 "Sophistapop" | 2008-08-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A8IFUOL8S9BZC |
| Solid late-career entry shows how restraint and refinement work hand in hand enhancing the Cocteau sound, whereas excessive experimentation in past outings has detracted, reassuring listeners worldwide as few in the genres do that pop music could still be considered an art form. |
| |
 "Building A Mystery" | 2008-07-03 |
| - Reviewed By clinicia |
| This is one of my all time favourite cds, I only wish they would have included the b side "Watchlar", which is on the "Iceblink Luck" 12 inch. It would have been a perfect inclusion for the remaster. I only have the original cd, and according to one review, I'm not really missing out on anything, thank goodness. My favourtie track is "fifty fifty clown". I wish I could have one day with the Cocteau Twins and ask them to decifer some of the songs, but maybe that would ruin the magic of their music. |
| |
| "Remastered" | 2008-02-10 |
| - Reviewed By clintavila |
| The clarity and balance in this remaster is worth replacing your old copy. I was not sure after reading other reviews, but rest assured you will have a new reason to play these albums over and over. |
| |
| "they got very close to a masterpiece" | 2007-11-01 |
| - Reviewed By onedinsalinstein |
| all the great can make masterpieces; by great i mean bands that changed the music for better and for good, like the beatles, bands that invented their own styles, like the who and the cocteau twins; ask yourselves why they do not produce masterpieces; primarily because when they are working on a new album they do not simply think about making a masterpiece; they may try to be perfect and to outdo themselves on their next album and even though they do manage to produce a great deal of damn better stuff for an album, subjective choices make an album sound great but not a masterpiece; i do not mean that to be a masterpiece all songs in a album must be perfect; what always refrains an album from being a masterpiece is the inclusion of weak or poor songs in a great album; the beatles' sgt. peppers is a good example: songs like "She's Leaving Home" and "When I'm Sixty Four" are not even good enough to be b sides of singles for beatles standards but they replaced masterpieces like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane"; these were subjective choices, maybe by george martin, that made sgt. pepper be great and the most influential but not a masterpiece; now you may wonser what the problem is with heaven or las vegas (holv); i do not think holv has big problems; let me explain; first of all, holv put together in the same album three masterpieces: "Fifty-fifty Clown", "I Wear Your Ring" and "Wolf In The Breast"; "Fifty-fifty Clown" is as original, complex and strangely beautiful as "Strawberry Field Forever"; it is the kind of song that will not appear every five years and that's why this song showed up over two decades after "Strawberry Field Forever" and "I'm The Walrus"; and i am pretty sure the cts do not even realize that; "I Wear Your Ring" is original in its melody arrangement, singing, evolution, and you name it; in his review of this album, my fellow country guy, alberto e.p. garcia, is fully understood when he says 'it has my favorite cocteau twins song ever, I Wear Your Ring; the overdubbed vocals of elizabeth fraser towards the end of that song create one of the most beautiful and trance inducing passages i have ever heard in popular music'; "Wolf In The Breast" is just a ballad, not necessarily original, but ask someone to show you the best ballad ever; i do not mean just any sugary or corny or commercial ballad, but one with class, charm and attitude and at the same time incredibly beautiful, beautiful but not commercial; a song that you won't be able to whistle so easily after listening to it many times; the cts made a masterpiece out of a simple ballad; do not ask me how, just listen to it; what else besides those three masterpieces? let's go one by one; "Cherry-coloured Funk" as an intro is not a great song; "Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Heart Club Band" opens the beatles' most celebrated album so greatly and it does tell the listeners: 'you're gonna listen to great stuff'; "Cherry-coloured Funk" does not do the same; it does belong to holv because it sounds like most of the songs in this album but only after you listen to the whole album you realize this song sort of sets the mood for the entire cd yet not so greatly; after listening to this song for the first time you do not think you're about to hear a great album; it is a good piece of music, though; "Pitch The Baby" is just great and it gives us a hint of what awaits us two tracks later; "Iceblink Luck" is a lovely song, like sgt. peppers' "Lovely Rita"; okay, i know many people don't like that beatles' song and even john underestimated it: 'just another pop song by paul'; i am sorry but "Lovely Rita" is adorable and "Iceblink Luck" is even more adorable because is sung by beth and not by paul; the first chords of "Fifty-fifty Clown" make you think that the cts will sing "Pitch The Baby" again, but then you are caught by a big surprise, a totally different song, a masterpiece! "Heaven Or Las Vegas" is not as great as "Iceblink Luck" but it is still adorable; it lies somewhere between the good and the great; next comes "I Wear Your Ring", pure magic in the air; and the cts are so nice! they mixed an iceblink luck with the sweetness of a wolf in the breast, speeded it up, added some spicing and gave us this precious stone named "Fotzepolitic"...only to prepare us for the next high, the next purple haze in the sky, "Wolf In The Breast"; "Road, River And Rail" is a good song but not so exciting; "Frou-frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires" curbed my enthusiasm a little bit; i wished holv could end in great style, with a song like "A Day In The Life" which ends sgt. Pepper so brilliant and masterpiecily; "Frou-frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires" is not bad but it is light years away from something so great like "A Day In The Life"; in an effort to turn the great holv into a masterpiece i would replace two of those three songs, "Cherry-coloured Funk", "Road, River And Rail" and "Frou-frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires"; i really do not know whether the cts had more available stuff that they recorded and eventually left off the album; i never made any research about that; i only know that just after holv was out the cts took two songs of that album and released them as singles together with b sides; one is "Iceblink Luck" b-sided with "Mizake The Mizan" and "Watchlar", and the other one is "Heaven Or Las vegas", b-sided with "Dials" and "Heaven Or Las Vegas (edit)"; since the first single was released in the same year of holv (1990), i tend to believe that the two new songs, "Mizake The Mizan" and "Watchlar", were written and-or produced and recorded at the same time holv was; if that is correct then i would definitely put "Mizake The Mizan" and "Watchlar" back in holv because those two songs have a status higher than mere b sides; actually they sound better than "Cherry-coloured Funk", "Road, River And Rail" and "Frou-frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires"; "Watchlar" is holv-ilic, only that it is clean, without any instrumental overdubbing; it works well as an intro, but it will not cause any such big impact like "Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Heart Club Band", or make you think you're about to hear a five star almum; but it does make you curious and it does build up and naturally connects to the next song, "Pitch The Baby", and the warmed up peak is reached with "Iceblink Luck"; try to listen to those three songs in sequence and maybe you have the same feeling i have; "Mizake The Mizan" is beautiful and also with less overdubbing; it is clean, elegant and slower but it does sound to me like a farewell song, as if the cts were saying: 'you had had the best of us and now you're gonna have the last of us, bye bye'; if you listen to this song just after "Wolf In The Breast", maybe you have the same sensation i have, a masterpiece sensation. |
| |
| "ALCEU NATALI' S CLASSIC ALBUMS: A TREASURE HIDDEN IN HEAVEN" | 2007-11-01 |
| - Reviewed By onedinsalinstein |
INTRODUCTION
During the last 15 years I have seen lists of the 'Best Albums Of All Time', published, mainly, by English and American magazines. I have tried my best but I could never listened to most of those 'great' albums without skipping various tracks. I ask myself if it is a question of taste or prejudice. Maybe both. For instances, when I see The Beastie Boys and Eminem among the English magazine Q's 100 best albums of all time, inevitably, my dark side comes to light: 'I'd rather see those rappers and hip hoppers murdering the ears of music lovers than murdering people in the streets'. Here goes another example: the absence of The Who's album My Generation among the 100 best of that magazine makes me wonder whether these magazines 'reviewers' really listen to music at all. In my country, people say that 'taste' is something that cannot be disputed, but the other day my wife added: 'taste is something that cannot be disputed but to be sorry about'. And she is pretty damn right because what you find and do not find in those 'lists' is something to be deeply sorry about. For someone like me, who loves rock and pop music, it is impossible to take seriously any list of the best albums of all time that is not topped by Beatles' albums. The Rolling Stone magazine Greatest Albums of All Time have some respect for The Beatles and included 8 albums of theirs among the 100 greatest, however among their 500 greatest you will not find such a precious stone like Heaven Or Las Vegas but you will find those 'music murderers' I mentioned above and also a lot of albums that are not good enough to be part of the 10,000 greatest of all time. Lest the new generations think I am just a dinosaur of the 60's, I anticipate that I am not the kind of guy who spends hours listening to the complete collections of the greatest bands of the golden decade. I love rock and pop music from all decades. As a matter of fact, I have more CDs from the last two decades than from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Nowadays, with the invention of the MP3, people do not need anymore to buy a whole album only because of a few good songs. The music lovers can download from internet only the songs that they like and that means that within a couple of years or so there will be no more CDs for sale. Then, instead of a collection of CDs on his/her shelves, the music lover will have an anthology of songs in his/her iPOD. And I wonder if we are going back to the 60's when only singles were bought while an album was a luxury, something to be bought only as a Christmas gift, or just a tricky marketing strategy to make some extra money on a couple of hits repacked together with a bunch of disposable fillers. As you may remember or not, it was The Beatles with their unmatched talents who made albums become a new form of art and be taken seriously by the media and the public. Anyway, I am already familiar with the iPOD but I am not the kind of anthological guy. Lately, I started prospecting what I call 'classic' albums, but classic for me is not an album made only of masterpieces in all tracks, or an habitue of radio's hit parades and famous magazines' lists. Furthermore, there is no perfect album. Classic for me is a damn good album, from the very first track to the last one. That album that you listen to all the way without skipping a track and without wishing a certain track reaches its end soon because your favorite one comes next. I have prospected many of those types of albums but you will not see most of my 'classics' in those 'famous and respectable' lists made by journalists as mediocre as music reviewers as I am as an artist or a writer. If you ask me about my prospecting criteria, all I can tell you is that those who have 'good ears' for music do not need more than 30 seconds of each track of an album to know whether it is classic or not. That's what I do. When I am looking for new bands I listen to the 30 seconds of every track of their albums available at Amazon until I find my classic one. My musical sense of smell is infallible. When I listen to the entire CD that had that smell of classic stemming from the 30 seconds of each one of its tracks there is no mistake about it: it is a classic! On the other hand, I already own about 2,000 CDs of different bands and among them there are various classic ones. Heaven Or Las Vegas is one of them.
THE TRACKS
1. Cherry-Coloured Funk is a thick and corpulent song, with instruments and vocals filling the space. It is a simple but classic melody, soft and tranquil. It progresses from low vocal notes until it reaches a peak, while the celestial chords sound all the time in the background as if they were playing in a nearby room, and the same goes for the discrete but scoring bass. 2. Pitch The Baby is faster with a more prominent and pointed bass and higher vocal notes. The heavenly atmosphere permeates the song all over. It is a forewarning of track 6 and displays a melodic progression from the first track that culminates with 3. Iceblink luck, a very beautiful pop song, in which both vocals and instruments play with intensity and devotion. Only the drums are muffled to leave room for the fight between the enchanting vocals and the gorgeous instruments for the thrilling climax to the show. 4. Fifty-Fifty Clown is a masterpiece. It has a timelessly futurist sound. Only Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles has a similarly complex and beautiful melodic progression. The first part is very difficult to be sung. You cannot whistle it even after listening to it ten times in a row that and that means it required a lot of talent to be invented. 5. Heaven Or Las Vegas is similar to Iceblink Luck, less intense and more rhythmical, and equally beautiful. Beth Fraser's vocals are devastating. Iceblink Luck and Heaven Or Las Vegas are Cocteau Twins' couple of their most pop songs, a pair of explosion of joy. 6. I Wear Your Ring is another masterpiece. It is a song that was waiting for someone to create it and it was up to the Cocteau Twins to do it. Beth Fraser' vocals, the bass and the rest of the instruments are amazing and trance inducing. The second and final part is pure ecstasy, one of the best moments of pop music. 7. Fotzepolitic is moved by the beauty of the previous track, celebrates its splendor and makes sure not to challenge its royalty and, at the same time, pays it a sublime homage and becomes a metaphor of that masterpiece. 8. Wolf In The Breast is a prime and a proof that, definitely, the Cocteau Twins were wounded with a Cupid arrow of excellence and made another masterpiece of a simple ballad. After six breathtaking tracks, enters 9. Road, River And Rail, a more lamenting ballad that is not deprived of any of the refinements of the previous tracks and 10. Frou-frou Foxes In Midsummer continues that lamenting for a while but ends with an explosion of vibrant and fire working sound that fills the air again, like a farewell tune adequate to the last track of a fantastic album.
FINAL COMMENTS
I met a guy who loves rock and pop music like I and who has the same taste and prejudice I do, but one day he grinned with irony when I told him I found the Cocteau Twins great. 'Why do not you share a kitchenette with them?' asked me the same guy who declared that the Brazilian 'bossa nova' is the greatest revolution in music of all time. Well, bossa nova is a kind of music easily found in every corner of Rio de Janeiro City or even in casinos in Las Vegas, but the Cocteau Twins' sound is a treasure hidden in heaven and finding it out demands as much talent as the Cocteau Twins needed to produce Heaven Or Las Vegas.
Alceu Natali
|
| |
| "I prefer the original CD" | 2007-09-11 |
| - Reviewed By ekrohn7002 |
| What IS it about the shrill highs and boomy lows of so many remasters that enamors listeners? This is my favorite Cocteau Twins album, but I was profoundly disappointed in the remastered version. I will keep my beloved original with the wonderful mid-ranges and touches of highs and lows in my library....and donate the remaster I recently bought to my local library. By the way, even with a version I dont much like, the title cut still brings tears to my eyes after all these years. |
| |
Expedited Available
