Dream Pop or the Dream of Every Pop Star?: ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’ Turns 35

Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas” is the soundtrack to the life of the shy, misunderstood, self-proclaimed visionary youth. However, the themes and tone of the album extend far past the epoch of their release in 1990, and touch the hearts of whimsy-loving individuals today.

The band, formed in 1979 by Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie and later composed of Guthrie, Elizabeth Fraser, and Simon Raymonde, grew to the peaks of success before a tense breakup in 1997. Guthrie met Fraser in 1981, when she was a socially awkward frequenter of the night club where he DJed. Her life changed completely, and the music of the band gave her an outlet for expressing loneliness, melancholy, hope, and other less-defined feelings. She and Guthrie began a romantic relationship, which would eventually contribute to the end of the band.

The Twins’ debut album, “Garlands,” was released in July 1982, with Heggie leaving the band a few months later. With his departure from the band, Guthrie and Fraser began to focus more heavily on the sound that would become Cocteau Twins’ trademark. Their next LP, “Head Over Heels,” featured more heavily layered and edited instrumental tracks, with Fraser’s dreamy and wistful vocals stirred into the mix. Guthrie began to take producing more seriously, and he focused more on the electronic components and use of reverb, pedals, or layering to create an emotional effect, rather than focusing on the technical aspects of playing guitar. Phil Spector’s “walls of sound” and the sheer noise of big pop groups of the 1970s drove his choice to create fuller sounds than similar rock bands of the time with his use of effects pedals. This method lent the album a sound that was closer to the rich blankety textures of “Heaven or Las Vegas.”

The release of their single “Pearly Dewdrops’s Drops” in 1984 inched Cocteau Twins closer to commercial success, when it charted well enough that they were invited to perform on music broadcasting program “Top of the Pops.” However, they refused to perform, and even though they would later perform other songs on TV, their reluctance to participate as readily in the commercial aspects of the music industry would separate them from other bands of the time, therefore appealing more to the less mainstream-obsessed music lovers.

This audience would grow and form a deeper appreciation of Cocteau Twins’ essence with “Heaven or Las Vegas,” which improved on the melancholy yet ever hopeful sound of the band. On the title track, Fraser’s barely-decipherable language describes a story of love lost or not yet found and the struggle to find identity, thinking of the bright-lit streets of Vegas.

She sings, “Singing on the famous street / I want to love a boy that won’t love me / Am I just in heaven or Las Vegas / That’s why it is more brighter than the sun is to me / Reaching this itch in my soul / That’s like any old playing card / It must be why I’m thinking of Las Vegas / Why it’s more brighter than the sun is to me.”

Combined with the spacey drums and joyful guitar riffs, her words invoke an ambiance of earnest goals and optimistic beginnings, and one can imagine the song playing as someone moves to a new city, or simply walks its streets some fateful night. Though some of the lines can be decoded while listening, some of Fraser’s language is almost impossible to understand; she may be the only one who knows everything she’s singing. Her inflections and manipulation of vowels lend an extra dimension to the music — what she sings does not matter as much as the way she sings it.

Evidently, Cocteau Twins were more intent on crafting an emotional narrative than an album that was necessarily defined by conventions like lyrics, guitar solos, or clearly defined instrumentals. On “Frou-frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires,” this objective is spectacularly achieved. Swirling vocals rhythmically build to a climactic chorus, saturated with cloudy-feeling bass and guitar rhythms that pair with Fraser’s voice — and her backing vocals — to form a foamy whirlpool of sound. Listeners are uplifted and left with a welling of glee both in mind and mouth — since the phrase “cherry-coloured” is one of the few that can be made out. As it is the last song on the album, it leaves one with a sense of calm and renewal. Other tracks on the album, like “Road, River and Rail” may be moodier, but together with this track they encompass a range of sensations, leaving any sensible listener satisfied.

Guthrie, Fraser, and Raymonde created this album while enduring tumultuous times in their relationship with their then-record label company 4AD. In the busy period of planning for a “Heaven or Las Vegas” tour, their producer, Ivo Watts-Russell, broke off 4AD’s relationship with the band. Later, he would cite the fact that Guthrie and the other bandmates were unhappy in their contract and their relationship with record label executives had grown distant and unproductive. Later, in 1998, the band itself would break up; Fraser decided to leave because she and Guthrie had broken up in 1993, and band members rarely spoke to each other in the years after that.

About the music of bands produced by 4AD, Watts-Russell has stated, “Those records will vibrate long after I’ve ceased to do so.” Many fans share this view — “Heaven or Las Vegas” is ranked the number one album of 1990 on the music rating site RateYourMusic. The end of the band does not deter their music from continuing to generate new ideas and influence others. Simon Scott of the shoegaze band Slowdive cites the Cocteau Twins album “Treasure” as essential listening, and Rachel Goswell, the singer of Slowdive, also cites the Twins as a major influence. Similarly, singer Miki Berenyi of the rock band Lush considers them an influence, and Guthrie even produced one of her trio’s albums. Many other bands, even those not explicitly in the shoegaze or dream pop bubble, like Fontaines D.C., owe parts of their sound to Cocteau Twins. In recent years, Japanese and Chinese shoegaze has undergone a major renaissance, with bands like Coaltar Of The Deepers, Yuragi, U.TA, Kinoiko Teikoku, or My Dead Girlfriend, owing their soft, dreamy vocals and heavily-distorted guitars to the influence of Cocteau Twins.

Shoegaze and dream pop or dream pop-inspired bands have captivated the attention of the public lately, especially because it is now considered trendy to be emotionally mature, sensitive, or otherwise intellectual — or intellectual seeming. The music of male manipulators has shifted to a more Cocteau Twins-adjacent sound and it is no longer surprising to see a Slowdive, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, or Cocteau Twins record on the wall of an “aesthetic” man who surreptitiously shows off his 30-song Spotify playlist named something like “sad” and full of Beach House and Cocteau Twins hits. However, this epidemic of fake sensibility or, dare I say, performative music listening should not deter one from worshipping the Cocteau Twins, for the themes of their music will outlast the phonies and touch genuine souls for years to come.