245. Cocteau Twins, "Heaven or Las Vegas"

 


Cocteau Twins is one of those bands that has always rested on the shady periphery for me; I mean, obviously I knew that they existed and I vaguely knew they were influential on the shoegaze/dreampop scene, and I knew the title of this album but I have to confess I had never sat down and listened to it before and you know what?  This is a beautiful album.

It starts with Robin Guthrie's guitar, a chimy, chorusy sound, chugging chords, and then Elizabeth Fraser's voice, but just calling it her "voice" really is an understatement.  Not only does she have incredible range, which she shows off on that first song; it's also got an otherworldly quality that carries through the whole album.  It's no wonder that the genre this spawned is called "dreampop;" the whole album sounds like the soundtrack to a dream.

After a few listens, I kept coming back to "Iceblink Luck," a perfect little jewel box of a song that shows off everything about this band.


I guess I didn't know this but Fraser is famous for having indecipherable lyrics?  It pains me to think about all the disaffected kids who had to wait for the Internet to find out that the lyrics to the title track include:

Carnivals are bluster loud
I'm dizzy so I go under the 'Big Dipper'
Cum fantasy for a carnival
How fitting before a wedding
Singing of a famous street
I want to love, I've all the wrong glory
But is it Heaven or Las Vegas?
But you're much more brighter than the sun is to me

Wild, man.  The band's story is kind of a heartbreaking one.  Guthrie and Fraser were together, had a kid (Lucy Belle, who is now making music not dissimilar from her parents'), and had a messy breakup.  Guthrie, for his part, had a crippling cocaine addiction that apparently pulled the whole band down.  They had a lucrative reunion offer, including the requisite Coachella appearance, a few years back but Fraser said she couldn't be on the stage with Guthrie.  Maybe she'll reconsider; there are a lot of Gen Xers with platinum cards out there now who I'm sure would pay whatever they want.

It's too bad they can't give it another go, but leaving this album behind is a fair enough gift to the world.  I'm glad I found it, finally.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Uh, yes.

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