Heaven or Las Vegas
Studio album by
Cocteau Twins
Released17 September 1990[1]
StudioSeptember Sound, Twickenham
Genre
Length37:42
Label4AD
ProducerCocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins chronology
Blue Bell Knoll
(1988)		 Heaven or Las Vegas
(1990)		 Four-Calendar Café
(1993)
Singles from Heaven or Las Vegas
  1. "Iceblink Luck"
    Released: 27 August 1990
  2. "Heaven or Las Vegas"
    Released: October 1990

Heaven or Las Vegas is the sixth studio album by Scottish alternative rock band Cocteau Twins, released on 17 September 1990 by 4AD. Despite 4AD president Ivo Watts-Russell proclaiming it one of the best-ever releases on his label, he released the group from their contract at the end of 1990 because his relationship with the band had soured.

Heaven or Las Vegas peaked at number seven on the UK Albums Chart and number 99 on the US Billboard 200,[3][4] becoming the band's most commercially successful release. It eventually sold 235,000 copies by 1996, according to Billboard.[5] The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,[6] and was voted number 218 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[7] In 2020, Rolling Stone listed it at No. 245 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[8]

The album was voted 18th of Scotland’s 100 Best Rock and Pop Albums in 2003 and was the focus of a BBC Scotland programme, Classic Scottish Albums in 2007.[9]

Background and development

Cocteau Twins released their fifth album, Blue Bell Knoll, in 1988. Despite signing a major label deal with Capitol Records, the band declined to promote it extensively but nevertheless shot a video for "Carolyn's Fingers" which was issued as a single only in the US. The album was not supported by a tour.[10] The band brought on a manager for the first time as they had run into tax trouble previously. Watts-Russell, 4AD president at the time, reportedly "didn't care" for the new manager and his relationship with the band began to sour.[11]

The band took on new familial responsibilities as bassist Simon Raymonde married his first wife, Karen, and vocalist Elizabeth Fraser was expecting her first child with guitarist and co-founder Robin Guthrie.[12] The latter's cocaine habit previously "escalated" during the recording process for Blue Bell Knoll;[13] Fraser and Raymonde believed that the new baby would prove a diversion from Guthrie's dependency and allow the pair to "play [as] happy families."[12] Their wishes did not pan out, with Guthrie relying heavily on drugs as the band developed Heaven or Las Vegas, causing him to experience "deep" paranoia and mood swings.[13][10] His relationship with Fraser grew increasingly strained as a result.[14]

In September 1989, Fraser and Guthrie's child, Lucy Belle was born;[10] Heaven or Las Vegas was released on her first birthday.[15] Of her pregnancy, Fraser said that she gained clarity about what mattered to her most: "Suddenly I had confidence which I'd never ever had in my life, which I consequently lost after I had the baby, because it's such a frightening experience you lose it again and you have to start over again. But it does change you."[16] Raymonde's father, Ivor Raymonde, died shortly after Lucy Belle's birth, as the band were in the middle of recording. He recounted: "I was only 27, I was still quite young and he was a very influential guy for me so that was a big blow but, looking back on it, having a major life event happening probably helped the record have that edge to it."[12]

Recording and composition

Heaven or Las Vegas displays musical evolution, with the music becoming more accessible. Fraser's lyrics were more intelligible; many concerned her newborn child Lucy Belle, particularly "Pitch the Baby", which is about her experience in giving birth and welcoming a child.[12][17] Despite most of Fraser's lyrics "[emerging] in alien tongues", which she sums up as "laziness" and "bad diction", she attributed the album's more identifiable words to Lucy Belle's influence.[15]

There was salvation in [Fraser's vocals and lyrics] too, in terms of helping save her relationship with [Guthrie], the joy of bringing a baby into the world that they could love. It did give them a new lease of life, and it gave the album an energy and vibrancy. It was very easy to make the music.[10]

Raymonde wrote "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires" the day after his father's death,[12] and Heaven or Las Vegas straddled the two themes: "writing songs about birth, and also death, gave the record a darker side that I hear in songs like 'Cherry-Coloured Funk' and 'Fotzepolitic'".[10] Despite being in a "very good space musically" and describing the recording process as an "inspirational time", Raymonde said: "It was trying to mask all the other shit that was going on that we didn't want to stop and think about for too long".[12] In a retrospective of 4AD by music journalist Martin Aston, he noted that Fraser named the album Heaven or Las Vegas as "a suggestion of truth versus artifice, of music versus commerce, or perhaps a gamble, one last throw of the dice".[18]

The album's drum programming was done by Guthrie, the first step in every Cocteau Twins recording session. Guthrie and Raymonde constructed the music before Fraser recorded her vocals.[15] Raymonde likened Guthrie's rhythms on the album to hip hop beats–despite their music being far removed from it, he acknowledged that it came from a "dance-y" place.[12] Much of Heaven or Las Vegas' "mysterious" instrumental effects were achieved by accident, with guitars as opposed to "omnipresent" synthesizers.[15] As a result of Guthrie's decreased time in the studio, Raymonde's playing was more prominent and he became more involved in the recording process.[17][11] Raymonde recounted that he would record Fraser's vocals alone for days at a time, during which he first "fully appreciated how amazing she was": "She'd come into the control room and say, 'What was that like?' and I'd scrape the tears away and say, 'That was alright, Liz'. She didn't get off on praise. If I said. 'That was fucking amazing', she'd say 'I thought it was shit.' I learnt not to be too effusive, which was difficult because I was so blown away with what I was hearing."[11]

"We've had it in the back of our mind that we wanted to play live again", said Guthrie at the time of the album's release, "so we thought we'd make some of the pieces more like songs we could actually play live [...] We like it better than all our last records. That's why we continue to make more–because if we made the perfect record we'd sit back and say, 'We can't do any better than that'. We think all our other ones are fucking crap. I'm slightly proud of a couple of tracks on a couple of them, but essentially I'm really embarrassed about what we've done in the past".[16]

Artwork and release

The band wanted a visual representation that would capture "the ethereal", according to Guthrie.[19] Paul West, of the design studio Form, previously worked with Cocteau Twins on the cover for Blue Bell Knoll. West recruited photographer Andy Rumball, and the pair experimented with various materials to generate a "textural and otherworldly" effect.[19] The final artwork is a long exposure of Christmas tree lights against a colour backdrop, with its typography produced by hand on an acetate overlay. Much of the original artwork was later destroyed in a flood.[19]

Heaven or Las Vegas was released on 17 September 1990 by 4AD in the United Kingdom, and in conjunction with Capitol Records in the United States. 4AD later reacquired American distribution rights for much of its back catalogue, resulting in a 2003 reissue solely on 4AD, which was remastered by Guthrie.[20] A vinyl edition of the reissue was released in July 2014,[3] which was repressed on 180g in 2020, remastered from high definition audio files.[21]

The album was voted "Album of the Week" by German radio broadcaster Südwestrundfunk, and in France by radio broadcasters RMC and Radio Nantes.[22]

Critical reception and legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[23]
Entertainment WeeklyB−[24]
NME8/10[25]
Pitchfork10/10[17]
Q[26]
Record Mirror4+1⁄2/5[27]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[28]
Select4/5[29]
Sounds[30]
Vox10/10[31]

The album has received critical acclaim. "Heaven or Las Vegas is their finest hour yet," enthused Martin Aston in Q. "Ten exquisite moments that make Kate Bush – their only possible comparison – sound as airborne as Motörhead".[26] The album subsequently featured in the magazine's "best of the year" roundup: "It's wonderfully comforting how the Cocteaus continue on their inimitable course, blissfully regardless of what's going on in the world outside their surreal reality".[32]

"You may be able to dig out some of the words," wrote Andrew Perry in Select, "you may even get to hear some of the songs live, but Heaven or Las Vegas is Cocteau Twins in their usual, spectacular and enigmatic context".[29] "In times when every other pop group is dragging on board whatever chemicals, '60s techniques and hypno-rhythms they can grab in order to achieve the desirable blissed-out condition," said Roger Morton in Vox, "it's a good joke that the Cocteaus can get there with such apparent effortlessness".[31]

Heaven or Las Vegas was listed as the 90th best album of the 1990s by Pitchfork, who complimented Fraser's more direct vocals and the album's complex songwriting.[33] It was also included in the 2008 edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,[34] and in The Guardian's online edition of a similar list.[35] It was considered the band's strongest work since Treasure by AllMusic reviewer Ned Raggett, who called it "simply fantastic" and successful in creating "more accessibility".[23]

NME named Heaven or Las Vegas the 28th best album of 1990.[36] Retrospectively, The Observer listed the album as the 97th-greatest British album ever made.[37] In 2017, NPR listed Heaven or Las Vegas 138th of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women.[38] In 2018, Pitchfork ranked it first on its list of the 30 best dream pop albums.[39]

In 2020, Rolling Stone listed it 245th on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[8]

Track listing

All tracks are written by and produced by Cocteau Twins

No.TitleLength
1."Cherry-Coloured Funk"3:12
2."Pitch the Baby"3:14
3."Iceblink Luck"3:18
4."Fifty-Fifty Clown"3:10
5."Heaven or Las Vegas"4:58
6."I Wear Your Ring"3:29
7."Fotzepolitic"3:30
8."Wolf in the Breast"3:31
9."Road, River and Rail"3:21
10."Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires"5:37
Total length:37:42

Notes

  • On the 2014 remastered edition, "Fifty-Fifty Clown" is 3:17 in length and "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires" is 5:48 in length.

Personnel

Charts

Chart performance for Heaven or Las Vegas
Chart (1990) Peak
position
European Albums (European Top 100 Albums)[22] 57
UK Albums (OCC)[40] 7
US Billboard 200[41] 99

References

  1. ↑ Smith, Robin (8 September 1990). "This Week: The Next Seven Days in View - Tours". Record Mirror. p. 33. ISSN 0144-5804.
  2. ↑ Pitchfork Staff (28 September 2022). "The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s". Pitchfork. Retrieved 26 April 2023. By 1990, when Cocteau Twins released Heaven or Las Vegas—their final album for 4AD, the independent UK label that had shepherded their journey from post-punk mystics to ambient-pop dream-weavers...
  3. 1 2 "Cocteau Twins: 'Blue Bell Knoll' and 'Heaven or Las Vegas' LP Represses Coming this July". 4AD. 22 May 2014. Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  4. ↑ "Cocteau Twins – Chart History". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Archived from the original on 10 April 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  5. ↑ Bambarger, Bradley (6 April 1996). "Radio Climate Could Boost Capitol's Cocteau Twins". Billboard. Vol. 104, no. 14. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. p. 14. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  6. ↑ Morton, Rob (2006). Dimery, Robert (ed.). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. New York: Universe. pp. 634. ISBN 0789320746.
  7. ↑ Colin Larkin, ed. (2000). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 105. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
  8. 1 2 "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  9. ↑ "Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas". Cocteautwins.com.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Aston, Martin. "Searching for Heaven". 4AD. Archived from the original on 14 December 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 Irvin, Jim (April 2006). "The Cocteau Twins". The Word. Retrieved 15 October 2018 – via Rock's Backpages.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 McAuliffe, Colm (1 July 2014). "Divine Rapture: Simon Raymonde Revisits Cocteau Twins' Purple Patch". The Skinny. Archived from the original on 1 April 2016. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  13. 1 2 Lindsay, Cam (10 July 2015). "An Essential Guide to Cocteau Twins". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  14. ↑ Riley, Danny (1 August 2014). "Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knoll/Heaven or Las Vegas (Reissue)". The Quietus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Brown, Joe (9 November 1990). "Trying to Get a Twins Peek". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  16. 1 2 O'Connell, Clodagh (October 1990). "Interview". Select.
  17. 1 2 3 Deusner, Stephen (16 July 2014). "Cocteau Twins: Blue Bell Knoll/Heaven or Las Vegas". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 27 October 2022. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  18. ↑ Martin, Aston (2013). Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD. London: HarperCollins Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0007489619. OCLC 853505613.
  19. 1 2 3 "Heaven or Las Vegas is 26 today". Form. 17 September 2016. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2017.
  20. ↑ "Cocteau Twins – Heaven Or Las Vegas [2003 reissue]". Redsun Records (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 8 August 2017. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  21. ↑ "Cocteau Twins – Heaven Or Las Vegas". 4AD – Cad 3420. LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered, 180 Gram. 2000. "Including a sticker mentioning the sentence remastered from HD audio".
  22. 1 2 "Music & Media" (PDF). Worldradiohistory.com. 13 October 1990. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
  23. 1 2 Raggett, Ned. "Heaven or Las Vegas – Cocteau Twins". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2018.
  24. ↑ Sandow, Greg (21 September 1990). "Heaven or Las Vegas". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  25. ↑ Ellen, Barbara (15 September 1990). "Terrible Twins". NME. p. 39.
  26. 1 2 Aston, Martin (October 1990). "The Cocteau Twins: Heaven Or Las Vegas". Q. No. 49. Archived from the original on 20 June 2000. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  27. ↑ Duerden, Nick (15 September 1990). "Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas". Record Mirror. p. 19.
  28. ↑ Considine, J. D. (2004). "Cocteau Twins". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 174–175. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  29. 1 2 Perry, Andrew (October 1990). "Viva Las Vegas". Select. No. 4. p. 95. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  30. ↑ Phillips, Shaun (15 September 1990). "Heaven scent". Sounds. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
  31. 1 2 Morton, Roger (October 1990). "Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas". Vox. No. 1.
  32. ↑ "The Fifty Best Albums of 1990". Q. No. 52. January 1991. pp. 82–88.
  33. ↑ LeMay, Matt (17 November 2003). "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s – 090: Cocteau Twins Heaven or Las Vegas". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  34. ↑ Dimery, Robert (2013). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. London: Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 9781844037353. OCLC 855705638.
  35. ↑ "1000 Albums to Hear Before you Die: Artists beginning with C". The Guardian. London. 19 November 2007. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  36. ↑ "Albums and Tracks of the Year: 1990". NME. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  37. ↑ "The 100 greatest British albums". The Observer. London. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  38. ↑ Lorusso, Marissa (24 July 2017). "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women". NPR. Archived from the original on 25 July 2017. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  39. ↑ "The 30 Best Dream Pop Albums". Pitchfork. 16 April 2018. p. 3. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
  40. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  41. ↑ "Cocteau Twins Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
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