Cocteau Twins : Classic or Dud

'the pink opaque' is a good early years overview if you don't know that stuff very well

i am a 'head over heels' guy all the way tho

Highly recommend The Pink Opaque. It was released in the 80s as a "hello America" introduction to the band, comprised of a few album tracks and singles, and it did its job well. Even though it's not a proper album, it's my favorite.

some of those bbc sessions are better than the studio tracks (esp. 'hazel' and 'blind dumb deaf')

Head Over Heels and Heaven or Las Vegas are my favorite LPs, but The Spangle Maker EP, reprised in its entirety (minus a 7" edit) on The Pink Opaque comp, remains their finest moment.

agreed - I would go w/BBC Sessions or Pink Opaque to get a sense of where you would want to go next as far as the albums proper.

"The Spangle Maker" is one of the all-time greatest songs of ever.

^ fact

If we're discussing Cocteau Twins soundalikes, there's a lot of goth dribble that gets the instrumental side down, but almost none have a vocalist that can pull off Liz Frasier's fluid / Ella Fitzgerald like stylings. My only strong recommendation here is the unfortunately named California band Orange, fronted by Sonya Waters, who released an eponymous album in 1994 on Dewdrops Records run by Brant from the 4AD mailing list.

Hey, Youtube has Feijoa by Orange

Sorry, I actually regret posting my version above, I had just run across a mention of that band and was excited about it! Nothing is as good at being Cocteau Twins as the real deal of course. Sorry to cloud the waters.

now i dont know WHAT to do

fwiw, we're all right and Noodle Vague is full of shit.

Victorialand is the best

If you lke Heaven Or Las Vegas, Blue bell knoll and Milk and Honey are definitely the closest to that sound. All their albums are great, though.

s1ocki, get Milk & Kisses

I guess it depends on whether you like your CT with a big bottom end or if you like your CT all whispy and ethereal. Heaven or Las Vegas is probably the perfect album because it straddles that fence ably.

Her album's not going to happen is it?

Back to the question 'Treasure' for me, though they're all pretty much interchangeable.

Yeah, if you're looking for something Heaven Or Las Vegas-ish, get Milk and Kisses. Maybe Four Calendar Cafe (although it seems to be held in slightly lower esteem for reasons I don't understand).

Decipherable lyrics is the reason

it was kind of disappointing at the time but now it sounds great.

I wouldn't mind an album with Yann Tiersen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N5KITNGDtc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jb1xm-eCvc

Sanpaku thanks for the Orange link! I forgot all about those guys.

i appreciate all the answers but i can't help feel like i'm back at square one here folks

well, most/all of their albums are pretty special. again, if you want stuff that sounds like HILV, go for the surrounding albums (blue bell knoll,four calendar cafe, milk and kisses, heck even victorialand). tresure and head over heels are incredible but are relatively harsher and more goth.

dang i remember pining for this comp back in high school. probably just for the alison's halo track:
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Splashed-With-Many-A-Speck/release/597128

Seriously, I can't think of many other bands deserving of a 'BUY EVERYTHING!' recommendation.

Though I've got a bunch of songs from every album, I gotta admit when I'm in a cocteau mood I just throw on my college radio station's old LP of The Pink Opaque

Singles comp is the way to go on this one, folks: http://www.discogs.com/Cocteau-Twins-Lullabies-To-Violaine-Volume-1/master/248410

s1ocki here are some polls for reference, top 3 in each are HOLV, Treasure, & Victorialand.

Best Cocteau Twins album

BEST COCTEAU TWINS ALBUM POLL

S1ocki - I second the Vol 1 Lullabies to Violaine recommend. You can find it cheap and it's both a great overview of the evolution of their sound and has, for me, absolutely crucial ep's: Tiny Dynamine and Love's Easy Tears kill me every time.

And I agree with Woodsy the Allen - they are definitely a 'buy everything' band.

Stars And Topsoil (1982-1990) is also a good comp that has tracks from every era and almost every album and EP.

singles comp is definitely a good investment

Slocki I think the issue here is that Cocteau Twins albums all express different relational arrangements of their qualities, such that there's not really an obvious answer to "which is the second album I need". This is especially because Heaven or Las Vegas isn't at the far end of their sound's continuum, but is somewhere close to the middle. So it's like you're in a choose your own adventure and you can go down one of several different doors based on your preferences.

I'd ask: what is it that you like most about Heaven or Las Vegas?

- if it's the sharpness and drama of the tunes, try Treasure

- if it's the sensuosness of the atmospherics and vocals, try Victorialand

- if it's the lushly produced thickness of the sound, try Milk & Kisses

- if it's the concise energy of the songwriting, try Head Over Heels

I probably wouldn't recommend Blue Bell Knoll or Four Calendar Cafe as your next choice in part because I think they're slightly lesser albums and in part because they're close enough stylistically and chronologically to Heaven or Las Vegas (in very different ways to one another though) that what is loveable in them is a slant on things that are loveable in that album.

No. No. No. The best Cocteau Twins 'album' is Tiny Dynamine/Echoes In A Shallow Bay, two Eps released in quick succession during the fall of 1985. Just perfect from beginning to end.

I would actually put Tiny Dynamine/Echoes In A Shallow Bay in a slightly different category in that (a) it's at the absolute center of the band's aesthetic, and (b) perhaps for this reason its greatness is much more evident once you've absorbed and internalised that aesthetic.

Whereas with most of the albums what makes them interesting is how they push into the spotlight a different facet of the group's sound.

Four Calendar Cafe is underrated, but its merits cannot be justly appreciated without the attendant b-sides, particularly Summer-blink. I completely love Liz Frazer's 'affirmation' lyrics, I never get tired of hearing her sing 'I accept myself as I really am' and 'I'm doing a fine job.' Especially after viewing some of the psychologically disturbed interviews (see Youtube, you'll find them) of her with Robin Guthrie prior to this period. It's no wonder they can't reform, ever, at any price!

xpost Tim F: you are completely correct!

I completely love Liz Frazer's 'affirmation' lyrics, I never get tired of hearing her sing 'I accept myself as I really am' and 'I'm doing a fine job.'

For real. I like to pair it with something from Garlands for extra emphasis.

i really do love how everybody has a different answer and that the catalog is so much bigger than i had assumed!

great post tim.

i would say what really enchanted me about heaven or las vegas was the way the band combined that gorgeous gauzy ethereality with a driving, pulse-racing intensity

the way songs like "pitch the baby" build to a sort of euphoric climax... does that make sense?

Yes -- see "The Spangle Maker" (1984) or "Seekers Who Are Lovers" (1996). They did that sort of thing quite well.

since this got buried beneath the fold from two years ago, let me recommend this local TV news feature about a CT show in Ohio, circa 1985:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaOlNfC8_xQ&feature=player_embedded

Yes, that was brilliant!

"consistently one of britain's number one bands"

I love that clip.

Also, what everyone else said. I don't care if it's contradictory, just get everything, thank me later.

worth it for the ethereal indie-goth look combined with a moustache - think this is quite a rare sighting?

i'd go for garlands and four-calendar café. as they are different. their first album garlands is a post-punk album with some synthesizer experiments where they are still quite rough and have not yet found their final sound. four-calendar café has tunes which are as strong as those from heaven or las vegas but here they sing intelligible lyrics. btw there are many albums by them which did not age well i find.

Can't believe the Otherness ep has not been mentioned yet. Wish there was a whole albums worth of Seefeel remixing Cocteau Twins.

otherness didn't live up to expectations, for me. just kind of sits there and bores me.

So many EPs I've never heard of...

the way songs build to a sort of euphoric climax... does that make sense?

My friend and I used to call this the Cocteau structure. It's very minimalist and repetitive for most of the song and then BAM it explodes into fireworks and confetti and sometimes swooshes of caramel and cotton candy.
They've used that specific structure throughout their career, the fisrt one was "The Spangle Maker" I think.
There's also "Donimo", "Feet-Like Fins", "Great Spangled Fritillary", "Sigh's Smell of Farewell", "Ooze Out and Away, Onehow", "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires", "Pur", and "Treasure Hiding".