Thursday, October 9, 2014
a binge coming on
I think it's about time for me to pick up all of the Cocteau Twins CDs (used on amazon) and listen to them a lot for a month or so. If there was nothing else going on. That's what I would do...
Ivo - Cocteau Twins
[link] Siouxsie and the Banshee were one of the Cocteau Twins influences and it really shows in some of the songs on their 1984 album "Treasure", including this song and Persephone.
Simple Minds - No Cure
[link] Amazing story I just read about. This song was originally called "The Cocteau Twins" and the Simple Minds' (then called Johnny and the Self Abusers) fellow Scots named themselves after this song. That's really really cool.
Cocteau Twins - The Itchy Glowbo Blow
[link] No one does arch-atmosphere like Cocteau Twins. It's sort of like Tolkein did for the genre of fantasy. The Cocteau Twins invented the entirety of the "ethereal sound" that because such a huge pursuit in Shoegaze, lock, stock, and barrell, the beginning, the end, all of it. This song is a superb example of this, but also, especially in the fade out figure at the end, there is pop in here.
Two other producers of the soundtrack of my youth
Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain. These guys touched a whole lot of rock and pop that made it into my brain.
Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost in You
[link] 1984's "Mirror Moves" finds the Furs forging the smoothest and most sophisticated pop that they would probably ever make. The differences from their origins are on the same scale (to use an example from almost the same genre) as Bryan Ferry's Bete Noire era solo stuff compared to early Roxy Music. Instead of a xylophone, a synth provides the driving figure. The vocals are more conventionally produced (but still signature Butler, the lyrics as well). The Furs of this era have an ability to evoke offbeat romantic desolation on a par with Ric Ocasek's best work the the Cars. Keith Forsey produces them here (after Todd Rundgren's trenchant production on the breakthrough Forever Now), placing them into the 80s pop Olympus alongside other Forsey Productions like Billy Idol and Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me". I gotta say that Forsey certainly produced the soundtrack of my coming of age.
Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way
[link] This was the one. The piece of pure alt.pop genius (before alt existed) that made the Furs a worldwide recognizable sound. Probably the best use of xylophone in the history of pop. The chord structure is simple. The genius is to mine such deep hooks out of pure simplicity in the chord progression and vocal line. Butler's vocals actually become sort of velvety on top of the synthesizers here. The atmosphere and very tightly focused signature emotiveness are also major achievements.
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