{"id":664,"date":"2026-08-29T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/29\/their-song-titles-left-them-open-to-detractors-like-all-true-pioneers-their-hats-were-shot-through-with-arrows-the-progressive-power-of-cocteau-twins-treasure\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T16:00:00","slug":"their-song-titles-left-them-open-to-detractors-like-all-true-pioneers-their-hats-were-shot-through-with-arrows-the-progressive-power-of-cocteau-twins-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/29\/their-song-titles-left-them-open-to-detractors-like-all-true-pioneers-their-hats-were-shot-through-with-arrows-the-progressive-power-of-cocteau-twins-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTheir song titles left them open to detractors. Like all true pioneers, their hats were shot through with arrows\u201d: The progressive power of Cocteau Twins\u2019 Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2024 Prog explored <\/em>Cocteau Twins<\/em><\/a>\u2019 third album, 1984\u2019s <\/em>Treasure, and presented solid evidence that Elizabeth Fraser\u2019s approach to vocals and her colleague\u2019s soundscape creations bore all the hallmarks of progressive music. <\/em><\/p>\n

Back in the mid-80s when levity and piss-taking were an integral part of the music press, British weekly music mag NME<\/em> ran a humourous column called Bismillah<\/em> in its jokey Thrills<\/em> pages. <\/p>\n

It was dedicated to highlighting excruciatingly bad lyrics \u2013 who can forget The Cult<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Sittin\u2019 on a mountain, looking at the sun\/Plastic fantastic lobster telephone<\/em>\u2019 from Aphrodisiac Jacket<\/em>, among many other dubious pearls?<\/p>\n

Bismillah<\/em> probably sealed the image of Cocteau Twins singing in gibberish when it ran the lyrics of Ivo<\/em>, the opening song of Treasure<\/em>, as: \u2018Ping pong page scrub pandor pompadour\/Henry he\u2019s sweet he saved me<\/em>.\u2019 (They are, in actual fact, \u2018Peep hole, peach blow, Pandora, pompadour\/Pale leaf, pink sweet, Persephone<\/em>.\u2019)<\/p>\n

Of course, Cocteau Twins, and more specifically, singer Elizabeth Fraser, were much smarter than the jokes suggested.<\/p>\n

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Partly masking her own shyness, her lyrical obfuscation worked better when looked at as a form of instrumentation that blended with the ethereal contributions of guitarist and co-founder Robin Guthrie, plus newly-joined bassist Simon Raymonde \u2013 who would later find even greater success as the founder of the Bella Union record label.<\/p>\n

Released in1984, Treasure<\/em> is the point where musical vision and ambitions coalesced to create a world that was wholly their own. Previous LPs Garlands<\/em> (1982) and Head Over Heels<\/em> (1983), along with a steady series of EPs, had displayed their evolving maturity. <\/p>\n

The catalogue had won them the support of John Peel<\/a>\u2019s listeners and the more cerebral wing of what was later to be defined as \u2018goth.\u2019<\/p>\n

Treasure<\/em> found the trio unshackling the ties of inspiration to set sail into an ocean of creativity that defied the narrow strictures of easy categorisation. Restraint was something that other bands did.<\/p>\n

In the studio they luxuriated in the soundscapes of reverb and the widescreen effects of delay pedals and echoes. Embracing the emerging digital technology, their walls and sheets of sound would shine the light for the legions of bands for years to come.<\/p>\n

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It would be called shoegaze in the UK; the Americans would dub it dream pop \u2013 while really, with little precedent, Cocteau Twins were a progressive band to their very core.<\/p>\n

Witness the chimes of Lorelei<\/em> that evoke the frosts of winter; or the sang-froid that drives the chilly yet charming Aloysius<\/em>. And while the musical backdrop from Guthrie and Raymonde pushes forward, Fraser\u2019s vocal whoops and undulations, seemingly couched in childlike splendour, elevate Cocteau Twins to the height of true originals. <\/p>\n

The Victorian-sounding names for song titles (see Beatrix<\/em> and Cicely<\/em>) left them open to detractors. But like all true pioneers, their hats were always going to be shot through with arrows.<\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2024 Prog explored Cocteau Twins\u2019 third album, 1984\u2019s Treasure, and presented solid evidence that Elizabeth Fraser\u2019s approach to vocals and her colleague\u2019s soundscape creations bore all the hallmarks of progressive music. Back in the mid-80s when levity and piss-taking were an integral part of the music press, British weekly music mag NME ran a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realrockrevival.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}