Cocteau Twins’ vast influence lives on :: 24 great artists they’ve inspired

The term "dreampop" covers a lot of territory these days, from electronic music to acoustic guitars, but one thing's for certain: the influence of the Cocteau Twins cannot be overstated. Robin Guthrie's unique, heavily treated, cascading guitar style has been copied endlessly, but few possess his nuanced touch. Even if his style is imitated, nobody possesses a voice like Elizabeth Fraser's, which is capable of making the hair on your neck stand at attention, conveying emotion even when you can't understand a single word she's singing. Simon Raymonde, meanwhile, is a skilled multi-instrumentalist whose melodic bass style and piano arrangements were often that intangible other crucial element in their sound.

“The aim was to make music with punk’s energy but more finesse and beauty, and that shiny, Phil Spector sound," Guthrie said. "I was trying to make my guitar sound like I could play it, so I was influenced by guitarists who made beautiful noise, like The Pop Group or Rowland S. Howard.” Steve Queralt of Ride says Guthrie's style "set the blueprint for bands like us and is surely where it all began for Shoegaze."

The influence goes well beyond shoegaze and dreampop, though, touching R&B, punk, metal, folk, ambient, EDM, you name it. With the band's landmark sixth album Heaven or Las Vegas turning 30 this week, we put together a list of 24 artists who were clearly influenced by the Cocteau Twins, many of whom talked to us about the importance the group played in their sound.

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Slowdive

With a cascading guitar sound and ethereal vocals, Slowdive's sonic debt to Cocteau Twins is instantly apparent, though they took the building blocks and made it their own. The band are admitted fans, especially guitarist Christian Savill who tells us his first exposure was single "Pearly Dewdrops Drops" which changed his life.

"The vocals and words were unlike anything I’ve ever heard," Christian says, "and the guitars seemed huge and mysterious. Then I found the records in my local record shop and found that the record covers were beautiful and their other song titles were equally as bonkers as the first song I’d heard. So many beautiful EPs and LPs came in a short time. I'd tape them and listen on my Walkman whilst wandering around Reading, feeling like I was in a different world to everyone else around me.

It was a time at school when everyone started talking about forming a band. Most of my school wanted to be in a band like U2 or Big Country, but me and one or two of other school weirdos wanted to be in the Cocteau Twins. I finally got to see them live just after their brilliant album Heaven or Las Vegas came out. I was lucky enough to join a band who had the same influences as me and we'd just been signed by Creation records. As I watched, aside from fulfilling that ambition and being mesmerized, I knew that without the Cocteaus I would never have joined a band."

And here's Slowdive singer Rachel Goswell on her relationship to the Cocteaus:

"I first heard the Cocteau twins at the age of 16 when a penpal sent me a cassette of Treasure. I remember going to bed and putting my headphones on and found myself immersed in the magic and wonder of their overall sound musically and Liz Fraser's unmatched voice. There began my love affair with their music which endures to this day.

Heaven or Las Vegas at the time was their most commercial offering to date. I loved and still love everything about this record. Liz’ singing was slightly more decipherable and easier to pick out words and sentences and it definitely had a slightly more pop sensibility, dare I say, around it. I still listen to this record now nearly 30 years later and it still stands the test of time. I was lucky enough when Neil [Halstead] and I were doing Mojave 3 to have the opportunity to support the Cocteaus at a relatively small show in London. I was overwhelmed, really, being in their presence and was far too shy to talk to them at that point in time, even though we were sharing a dressing room. It was for me a very poignant show. The simplicity of their set up with the three of them, but the enormity of their sound. Liz’s voice and Robin's guitar playing being all encompassing. How lucky I felt.

As the years have passed, Robin has become a friend and in recent years, with Slowdive back out in the world, we have met up in France at shows several times. Simon, of course, running Bella Union and with my involvement with The Soft Cavalry we have had many conversations on and off over the years. Liz remains the missing link. How I would love to sit down with her and a glass or two of wine."

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Ride

The original UK shoegaze scene wouldn't sound the way it does without Cocteau Twins, even with groups like Ride who were always more of a psychedelic rock band. You can hear Robin Guthrie's guitar influence on tracks like "Decay" from Nowhere and "Sennen" from the Today Forever EP.

"For me, Cocteau Twins recorded some of the greatest sounds ever committed to tape," Ride bassist Steve Queralt tells us. "Take a listen to Simon’s bass on 'Cicely' or 'Aikea Guinea,' the drums on Treasure and, of course, Elizabeth’s spellbinding vocals on just about every Cocteaus track there is. It’s Robin’s shimmering guitars, though, that set the blueprint for bands like us and is surely where it all began for Shoegaze.

"There’s a fierce, tough edge to their early records which I grew to love the most. But my introduction to the band was through Victorialand, a largely bass and drum free affair, very different from their other records but still unmistakably them.

"I discovered Victorialand while working in an Oxford record shop in the late '80s. It had a pretty cover so I decided to play it over the shop system and immediately fell for it, flipping it over repeatedly A-side followed by B-side followed by A-side over, and over again. It was sometime later that a colleague kindly pointed out that this particular album played at 45 RPM and not the traditional speed of 33 which I’d been enjoying all morning. There aren’t many records that sound so good at both speeds but Victorialand did and still does today. Try it.

"So, from there began the journey back to Garlands through Head Over Heels and the EPs and then onto Heaven or Las Vegas. Heaven or Las Vegas was their final record for 4AD and in my opinion the last great Cocteau Twins album. It had a massive influence on our band at the time as we went into the studio to record Today Forever and Going Blank Again. Ride and many other bands would probably sound very different and some wouldn’t exist at all without this incredible band and the incredible catalogue of sounds they left us with."

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Lush

"The Cocteau Twins' influence on Lush is obvious," says Lush co-leader Miki Berenyi. "Robin produced Spooky, and the Mad Love and Black Spring EPs, so our sound was moulded by the experience. But I find it tricky to list artists they’ve directly influenced because - to me - their genius lies in their unique combination of musicality, experimentation with guitars and studio effects, and Liz’s incomparable voice.

"Yes, there are bands that glide toward one or another aspect. Harriet Wheeler of The Sundays used to get endless comparisons with Liz at the time but it's obvious to everyone now that she has her own beautiful voice and style. Plenty of bands (including Lush) have ramped up the chorus and delay on guitars, but you need to see Robin at work in a studio to discover his tireless experimentation with guitars, pedals and other technological effects to recognise that it’s a lot more complex than that. And I’ve heard plenty of tracks that mimic the Cocteaus' sound and vocal style, but fail to include their beautifully constructed chord progressions, key changes and melodic hooks. Back in the day, Simon would sometimes get referred to as 'just the bass player,' an insult that ignores his vast reservoirs of musical knowledge, which he effortlessly incorporates into his music.

"So I guess my point is that the voice, the guitars, the songs -- they aren’t just simple blocks you can co-opt or fit together to recreate the whole. Each element is huge and deep and unique in and of itself. Many of us try and borrow a hint of one or two facets, but we’re really only scratching at the surface."

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The Weeknd

He's a huge star now who topped five Billboard charts at once back in April -- including the album and singles charts -- but when The Weeknd burst on the scene back in 2011, he was seen as an indie artist (that Drake helped break) with '80s dreampop influences. He sampled The Cocteau Twins' "Cherry Coloured Funk" on House of Balloons track "The Knowing."  "I've always had an admiration for the era before I was born," he told Billboard back in April of this year. "You can hear it as far back as my first mixtape [2011's House of Balloons] that the '80s -- Siouxsie & the Banshees, Cocteau Twins -- play such a huge role in my sound. Sometimes it helps me create a new sound and sometimes it's just obvious. I'm just glad the world's into it now."

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