first got into them. Heaven Or Las Vegas is far ahead of the others these days. Victorialand in second place.

I think I'd forgotten how cavernous and teenage-intense HoH is; some of Liz's most memorable pre-conlang lyrics too - "There’s only a hair’s breadth between us/Askew as we are", "Paramour/ooze out and away onehow", "In the gold dust rush I only genuflect". No wonder her and Ian McC were such good mates. Sing nonsense as if your life depends on it.

Genuflect is a very bunnymen word, yes. In fact I was after another use of genuflect to complete a trilogy and this will do nicely.

(Ultra Vivid Scene being the other, shut your eyes and genuflect, the avenging angel comes.)

there's also 23 years too late by wire from read and burn 3

ugh

Elizabeth Fraser, the other worldly voice of Cocteau Twins performed a rare gig in London on Monday night. Fraser has been elusive these days, having only performed live a handful of times since the band’s demise over 20 years ago.

http://www.post-punk.com/cocteau-twins-elizabeth-fraser-makes-a-rare-live-performance-in-london/

Society of the Golden Slippers
Like This Page · 19 hrs ·

So, last night we hosted a rare performance from the glorious Liz Fraser who was joined by John Grant for a song. What a privilege! We still can't quite believe it happened! Huge thanks to Elena Tonra (Daughter) and Julia Biel for their gorgeous opening sets. What a night! — with Caroline Cremin.

Did it actually happen? Yes it did. Liz Fraser and John Grant joined us in our intimate salon and sang us to heaven. pic.twitter.com/CIGxne9214

— Golden Slippers (@GoldenSlippers7) September 4, 2018

HOLV seems to be the consensus pick these days, and would probably win if this poll were run again. I dunno, I still think Treasure is their defining moment – the apex of their early pre-Raphaelite leanings.

To me it's always felt HOLV was the consensus pick?

It will never not be Blue Bell Knoll for me, but any of the others can give it a run for its money on a suitable day. Currently rediscovering Victorialand for the tenth time.

some of Liz's most memorable pre-conlang lyrics too - "There’s only a hair’s breadth between us/Askew as we are"

Happened across this at random and omg, I never realised it was "askew" she sang there, I thought it was "obscure as we are". but now it all makes sense!

Theres only a hair's breadth between us, askew as we are
There's only a hair's breath between us, a-strewn as we be

Getting on the web for the first time properly in the summer of '93 (doing a software engineering postgrad thing at Liverpool Uni), I downloaded and *printed out* all kinds of 4AD content. These Cocteau lyrics - whether they're right or not - are fixed in my mind in Courier New monospace on sheets of A4.

Head over Heels was released 40 years ago today (24 October 1983). Still my favourite Cocteau Twins album, just ahead of Heaven or Las Vegas.

https://thequietus.com/articles/13632-cocteau-twins-head-over-heels