How the Cocteau Twins Invented Dream Pop

There are countless misheard lyrics and hard-to-decipher vocals in the history of popular music, but perhaps none as iconic and impactful as those of the Cocteau Twins. Elizabeth Fraser’s ethereal singing – combined with Robin Guthrie’s nimble, slippery guitar playing and anchored by Guthrie’s drum machine programming and Simon Raymonde’s bass – set the template for what came to be known as “dream pop.” As popularly coined by 4AD labelmates A.R. Kane, “dream pop” described a loose collection of indie rock acts experimenting with gauzy textures, somnolent tempos, half-heard vocals, and spectral audio effects that combined to evoke dreamlike states –  impressionistic fragments, not fully formed, that wash and recede from grasp upon waking – within the boundaries of traditional song structures. 

Across a series of increasingly accomplished albums throughout the 1980s and into the ‘90s, the Cocteau Twins did more than perhaps any other single band to define and establish dream pop’s sound. They also remain the most singularly associated with the genre, even as modern bands from Beach House to Sigur Rós or subgenres like chillwave have put their own unique spins and evolutions on dream pop. And along with recent resurgences of shoegaze and slowcore, the Cocteau Twins’ particular brand of dream pop has been enjoying a moment in the online discourse, with Fraser’s cryptic lyrics a favorite subject of both earnest discussion and memes in music communities.

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Head Over Heels

Cocteau Twins

2018

Rock, Ethereal

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The Cocteau Twins didn’t land on their distinctive sound immediately, however. Formed in Grangemouth, Scotland in the late ‘70s and recording in the early ‘80s, the core duo of Fraser and Guthrie initially explored a rougher-edged gothic sound on 1982 debut album Garlands and 1983’s follow-up Head Over Heels, with Fraser’s voice occasionally growling as much as floating and Guthrie’s guitars and production veering towards the distorted and industrial.

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Treasure

Cocteau Twins

2018

Rock, Ethereal

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By the time Raymone joined, solidifying what would be their long-running line-up, for 1984’s Treasure, the band had found what would also become their signature sound. They would continue to develop this through 1986’s Victorialand, 1988’s Blue Bell Knoll, and would reach its greatest height on 1990’s landmark Heaven or Las Vegas. Crucial to this development was the band’s unconventional writing and recording process, which favored the exploration of sounds over the structuring of songs. “I don’t really think of us as songwriters,” Raymonde said of the band’s process in 1985. “In the traditional sense, they’re not songs at all.”

At the heart of their sound was the interplay of Guthrie’s delicate guitar, shimmering and echoing through delay, chorus, and other effects, and Fraser’s now fully unmoored vocal flights. Fraser’s vocals at their most expressive worked on the level of glossolalia, a speaking in tongues that transcends the literal to convey more amorphous or esoteric meanings and feelings. The sounds were iridescent, the songs were sublime; British music mag Melody Maker famously described them as “the Voice of God.”

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Heaven Or Las Vegas

Cocteau Twins

2014

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For all that praise, the band were somewhat averse to self-promotion, declining Top of the Pops appearances, opting not to tour for 1986’s Blue Bell Knoll, and frequently confounding interviewers, all of which helped to cultivate a mysterious, alluring sensibility about the band (although they maintain a highly detailed history on their official website).

Following Heaven or Las Vegas, the band split from their longtime label 4AD, whose early aesthetic they had helped to define, to release 1993’s Four Calendar Cafe and 1996’s Milk & Kisses via Fontana. These albums charted possible paths away from the confines of the dream pop sound they’d spent the last decade creating, but as the ‘90s wore on, Fraser and Guthrie’s creative and romantic partnerships dissolved, and the band officially broke up 1997. An effort to reunite in 2005 for Coachella was canceled, and in a 2021 interview, Raymonde has said that the band “will never reform.”

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Milk & Kisses

Cocteau Twins

2024

Rock, Shoegaze, Alternative Rock, Dream Pop

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Regardless, the band’s pioneering dream pop sound continues to reverberate through time. Fraser has gone on to release a handful of solo singles and a full-length as one-half of the duo Sun’s Signature, and she’s lent her unmistakable voice to an impressive array of guest appearances and collaborations, from the likes of Massive Attack and Oneohtrix Point Never to the score for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Guthrie meanwhile has maintained a prolific output as a solo artist and in frequent collaborations with Harold Budd, further exploring the ambient and atmospheric possibilities of guitar instrumentals and sounds he first pioneered with the Cocteau Twins. And both Fraser’s voice and Guthrie’s instrumentals echo on in samples on songs by the Weeknd, the Chemical Brothers, the Field, Orbital, Arca, and others.