Poll the Baby: Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins

There was a time when I owned every CT release I could get my hands on, but all I have left now are this album and The Pink Opaque (I made a ton of $$$ selling it all off in the early eBay days before everyone was downloading everything they ever wanted).

Voting Iceblink Luck, because that is the song that starts playing in my head when I think of this album.

Fotze is a naughty word in German, by the way. Not a lot of people know that.

fffimf I think

fart politics? ha.

um not quite

missed opportunity to use FotzePOLLitic imo

voted Fifty-Fifty Clown

i'm going to vote for frou-frou because you caught me in a particular mood.

normally i suppose, i'd side with pitch the baby

Went for RRR after all in the end. Suspect this poll will have a spread of votes, unless the lurkers all jump in andvote for HOLV which tbqh i am not a fan of. Its ok, but eh.

oh god this is impossible

could really be anything depending on mood but i guess it's between cherry-coloured and 50/50. or not. dunno... had a period of regularly drinking a bottle of wine to this, and maybe repeating if i had two

really love the huge cover image at the top

title track (reason i bought the album in the first place)

shame that you didn't find anything on there you liked more

not necc. so, just the reason why i picked that song

ah ok. rad

Either pitch the baby for the sequencers or iceblink luck for sounding like New Order - because those were the two songs I was most into when this came out. Nowadays though I love every song on this.

in before system

One of my favorite albums from one of my all-time favorite bands. I could vote for any song really, there's no filler here. Going with the epic closing track.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

1. Cherry
2. RR&R

Album is compositely flawless.

title track or fotzepolitic. every song is amazing though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

damn, i missed this. i would have voted for 50/50 clown - love that balearic bass line

love results where two songs are tied for first

when the snare hits kick in on frou frou foxes = my heart melts

also I like the symmetry

8-8-6-4-4-3-2-2-0-0

Fuck an ILM for zero votes for "I Wear Your Ring" in this poll.

frou frou foxes! i've listened to that song like 10 times in a row on occasion

fifty-fifty clown for that gorgeous vocal at 1.58

btw does anybody know why lou reed appears to have a songwriting credit for road, river and rail?
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tpud4qhwn5kyt6eu3ifsum2j4gm?lyrics=1
(at the very bottom)

i didn't know how much i liked this band but 'fotzepolitic' just came on some sort of random spotify thing and hooooooly shit where has this been all my life

turns out the rest of the album is slightly less imago-tastic. but man, that song. that ENDING. why doesn't it go on for eight minutes? whyyyyy

the last song is my favorite

"frou-frou foxes in midsummer fires"

that was up there too, along with 'pitch the baby'

This album is so good that the two songs that received no votes are fire

Fuck an ILM for zero votes for "I Wear Your Ring" in this poll.

― Tim F, Sunday, 6 November 2011 11:56 (six years ago) Permalink

me otm

this album is redonkulous

I have listened to it since age 15 and it just gets better

biggest crime is wolf in the breast getting no votes, the song's outro smokes

this album has held up the most in the cocteau's canon for me. Victorialand and Love's Easy Tears were always my go-to favorites, but Heaven or Las Vegas is their perfect dream pop record.

I have fallen hard for this record…I heard it vaguely at the time, but oddly heard Four Calendar more, based on a co-worker playing it a lot in the office in 1994…

the title cut made me cry as I was walking around Prospect Park on this glorious spring day, watching little girls play and thinking that my 16 month old will be doing that soon. Its the slide after the choruses that gets me…is it Guthrie or Raymonde that played the —I hesitate to use the following term— solos?

How did I miss this poll? I'd have gone for Fifty-Clown. Liz's voice sounds like a choir of angels there.

Fifty-fifty clown of course.

Yeah that track is gorgeous. Re the solo - the fairly-literal video shows Fraser, Guthrie, Raymonde performing (vocal, Gretsch, Fender VI) as well as Mitsuo Tate (Jazzmaster) and Lincoln Fong (?) (Strat) who were in the touring band. I think it shows Guthrie doing the solo on a hideous green PRS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KnYw4EwYGc

Oops, no, Ben Blakeman on Strat. Neither he nor Tate played on the record I believe.

yknow, being that I'm a novice, It's hard for me to hear who the artists that 'fluenced them might be. They did something with Harold budd, but I don't hear minimalism. Were they into eno and the berlin trilogy?

It doesn't help much but I know they were way into The Birthday Party at the outset, it's why they sent their demo to 4AD.

best album ever

Kinda surprised at the low showing for Iceblink Luck tbh

I hear my baby crying

I love that you can hear Liz's (quite strong!) Scottish accent on Road River and Rail. Does she do that anywhere else? It's particularly strong in the chorus and on the title-line.

Rrroad Rrrivurr and Rrray-ull.

Rrright?

Love the anecdote that Simon Raymonde was delighted she'd written a song about fishing - y'know, "Rod, River and Reel".

+1 for I wear yr ring