October 1984

[mmmender]

october 1984 - treasure had just been released. how old were you? did you buy treasure when it first came out? was it a vinyl version or on cassette? do you still have your original copy that you bought 22 years ago? if you didn't buy it when it was first released, when did you get your copy of treasure? what were your first impressions?

http://cocteautwins.com/images/sleeve_treasure.jpg

[Ghosty]

I got my vinyl copy late 1988. When it was first released I didn't know much about CT, I had only seen the Pearly Dewdrops video, which I liked but I never really checked any of their albums out. When I saw Carolyn's Fingers in '88 I loved it and decided to get some of their stuff.
My 'Pop Music Encyclopedia' (this was way before Internet) said that Treasure was their best effort,so I listened to it in the shop on headphones and was immediately blown away by Ivo. I remember grooving to it which is something I never did in a record shop. The vocals drew me in completely. When I got home and played it a few times the album truly opened itself up for me. I've loved it ever since!
No other CT album blew me away like that. It's still special to me, but I don't play it very often anymore. I know it by heart! When I do play it I want it to be a special occasion and I want to be totally into it or else I will turn it off and play something else.
The only comparable CT experience was when after a few months of playing it I finally 'got' Victorialand. I thought it a bit lame at first but then realised that was because I was expecting another Treasure. When I understood the album for what it is, it became another favourite. I think I almost like it better than I do Treasure.

[by the sea]

My first true love.

[ArnoldZiffel]

I was 27 and I got a promotion at work.

[dprid]

October 1984 I would have been 21 and working at the test track of a brake lining manufacturer in deepest rural Shropshire. So I probably would have bought it the Saturday after release on both vinyl and cassette, almost certainly having ordered them in advance from the small record shop that used to exist in the town I grew up in. Do I still have them? Of course. I have every record, CD and cassette I've ever bought bar two. One was stolen at a party (Lovely Day by Bill Withers) and one I forgot to get back from someone I'd lent it to when I got kicked out of college ( an album by a band called Legs Diamond)..

[ArnoldZiffel]

October 1984 I would have been 21 and working at the test track of a brake lining manufacturer in deepest rural Shropshire. So I probably would have bought it the Saturday after release on both vinyl and cassette, almost certainly having ordered them in advance from the small record shop that used to exist in the town I grew up in. Do I still have them? Of course. I have every record, CD and cassette I've ever bought bar two. One was stolen at a party (Lovely Day by Bill Withers) and one I forgot to get back from someone I'd lent it to when I got kicked out of college ( an album by a band called Legs Diamond)..

You got kicked out of college??????

You are the last person on earth I would expect to hear that from.

[Ghosty]

Yeah...let alone owning a Legs Diamond album!

[dprid]

You got kicked out of college??????

You are the last person on earth I would expect to hear that from.
Well I actually failed my exams by mutual consent ;)

[dprid]

Yeah...let alone owning a Legs Diamond album!
Can't for the life of me remember why I had it. I think there was a cover of a song I liked on it which was why I bought it, but it was 25 years ago.

[ArnoldZiffel]

Oh. You remind me of Bill Gates.

[Tinspur]

I was only 11 when Treasure was released, CT wasn't even a gleam in my starry eyes, as the 80's were in full swing and 80's radio dominated my audial landscape. I think having older siblings in the house also had a major influence on my burgeoning musical tastes; late era disco such as ABBA, early metal music (Quiet Riot, Metallica et al.) and classic 70's (Zeppelin, Rush, Fleetwood Mac) dominated my older siblings' turntables and cassette decks. My parents monitored my music purchases very closely, as they knew my older sister's were smuggling in "inappropriate material" that was filtering down to me at such a tender age, so most of my early cassette purchases were of "tame" artists like Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson, and Elton John. It wasn't until I went off to college and that my musical horizons really began to take shape, circa 1990.

As I've mentioned a nauseating number of times, my experience with CT is diametrically opposed to that of many other patrons on the CT forums: my affection, or, as my friends and family see it, affectation, with CT's music developed slowly, over the course of a decade, starting in 1995 when I listened to the Echoes in a Shallow Bay EP at the local Blockbuster music store on one of the in-store headsets. I hated it. Still do. A rather inauspicious beginning no doubt! It wasn't until a year later that I ventured back into such familiar waters when I purchased, on a whim, the Bluebeard EP from the cut-out bin of a Camelot Music store. I instantly fell in love with Ice-Pulse....it's unique blend of sound effects and jangly guitar, along with the best display of Liz's vocals to date simply wooed me into delight. Hoping for a repeat, I bought FCC about a month later and was rather disappointed that nothing on the album sounded like Ice-Pulse. Despite this setback, about a year later I decided to venture further into the CT catalogue, settling on Treasure due to some positive feedback I had read and the mythical content of the song titles. My initial impressions were mixed, interesting sound but nothing that made my hair stand up on end. Nevertheless, something about it must have appealed to me, as I tucked it away in my music collection, with the tenet in mind that present music purchases didn't always "click" upon first listen, that the album could be a "future find." And thus it kept that label until about 2001 when it finally "clicked," with Lorelei providing an anthemic background to a relationship I was currently pursuing at the time. The siren-esque, alluring taunts of Liz's vocals seemed to mirror my own experiences with my "siren." Consequently, Beatrix followed shortly after, as it reminded me of the hell I was in after my experiences with her.

[mmmender]

in 1984 i was 15 years old and i had just discovered cocteau twins. treasure was the first thing i bought by them, it was on cassette and i still have that very copy in my collection. i was highly impressed with what i heard and immediately started buying anything i could get my hands on...that was the beginning of the collecting frenzy. beatrix is my favourite track off treasure. anyway, 1984 was a great year because i also saw the smiths live that year but i had to wait until 1990 to see cocteau twins live for the first time.

[Zus]

I was nine years old. But Treasure is the first CT album I bought, when I was twenty. I remember the opening Ivo hooked me immediately. Then came Aloysius... Still one of my favorites.

[Ghosty]

Aloysius is brilliant. My Treasure favourites : Ivo, Pandora, Aloysius, Donimo.

[Fritter]

I bought it on cassette. At the first seconds of Ivo I thought, uh oh accoustic guitars (I'd only just got into howling feedback and distortion) but then the drums crashed in like waves and I was tumbled about in an ocean of sound. And hearing rock in waltz-time was a revelation to my 18 year-old self.

[shimmerfoil]

Sorry to depress you all but I was only 18 months old when Treasure was released!!!!

I'd never even heard of music beyond nursery rhymes and the theme tune to Postman Pat!!!!!

I didn't buy Treasue until I was 18 years old!

[Baddy2shoos]

snap

[andylama]

I was about to turn 17. I had bought the NME magazine that had the EP taped to the front. I listened to Ivo and something in my brain just snapped. I was never the same. I rushed out and bought the album and played the living hell out of it. It came with the Aikea Guinea EP, and I played the hell out of that too. I was in heaven for a good long time.

The only ORIGINAL vinyl I still have is the Spangle Maker 12", mainly because of the lovely artwork.

[Fritter]

I was about to turn 17. I had bought the NME magazine that had the EP taped to the front. I listened to Ivo and something in my brain just snapped. I was never the same.

and the drums, they sounded so damn modern!!!

[andylama]

and the drums, they sounded so damn modern!!!

At that moment in time, yes.

[Simonp]

I remember hearing Treasure for the first time not long after it had been released and remember it sounding completely alien to me. I hadnt heard anything like it before (I was very much a new romantic). I wasnt quite sure what to make of it. I loved the sleeve and the song titles. Its very much a favourite of mine now and I still listen to it often.

[andylama]

The first time I heard it, it had an impact on me like no other music I had ever heard in my young life...and I grew up in a household full of music.

[Seryas]

Sometime between 84 and 86 (early highschool years), I heard CT on a mix tape a local DJ made for me and my friends. I immediately went out and bought the Treasure casette. I do not have the tape anymore but I do have the vinyl I bought sometime in 85 or 86. 20 years later I have the CD(s), the tracks copied on every computer I have had, on my MP3 player and on my PSP. I'd have them on my cell phone, if I had the feature.

[floatboat]

I was about 16 and bunked off school to go into Nottingham to buy it. I got vinyl and still have it, it's a cherished possession.

[xixax777]

I was 19, and a Sophomore at a college in New Jersey. In September I began renting a room in a duplex right off campus. The Owners of the house turned out to be an unpleasant, Reagan-loving, military couple. I kept my distance from then as much as possible. When at home, I'd mostly stay in my room, studying hard, or with my beloved Walkman on, to tune everything out. I was heavy into a mix of groups/performers... the Dead Kennedys, Nina Hagen, Clock DVA, Visage, B-52's, Lene Lovich, REM, and since the year before, Cocteau Twins. I had a turntable/cassette/radio system, but had to keep it low so as not to offend the housemates. Anyhow, I had taped copies of Garlands, Lullabies, Peppermint Pig and Head Over Heals off of vinyl, but it wasn't until a few months later that I was able to buy Treasure from a shop in Philadelphia, as I recall.

[moeism]

I was two years away from being born.........................

It wouldn't be until a good two full decades until I would hear it..

[cerebunny]

I was 14, didn't actually connect with CT until they appeared on The Tube doing Pink Orange Red. Next day I bought Aikea Guinea 7", the next week Tiny Dynamine, the next week Echoes in a Shallow Bay, the next week Aikea Guinea 12", the next week Treasure, borrowed Head over Heels LP from the library...
I've still got all of my vinyl, despite my wife's protests. The cover art is just so wonderful that big.

[kinty]

I was 16 and pre-ordered it in a small shop in my home town Kilmarnock, Ayrshire. I had the review from the 'Sounds' magazine on my wall for ages. The headline was "Truly this band is the voice of God"...at least i think it was 'sounds'..it may have been NME. I still have the vinyl version of course and many other vinyl versions of Ct albums and EP's. Favourite track(s) Ivo and Donimo.

[Angel]

I was 7 and totally enamored with Howard Jones. I bought Treasure about 1998 or so on CD and then got the vinyl off a friend in 2000.

[elisa]

I was 15 in '84 and my biggest music dilemma was whether I was going to be a Smiths fan or a Depeche Mode fan (angsty guitar pop vs. angsty synth pop). I liked them both, but as I went to a very clique-ish high school (think Breakfast Club, 16 Candles), I thought I had to define myself by ONE band, ONE look, etc. The Smiths/Depeche Mode debate lasted well into my first two years of high school. Cocteau Twins wouldn't make my radar until I was 17. It took me about a year to collect everything available on cassette at the time. The Pink Opaque cassette was the first thing I bought, and then everything else in chronological order. After the Pink Opaque, Treasure was the next thing I listened to. Like Andy's experience, Ivo stirred my soul in ways I'd never imagined, and still does. Pandora gave me windows to escape the locked room of my mind. Donimo was a benediction. I didn't have the best homelife and had always been one of those kids who escaped the world by plugging in the headphones. Cocteau Twins showed me whole new worlds to escape to, and I went there.

[Chora]

I wish I heard of Cocteau Twins back in 1984. I was heavy into Prince, Kate Bush and Simon & Garfunkel. I lived in North East, Pennsylvania, attending boarding High School for boys...and the boys were heavy into heavy metal, areana rocks and there was me...augh! I didn't know anything about Cocteau Twins until 1988.

[halation]

I was fifteen in '84 and I didn't hear Treasure until about 86 or '87. It was the first time i had heard them. I still love it.

[moeism]

that's nuts how you all have been listening to them for my entire existence! it gives me hope that i will not get sick of them for the years to come!

[elysium]

As Judge Judy said today, "The jacket I wore to court today is older than you."
Gawd I love her.

[Sean_Montgomery]

I had Cocteau Twins recommended to me in 1987, but don't recall actually hearing them until Iceblink Luck was released as a single in 1990. I only started actively listening to what would soon be called 'alternative' music around 1988 or so, you see. In 1984 I was 13, and interested mostly in whatever was popular...Michael Jackson, The Police, Prince.

When I started collecting CT, I started with Heaven or Las Vegas and The Pink Opaque, and worked my way out from there. When I arrived at Treasure, I wasn't as blown away as others here. I liked Lorelei (which I already knew, from TPO), Donimo and Otterley...but other songs never made much of an impression. It's been years since I actually listened to it though...maybe my opinion would be different now.

[kookaburra]

I got all the old EPs as they came out. The only LP I remember buying on or near the official release date was Blue Bell Knoll.

[moeism]

yeah i can't tell you the first cocteau album i heard. i heard it at this boy's house who i was very much into at the time. a few days later i was at the used record store (with no money) and told my room mate to check them out. the album was "treasure". i liked it alright, but wasn't at all CRAZY about it. Then I heard Garlands, and the song Garlands made me go nuts. That is when I realized they were something, so I tried to follow their discography chronologically so I bought myself Garlands... etc etc.. In case anyone cared... :D I thought this anecdote was somewhat Treasure-related, 20 years later. I can already picture chaco yawning. lol.

[kyuball]

I was 10 when Treasure came out, so I had not heard of them at the time. I thought I was hip because I hung out with the more ghetto kids in my neighborhood whose older siblings tuned us into Dominatrix, Afrika Bambaata and such. I still loved Prince and Michael but the pop song that had me for like two years at the time was Lionel Richie's 'All Night Long' (which I still love to this day and will ALWAYS sing at a karaoke...) Running second to that was Shannon's 'Let The Music Play'.

Then I chanced upon someone whose older brother tuned us into 'alternative' music. He mainly steered us toward Love and Rockets and The Cure and recorded us a bunch o' stuff on cassette.

I had heard of the Cocteau Twins but never heard them until around late 1986, I chanced to see a copy of 'Love's Easy Tears' on vinyl at Peaches (remember Peaches? It turned into Cocouts later). I thought it was strange to see an 'alternative' band in the bins at Peaches, so I bought it despite not having a turntable at the time.

I went to my best friend's house and played it to see if it was worth transferring to tape. IT BLEW MY MIND, but my friend hated it. I took the tape home and listened to it over and over for the nest few weeks.

As for Treasure, I was not able to get a copy until the re-release on CD in the early 90's, because I did not know where to go and find such music (I knew where to pick up the latest discs that the dance DJ's were playing, but I knew nothing of where to find alternative music until 1988 when someone steered me to Wax Trax. By then, I was already into something else.... the fleeting attentions of youth...)

Then I heard 'Cherry Coloured Funk' on college radio in 1990, and I was instantly re-hooked. I just remember how the song (and eventually the entire HOLV album) fit into and lifted me during that weird, miasmic period in my teens when my all my days were being lived in a twilight haze. So I began buying whatever CD's I could get my hands on of them.

After my first purchase of HOLV, I somehow found The Pink Opaque (at Coconuts again! Weird....) first and heard Lorelei, and it was awesome -- delicate, icy rhythms and melodies! Then BBK, then I reacquired Love's Easy Tears (ended up giving away the vinyl copy to that same older brother for abotu twentie tapes of various stuff...).

The re-releases started coming out after I picked up the box set and by then, I think the acquisition of Treasure was kind of anti-climactic. I loved it, but not with the kind of awe I would probably would have felt if that was the first or second thing I had acquired....

[E-Lo]

11 years old when Treasure was released and I was still deep in the throes of my Adam & The Ants obsession

It wasn't until about 1987 when my best friend bought The Pink Opaque on cassette and we were instantly hooked. Also started getting into DCD at the time and my friend would buy a new CT cassette and I would get a new DCD tape so we would listen to them back and forth

[Phil Lawton]

I feel old reading this thread.

[frarn]

ditto!

I was 26 yrs old in September '84, my son was 2 and my daughter 6 months when Treasure was released - I bought it on Cassette as that was the only type of player I had at the time - I remember how I would set it up outside my daughters room and she would fall asleep to this album played quietly - pity she grew up to like Boyzone!!!!

what went wrong!??? :confused:

[vog75]

I was 19 at the time. i bought it the first day of its release because i already discovered the CT with "Heads Over Heels" that Bernard lenoir in france had played on the radio. then he broadcasted their live at Les bains-Douches in november 83. i still have this tape & of course i still have all those vinyls that i always bought the day of their release at least until "the moon & the melodies".

"Treasure" was unlike anything you could hear at the time. it was such a large step ahead and still is i think. the atmosphere in that record was unique, you had the feeling to go into a place which you never thought existed.
I was discovering some books and movies which had the same effect on me.
All those 19th centuries romantic books & poetry like percy shelley, & senancour.

and "treasure" was my companion at the time. i still got that feeling when i listen to it nowadays. "Amelia" still gives me shivers. and that bassline in "beatrix", such a beauty ! and that drum part in "Pandora", and the multiple guitar layers everywhere !!

i know robin & liz didn't like it for personal reasons that i fully understand but they're missing something.

this is a record that people will still listen to in 50 years.

this is such an achievement. no-one has done another record with that atmosphere and that mood.

like we said in france : "chapeau bas robin, liz & simon"

vivian

p.s
and i could write the same thing for any of their records (eps & lps) from 1982 to 1986 especially "aikea-guinea ep" + "victorialand" (and "garlands").

[Adam]

I was only 4. My dad had compilation tape with "Pandora". Polish radio played this song very very often. My dad played this tape every morning to wake me and my sister up. I loved this song. Now it reminds me these early years of my life.
11 years after, "Treasure" was released in CD format. I bought it for my dad. I liked this record, but I felt in love with Cocteau Twins few years later.

Now I've got:
1. Tonpress SX-T 144, the only CT record released officially in Polish People's Republic in 1984,
2. SON 48 - Sonic released it in CD format in 1995.
3. Original LP CAD 412
4. GAD 412 CD - remaster
5. Imperial Records TECI-24272 - japanese remaster, mini-LP

[Lolo]

I was -4 ..

[plink]

i was 16 and just starting at college.

i bought it on vinyl shortly after it was released from picadilly records in manchester with my mate alan, i think he bought hatful of hollow and we went back to his house to listen to them.

i was so intrigued by the artwork and the textures of the pakaging (matt cover, glossy inner sleeve) and the names of the tracks on the bus on the way home. i was shocked and transfixed by the sounds it contained. it was already so different from the spanglemaker ep released earlier. an almost unique experience.

[rufusmtvern]

The Pink Opaque cassette was the first thing I bought, and then everything else in chronological order.

That was my first one too, alisa! I was 14 when Treasure came out but didn't buy the album until I was 16 (after a mad rush to get anything after I heard that cassette after the first time!). After I heard that album (I know this sounds overtly melancholic, but I can't help it!!!), LIFE MADE COMPLETE SENSE!!! It spoked to me BEYOND just the music. I felt like life can go beyond absolutes of immediate sights and sounds and meld into non-absolutes of feeling and emotions...(ughhh...sorry).

Anyway.....I still have my vinyl, but I copied it on tape when I got it. Listened to the tape copy every chance I got.

My family went to a fireworks display in the local neighborhood at the time. I wanted to hear Treasure at the time, but my boombox was broken. I brought my little cousin's FISHER-PRICE CASSETTE PLAYER just so I could listen to Treasure during the fireworks. The best thing was my uncle LOVED it when I played it for him during the festivities.

[ezzydynamine]

my older brother was 4 months old, i wasn't even thought about.... i was born in March 1986.....

[Musette]

my older brother was 4 months old, i wasn't even thought about.... i was born in March 1986.....

OK. I am officially a crone.

[fornasetti]

I was a 20 year-old university student in October 1984. Having bought HOH and Garlands retrospectively, I got Treasure as soon as it came out. It wasn't that popular with my friends, but that didn't matter. It was a good time and I have some great memories of those years. I think it was December 1984 when I saw CTs for the first time.

[kookaburra]

OK. I am officially a crone.

It keeps getting better, Jules.

[CPUKiller]

I was 4 months old @ the time.

So I bought it the day it was released, j/k. I didn't even hear about CT until about 2 years ago.

[Fritter]

I was 4 months old @ the time.

So I bought it the day it was released, j/k. I didn't even hear about CT until about 2 years ago.

You're at the start of a great journey.

[CPUKiller]

Yeah, I've been collecting a lot. I think I have every LP/EP/Single now with the exception of the HOLV single (have the album).

[gustav]

I was only four.
I remember that my older sister had it on tape (it was not easy to get down here) back on late 80s/early 90s ... she listened to it over and over and over, and i was absolulety memerized/frightened by it. She eventually lost that because she started listening to jazz and junk like that.
But when i turned 15 and i got more and more into old punk/postpunk/goth, i remembered that album and started looking for it, it became an obsession. Finally, when i was 17, i got it ... and the first time i heard it, i realised i knew all the songs. It was a stormy summer day, it was a dark afternoon, i came back home from the record store and i played it, over and over and over ... one of the most magical moments i remember from my teens.