“The 200 Best Songs of the 1980s”

• By Jazz Monroe
• Pitchfork
• 24-Aug 2015

#39: “Lorelei”

“Lorelei” ordained Cocteau Twins as the patron saints of thrill-seeking introverts.

Sparkly and cascading, the track was the jewel in the crown of Treasure, a phenomenally inventive and introspective album that, despite its majesty and expanse, somehow felt like the safest place in the world. For all the emotional bleakness (described as “feelings buried, persisting in anxious dreams and suppressed fear, hope and anger,” in Martin Aston’s 4AD tome Facing the Other Way), it’s always been, to me, something too exquisitely nostalgic to haunt. “Lorelei” is a fuzzy encounter in the record’s lucid dream, that rare experience of discovery without fear, lust minus urgency. Rather than drawing admiration, it sweeps you into its private spectacle. Listening in is a secret wonder, like spying on teen goths holding hands at Christmas.

Aptly, although ’80s Cocteau Twins favored non-album EPs over singles, “Lorelei” got its break on John Peel’s Radio 1 show, a network for private revelations. The song encapsulates 4AD’s mood and aesthetic—the integration of warmth, light, and ambiguity into austere post-punk—as well as the era, in which indie pop was erecting defenses against mainstream sexualization with displays of childhood and innocence. But rather than an indulgence of fantasy (as in the ultimate twee ideal of love without the sex), “Lorelei” felt, in its quiet way, like all the pageantry and tumult of passion, melancholy, and heartbreak at once. ▣

Read the full article online from its source.