Tinderbox...

If I am able to do justice to this post I still will have failed

The Cocteau Twins have remained one of the most influential bands of all time in my life, or what has been the past 13 years. I never knew on the onset of my collecting days that this band had a dazzling catalogue of songs and visuals that would pretty much dictate everything from what I listened to, to the career that I embarked upon. I had seen the video for Bluebeard and I was blown away by the vocals. Her voice was like nothing else I had ever heard. Sure there were similar styles out there, but Liz's voice was absolute perfection and the music just swooned and swirled about her and the video was all shiny and like some ethereal carnival and it was something I had to own.


download @192 courtesy megaupload
After listening to this album I found that I really liked the start, and the end, but the middle fell flat to me, and such I was unsure of this band, were they solid, or was it another gimick...

I had no one else that knew them so my high school senior year ended with only that one album and I opted to go no further...until my sophomore year of college.

I had met a girl the year prior, whom was emphatically in love with them, and at the time, being huge into Rave culture thought it was fluff..."where are the beats?"
She told me I was stupid and simply didn't understand that I was listening to greatness and that one day I would learn.

And boy did I!

She left, and this other girl gave me Heaven or Las Vegas to listen to, because I was seeking paper writing music...and she said, Cocteau Twins are one of my favorite bands, if you need any of the albums to listen to, just stop by. I listened to every single one of them...except for the one she didn't own, Head Over Heels.

and this...

was how it allllll started....

during the winter of 1995/96....

I'm not even going to touch how listening to The Moon and The Melodies has changed me, that needs a post all to itself, if not a week of posts...


download @192 courtesy megaupload
I went on vacation to Wisconsin and purchased Head Over Heels, because I had to know what this sounded like as it was the only one that remained a mystery to me. I fell in love with it. Listening to it as the cold air whipped past the windows in Madison, and feeling ever so more warmed by the dramatic and insular air of the sound. It became my favorite album of that time...

Honestly this album is my favorite. M+M is my favorite, but I won't get into the syntax....Head Over Heels is a time and place in life for me, and it's the only album that hits me with such nostalgia that I love it from start to finish and never get sick of it...I never get sick of any of them.

Save for Four-Calendar Cafe...but it was my introduction to them and that is why I am notating it here. The box set of eps is my most cherished heart keepsake by them, with many of them amounting to "my favorite albums" but they alas, are eps.
(another time on that too)

I think the experience is different with everyone, but this band means more to me than some of the people I met during those years...They are almost people in themselves that I feel so close to, that I have shared so much with, that have been there to provide so much for me, and yet, we have never spoken.

There within lies the beauty.