Can you pick the best Cocteau Twins EP/single? (poll ends 15/05/07)

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This is really way more evil. I think Bimble and Curtis will kill me now. But I couldn't resist.

Poll Results

Option	Votes
Pearly Dewdrops' Drops	9
Echoes in a Shallow Bay	5
Love's Easy Tears	5
Sunburst and Snowblind	4
Lullabies	2
Otherness	2
Aikea-Guinea	2
Heaven or Las Vegas	1
Iceblink Luck	1
Tiny Dynamine	1
Carolyn's Fingers	0
Evangeline	0
Snow	0
Bluebeard	0
Twinlights	0
Peppermint Pig	0
Tishbite	0
Violane	0

― Trayce, Thursday, 10 May 2007 05:06 (eighteen years ago)

There's 3 I personally dont know which to decide amongst: Tiny Dynamine, Echoes, and Love's Easy Tears.

― Trayce, Thursday, 10 May 2007 05:07 (eighteen years ago)

Come on guys, don't let me down here!

― Trayce, Sunday, 13 May 2007 01:27 (eighteen years ago)

"lullabies" win, although "feathers oar blades" sucks compared to the (great) version on the BBC sessions comp. "love's easy tears" would have won if it had "crushed" on it, which was released at about the same time, i think, and totally belongs there. what an amazing song. (the rest of the EP can get a bit too syrupy, though. "orange appled", yecch.)

"tiny dynamine/echoes..." rule too. tough poll.

― John Splith, Sunday, 13 May 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)

Echoes......just.

― SeekAltRoute, Sunday, 13 May 2007 05:06 (eighteen years ago)

loves easy tears is going to take this in a landslide, I'd think

― akm, Sunday, 13 May 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

i can never remember the names of the ones i like the most. fuck.

i have two days to dig out a lot of old tapes and listen :)

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)

Echoes ftw!

― Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

i like that one that goes zung zung ZUNG ZUNG wooo-eeeeee.

― grimly fiendish, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

I voted Echoes :D

― Trayce, Sunday, 13 May 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

i like that one that goes zung zung ZUNG ZUNG wooo-eeeeee.

Hahah that has me tempted to rip off Curt1s's Daft Punk thing and type out a whole bunch of Cocteaus noise. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for you lot) I have work to do.

― Trayce, Monday, 14 May 2007 01:28 (eighteen years ago)

I'm with Grimly, I would need to dig out some things to vote fairly but unfortunately I just went with Pearly Dewdrops because that was the first Cocteaus record I ever heard.

Lullabies seemed a lot better at the time than it did when I pulled it out years later. Not sure why.

Love's Easy Tears is actually a very good choice. I don't know that it's really possible to say Echoes is better or worse than Tiny Dynamine, but again I'd need to dig them out.

Seeing Iceblink Luck on there confuses me a bit...I thought that was just a b-side to something, rather than an EP in its own right.

Aikea-Guinea is fab too, but represented the point when I think they went a little too far with loudness/heaviness of the production. It just seems like they wanted to whack you over the head at both the high and the low end. Maybe it had something to do with the drugs...

― Bimble, Monday, 14 May 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)

Bimble, Pearly Dewdrops is a good call, though -- title song is great, "Pepper Tree" is very good and "Spanglemaker" is sublime.

― Lostandfound, Monday, 14 May 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

Great, I was just about to ask which one The Spangle Maker was on. Now I know and can be an informed voter.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, 14 May 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

And, dammit, you spelled it right!

― Lostandfound, Monday, 14 May 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

I just checked and the EP was actually called The Spangle Maker, and NOT Pearly-Dewdrops Drops, which I'd forgotten... and which is strange since the latter song was the single release in the UK if I recall.

― Lostandfound, Monday, 14 May 2007 20:39 (eighteen years ago)

I love Love's Easy Tears, "Orange Appled" is one of my favorite CT songs.

― LeRooLeRoo, Monday, 14 May 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

Hmm you know you're right, that EP *is* called The Spangle Maker, wtf. I had just grabbed a listing off of wikipedia, that'll learn me.

― Trayce, Monday, 14 May 2007 22:30 (eighteen years ago)

I feel like I have just failed Cocteaufandom ;_;

― Trayce, Monday, 14 May 2007 23:57 (eighteen years ago)

Ooh results are in! Aw yeah Echoes came second! =D

― Trayce, Monday, 14 May 2007 23:57 (eighteen years ago)

Hey who are the 2 people who voted for "Otherness"? I am curious to know who'd find that their favourite, because it is such a specifically not-cocteaus ep what with the Seefeel remixes and all.

― Trayce, Monday, 14 May 2007 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

i was the ONLY one who voted for "heaven or las vegas"?!?!?!? ;__;

― Eisbaer, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 01:10 (eighteen years ago)

What are the other tracks on that single? I don't think Ihave it *checks*

Hm, "Dials". Thats weird, this seems like it was only ever a promo release, I could have sworn it was a proper single.

― Trayce, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 01:44 (eighteen years ago)

once again i have to say "Oh man Those Eyes That Mouth!"

jumping jesus.

― pisces, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

Cheers to Trayce for making the end date of this poll so soon! It's like instant gratification.

I just took a look at the official discography, things are making a little more sense now - I do remember the Iceblink Luck EP now, it was the b-sides I was remembering rather than the A-side. Also this site does say Heaven or Las Vegas was a limited promo release, which makes sense as I only found out about Dials from other things:

http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/discography/discog_25.html

― Bimble, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

Also I actually think "Spangle Maker" was the first Cocteaus I heard, rather than "Pearly". Not that anyone cares.

― Bimble, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 02:04 (eighteen years ago)

I feel like I have just failed Cocteaufandom ;_;

Just for the record, this wasn't my intention! I was there at the time (specifically: da UK, Cocteau fanhood/obsession, etc) and yet I'd completely forgotten this until I looked it up.

― Lostandfound, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 06:11 (eighteen years ago)

TS: fandom vs fanhood!

― Lostandfound, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 06:13 (eighteen years ago)

I have the Spangle Maker royal albert hall tour poster! I SHOULD KNOW THIS THINGS. Ah well :)

― Trayce, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 06:26 (eighteen years ago)

"Heaven or Las Vegas" and "Carolyn's Fingers" weren't released as singles in the UK; "Orange Appled" is a corker but wasn't available on the 12" of Love's Easy Tears and I don't think the CD version was ever officially released in the UK (I bought mine as an import; it was eventually available in the 1991 boxset, of course).

I think I might've gone for Aikea-Guinea if I'd seen this before now - it was the first CT EP I bought (early '89).

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 10:42 (eighteen years ago)

ten months pass...

See I KNEW we'd done this poll before! But WHY can't we do it again?

― Bimble, Monday, 7 April 2008 05:25 (seventeen years ago)

seven months pass...

Those Eyes, That Mouth

― The Ungrateful Dead (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Saturday, 8 November 2008 16:00 (seventeen years ago)

three months pass...

Found the Lullabies EP here in my vinyl in front of me all of a sudden. "Alas Dies Laughing" is extremely goth. Can't wait to hear the A-side again, too!

― Coffee Table LP's Never Breathe! (Bimble), Sunday, 15 February 2009 15:56 (seventeen years ago)

This thread is as good as any to hopefully get an answer to this question: Which Cocteaus song is Cass McCombs borrowing the melody from in "That's That"? I know I recognize it, but I can't place it at all.

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, 15 February 2009 18:51 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

I think its "Fotzepolitic" you are hearing there JF!

...talk about a delayed answer.

― thanks to denial, I'm immortal! (Trayce), Sunday, 5 February 2012 08:01 (fourteen years ago)

five years pass...

"Love's Easy Tears" for sure. The ending to "Those Eyes, That Mouth" must be what heaven sounds like.

― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Thursday, 16 March 2017 17:07 (eight years ago)

More than any other, the Cocteaus were an EPs band. Discuss.

― attention vampire (MatthewK), Thursday, 16 March 2017 18:12 (eight years ago)

Hell yeah. I got that EP box set back in the day and it's still my go to CT listening. It's like their creativity was spread too thin over an album.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:33 (eight years ago)

Hard to say what I would have voted for here, definitely agree that the EP seemed the most natural medium for this band.

― Coolio Iglesias (Turrican), Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:37 (eight years ago)

Lullabies to Violaine is an amazing box set. "From The Flagstones", "Hitherto" and "Spangle Maker" are some of my top tracks.

I would also say a band suited to EPs is Broadcast, who released many of their best tracks on EP.

― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:41 (eight years ago)

Stereolab is my other favorite EP band.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:48 (eight years ago)

^ OTM choice

― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Thursday, 16 March 2017 23:51 (eight years ago)

I just noticed that "Lullabies to Violaine" contains alternate versions of "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" and "Aikea-Guinea". How do they differ from the 7" and 12" versions?

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Monday, 27 March 2017 00:24 (eight years ago)

Carolyn's Fingers deserves a vote.

― john. a resident of chicago., Monday, 27 March 2017 02:35 (eight years ago)

Carolyn's Fingers deserves all the votes.

― yugi ex, Monday, 27 March 2017 18:42 (eight years ago)

So the 'alternate' version of "Aikea-Guinea" seems to differ only in that it doesn't fade up as the original does but starts at full volume.

"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops": the 7" is 4:10 and the 12" is 5:14 (it adds a 24s intro and 40s longer end with proper outro). The 'alternate' version is 4:47 and sounds like an edit of the 12" version (removing the intro) and similarly has the stripped down passage that emphasizes the bells

Also, I'm not overly sensitive to the loudness wars but comparing my rip from the original CD singles to the L-to-V compilation, man, you can really hear how loud the latter is!

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 29 March 2017 15:33 (eight years ago)

I would have voted Tishbite or Violaine in this poll. fantastic singles both, with many of the ancillary EP tracks better than what ended up on the Milk and Kisses album imo.

― Max Florian, Thursday, 30 March 2017 05:38 (eight years ago)

two years pass...

Do I need to buy The Spangle Maker EP if I fancy myself a Cocteau completist and just now realized I've never heard the 12" version of "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drop?" It's about a minute longer. I think the only other place it appears is on the oop singles box.

― Paul Ponzi, Friday, 11 October 2019 17:45 (six years ago)

It's not really any different from the 7" version other than being a bit longer.

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Friday, 11 October 2019 18:40 (six years ago)

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