The Flaming Lips...

anyways, classic classic classsic for me. soft bulletin and transmissions are the predictable picks for their best albums and that's what i'm going to go with. ambulance and hit to death are pretty good, but i don't find myself listening to them that often. i think that clouds has some of their best songs ever, even though it kinda sags in the middle. "psychiatric exploration of the fetus with needles" is one of the best songs ever. so, search most 90s work and keep your fingers crossed for their new one, which is due sometime this year i think.

Flaming Lips have made this the best Valentines Day ever!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYT_t5y_9Qg&feature=feedlik

So.....the Neon Indian collab, life-size gummi Wayne Coyne, gummi skulls with USB new songs, cereal boxes with flexi discs, etc.

Kinda feel like the Lips are hitting a Zaireeka 2 period of exploration. Musically as well as conceptually. I might have to buy some of this cereal they come up with.

Six Hour Song anyone?

Want to be 'in' it?

Ever wonder how much it would cost to buy yourself into a Flaming Lips track? After an announcement today, it’s no longer a mystery—the answer is $100. The Flaming Lips announced today that fans can have a part in their new freakishly long six-hour track, which now is titled “Found a Star on the Ground.” Frontman Wayne Coyne announced it today on Twitter, and it seems like the offer will only be available for a limited time—maybe just today.

“We’ll be recording all day!!” Coyne said on Twitter.

But the proceeds from the track are going toward a good cause: The OK Humane Society and ACM@UCO. You can make your name a part of Flaming Lips history here

After years and years and years of hating this band, I finally heard a song I liked, but only because it sounded a lot like "Mercury" by Royal Trux (at least it did coming out of the club speakers last night) - the lyrics are "I was born / The day they shot JFK" or something. I guess this is from one of them earlier albums with Mercury Rev guy that I've never heard. Is any of their other stuff like this?

The song you're talking about is "Five Stop Mother Superior Rain" offa In a Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine Stares), their last indie album and the first to clearly announce the sound they'd pursue throughout the early 90s. It's easily one of my top 10 favorite Flaming Lips tracks, though there really isn't a bad song on the album. Dunno whether or not it has an official video, but here's a tube w/ photo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukt212_j-w8

FWIW, the vibe & theme are pretty typical for the Lips, echoed in different forms in many of their songs, from the first album's "Godzilla Glick" to "Do You Realize" on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. If you particularly like "Five Stop", I'd say the albums to check out are Priest Driven Ambulance and the major label follow-up, Hit to Death In the Future Head. A couple tracks that I think of as roughly similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTrlMiqNL4I
"chrome plated suicide", from telepathic surgery, the album before PDA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkivf7SUdiw
"you have to be joking", from hit do death

lol, make that "Godzilla Flick". for the hell of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH7Kh4wYZlM

(album version is better, but what you gonna do)

god i loved this band

Thanks Fozzy! Of these, I really dig "You've Got To Be Joking." Just listened to "Five Stop Mother Superior Rain" again back-to-back with Royal Trux's "Air" and the similarities are obvious (though likely coincidental). I should mention that I despise everything I've heard of this band from The Soft Bulletin on, but I'm really loving the supremely stoned psych folk vibes of these tracks. What else should I check out? Which is the album that has the most like this?

hey, glad you dug some of that. thing is, they've got a few basic approaches, one of them being the stoned & shattered psych folk you seem to like. starting out, they p much alternated between that and more punk-garagey psych rock, plus points in between and experiments out in various directions. as a result, it's easier to point to tracks than to albums. if you dig the crispy 70s psych vibes in general, then their first two albums, hear it is and especially oh my gawd!!!, are the most obvious place to start. after that, just work your way forward.

track suggestions that lean in psych folkwardly direction, most probably previewable on youtube:

hear it is (1986) - "with you", "jesus shootin' heroin", "she is death"
oh my gawd (1987) - "one million billionth of a millisecond on a sunday morning", "ode to c.c. part 2", "love yer brain"
telepathic surgery (1989) - "miracle on 42nd street", "the spontaneous combustion of john"
in a priest driven ambulance (1990) - "rainin' babies", "stand in line", "there you are"
hit to death in the future head (1992) - "you have to be joking" is about it, but it's a great album for lots of other reasons
transmissions from the satellite heart (1993) - "chewin' the apple of your eye", "plastic jesus" (i.e., the song from cool hand luke, awesome)

the last three represent the early days of the dave fridmann production era, and after transmissions, a great album that fridmann did not produce, they disappear down that dreary wormhole.

i'm a little confused why more people aren't talking about Heady Fwends. how do the ilxors feel about it?

The only thing I've heard from Heady Fwends is the version of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face with Erykah Badu which is quite incredible. I just saw the album is getting a proper release on June 26th, will probably wait till then to give it a full listen. I sadly couldn't afford to get the vinyl.

the Badu collab sounds like the last song that gets played in the universe. sort of like a "pop" (relatively) version of the Disintegration Loops

Yeah, I couldn't score one of the LPs (and don't want to encourage eBay cocks who bought 'em to flip on Record Store Day), and I also don't want to listen to stuff on crummy YouTube rips - looking forward to hearing the real deal!

are you guys part of the weird "it's disrespectful to the artist to download album leaks" clan? (even though the album has been sold publicly and you can easily buy it later?) there are obviously well-circulated rips of this if you want to hear it so badly, and i don't really see that as morally suspect...

I suppose so! I guess I need to hear the artist say some variation on "yeah, feel free, download our stuff" rather than establishing my own set of justifications. I'm not weird or judgmental or anything like that - knock yourself out; seriously - it's just how I'm doin' it, I guess. I also have weird OCDisms about fidelity and physicality.

I do download or listen to most things before I buy them now but sometimes I really miss going out and buying an album I haven't heard before and putting it on. Don't get me wrong I've wasted lots of money in the past buying weak albums I wish I could have listened to before but now and then I wait till an album comes out to hear it, especially if its something I'm really sure I'm going to like. I'm fairly sure I'm going to really enjoy this album.

i can understand that. i guess the internet has just made me impatient about hearing stuff i'm excited to hear. then again, if i hadn't listened to it, i wouldn't be going around spreading the good word to my friends and on twitter & ilx!

Yeah I have to admit I start off with the intention of waiting but I almost always cave in and find the download as soon as I see people talking about the album I'm interested in. I'm pretty sure I'll be back on this thread in a few days talking about having heard this album. Embryonic totally made me fall in love with this band again just as I was losing interesting in them. Didn't bother with Dark Side of the Moon but looking forward to this.

it's a "fun" and "zany" listen

another Snarkout Boy about, I see

u callin me snarky? i like the Flaming Lips record in a very unsnarky way. i think that it is good.

was referring to poster Walter Galt, who I haven't seen before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snarkout_Boys_and_the_Avocado_of_Death

ahh, well done. my pop culture knowledge has failed me.

Yeah, the Badu collab is all I hoped for (which was pretty high, given 'Embryonic' is top two or three albums of the last decade for me, and 'Mamas Gun' is probably top 5). Some of the stuff already issued on the EPs remains very good. All of the other non-EP new stuff left me bored or worse. Really hope they don't go back to "zany"--'Embryonic' is so fantastic.

I really love Heady Fwends; the middle of the album has so many great sounds. I think some truly good tunes got overshadowed by the novelty of it all. I wish they'd release all the other stuff from the limited EPs.

"I was stuck near the food court, wasn’t able to cross the airport to get to my gate. Flight left without me, all because of Wayne Coyne."

http://www.thelostogle.com/2012/11/19/wayne-coyne-brings-grenade-to-okc-airport-tsa-shuts-down-airport-people-miss-flights-and-lose-money/

<img src="Http://www.saidthegramophone.com/images/theterror.png";>

welcome to 1995

http://Http%3A//www.saidthegramophone.com/images/theterror.png

http://www.saidthegramophone.com/images/theterror.png

Wow, straight out of 1990.

Cool cover. Maybe it's time to revisit these guys, don't think I've listened for three or four years at this point...

It just occured to me how much teal & orange these guys have done throughout their career.

reminds me of CD bargain bins

weird, but i think i ended up listening to this mix: http://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/one-off-zygotic-after-the-flaming-lips-embryonic-2009/ more than embryonic itself.

That's what I was thinking, sean. Is it the font?

The first thing that came to mind was Under Rug Swept.

Was pretty bored with these guys until Embryonic, which is probably one of the best things they've done since the 80s, and I got all excited again. But then that Heady Fwends thing made me kind of sick of them again. Pile on that the bullshit Wayne pulled with the Badu sisters and I'm not sure if I even care anymore.

I'm hearing good things too, but please don't make me listen to this.

what form is it returning to though? the last Flaming Lips album I actually loved was Clouds Taste Metallic which is 25 years old now. tbh I haven't listened to anything since Embryonic, which was OK I guess, after disliking most of Yoshimi and Mystics and not really liking the Soft Bulletin much but I seem to be alone on that one

Embryonic has turned out to be one of my favorites of theirs.

what form is it returning to though? the last Flaming Lips album I actually loved was Clouds Taste Metallic which is 25 years old now. tbh I haven't listened to anything since Embryonic, which was OK I guess, after disliking most of Yoshimi and Mystics and not really liking the Soft Bulletin much but I seem to be alone on that one

You won't like the new one.

It has a song called 'Watching the Lightbugs Glow'. I think I'll give it a miss.

The Soft Bulletin is the last album of theirs I cared for. But i confess i dont make much effort any more. Still great live, but I'm out when it comes to recorded releases.

I saw someone rant on FB about how this is a mere SB rehash but that seems very unfair. Genuinely great album in its own right and the only similarity is that it's melodically strong all the way though

xpost That's funny, because it's their Muppet Rock live performances that mostly turned me off. I've skipped or ignored many of their last several releases, which have mostly seemed like stunts, and Wayne went from whimsical wizard to douchebag pretty quickly, but the last couple of albums I heard, like Embryonic and The Terror, were as I recall pretty cool.

I missed out on The Terror until last year for being put off by them for years due to the same reasons

The only real SB comparison I can really hear is that it appears to mine an ELO 'Time'/'Secret Messages' influence for the first time since

Lips bug songs >>> sun songs

I remember being super excited for At War with the Mystics because someone told me it was a return to their 90s guitar-based sound... I was like "YES! Finally, enough with this preschool shit!" Then I get it and hit play and the fucking "Yeah Yeah Yeah" song comes on... LOL

Mystics has some deep cuts I like a lot ("Cosmic Autumn Rebellion", "Pompeii", "Goin On") but some real dogs as well

Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung is my favorite off of Mystics. Meh record with like 3-4 killer songs.

For any people who disliked the Lips pop/whimsy trilogy of The Soft Bulletin/Yoshimi/Mystics give Embryonic and The Terror a try. Completely different atmosphere, sound and emotional palette, and my two favorite records by the band.

New one is quite good btw, and is a sonic turn from the last decade back into more of a bright instrumentation a la Yoshimi, but with much darker and introspective narrative to the lyrics. Definitely more autobiographical like their 90's records rather than the cosmic, fictional storytelling that came after.

Never liked the sound of their records from the 90's other than Clouds Taste Metallic. I don't get the nostalgia for that era. They weren't very good and felt like a middling indie band.

Yeah Embryonic was a big surprise to me at the time, I had p much written them off and then Embryonic felt like a bolt out of nowhere, the first time in forever that this band that constantly throws around words like "freak" & "weird" made a record that actually sounded weird and freaky. I've probably reached for that one more than any of their others over the last ten years.

I can't prove this, but I credit Kliph Scurlock for productively kicking their assess on that one.

and after he left (got sacked) they went on a long detour back to cutesy gimmickland for quite a while, so I suspect he really was a (the?) key ingredient there for a bit

With Wayne & Michael Ivins' extremely limited instrumental abilities, it seems like its always good for them to have someone else in the room who can actually play music along with Drozd (who otherwise afaict basically plays like 95% of whats on the records, right?)

Clouds Taste Metallic is wonderful but I'm well aware that it's at the top of my list because of nostalgic reasons. Embryonic and The Terror are excellent and likely my #2 and #3 favorites. This new one is right up there though. Still processing but so far its been exactly what I've wanted recently. A sad look at reality but also calming and melodic.

Never liked the sound of their records from the 90's other than Clouds Taste Metallic. I don't get the nostalgia for that era. They weren't very good and felt like a middling indie band.

― octobeard, Monday, September 14, 2020 11:21 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

offtm, a middling indie band couldn't produce "superhumans"

guitars big, hooks strong

I love the sound of those records. The Bonham drums rule.

Kliph has played drums on the last two or three Gruff Rhys albums if you want more of his drumming.

Always surprised Wayne hasn't gotten metoo'd yet

I actually like Steven's drumming best!

xpost - at the very least he should have gotten far more blowback for that Badu shit he pulled.

a friend of a friend was his assistant and it sounded like it was crazy

when they weren't busy he made her paint his house

Kliph made him out to be a real angry, volatile, even somewhat violent character, which is obviously impossible to verify, but that seems to line up with what I thought was hiding behind that Yoshimi-era goofiness.

Kliph only drummed on some of Embyonic, if I remember right. And he left afterwards. I know there was a lot going on, but he seemed really irritated with Wayne running around with Kesha and I assume the mid-life hedonism/crisis that Wayne was going through around that time. Wayne as a freaky workaholic was much better than Wayne the insufferable stoner.

He's also credited on The Terror but idk how credits/reality line up for them

there's interviews where he talks about the terror sessions, it seems pretty clear he played on it too.

It’s only been a week but I've already cooled considerably on this album.

All these TV specials on John Lennon in honor of what would have been his 80th birthday reminded me of the only time I saw the Flaming Lips, at Irving Plaza in NYC.
Wayne Coyne says, "this song is dedicated to everyone whose birthday it is today!!" and people in the audience get really excited, yelling that it's their birthday, or it's their friend Sarah's birthday, or their dog's birthday... And this one guy in the front row keeps shouting "it's John Lennon's birthday!! it's John Lennon's birthday" over and over. Wayne seems to be ignoring him at first, then finally he says (in a slightly annoyed tone)
"yeah yeah, i know, it's John Lennon's birthday. But he's dead, y'know?
Why should we celebrate his birthday when there are all these people whose birthday it is and they're here to enjoy it??"

idk about this guy, but thought that was cool.

Surprised by how much I like their new one. The only track I don’t really care for is “Brother Eye,” and even that’s listenable.

I like it with reservations. I enjoy the music, and Wayne's schtick doesn't bother me like it had been starting to. My main problem with the new one is that Wayne doesn't take a break often enough. As much as American Head gets compared to the Soft Bulletin, that album had a lot of long bad-ass instrumental sections.

I kept wanting Wayne to take a break with the new one. And sometimes he'll sing the same thing repeatedly, seemingly to fill up space, when singing it once would work much better. I need to listen to it more, maybe I'll get over these issues.

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/flamings-lips-day-san-francisco-stern-grove-18299291.php

"We’re very grateful to embrace August 20 as The Flaming Lips Day in San Francisco," the band's frontman Wayne Coyne said in a statement. "We’ve had many shared moments in this city and we feel grateful to be a part of the creative and eclectic fabric of the San Francisco music scene that makes this city so special.”

While tickets cost nothing, this Sunday's show — that also includes a DJ set from Neon Indian aka Alan Palomo — is sold out. Some tickets will be released at random this week for those who registered at www.sterngrove.org.

Last great album was The Terror, which was their best since Soft Bulletin.

That one song off the latter is all over this film trailer I just watched.

No sorry, off Yoshimi. DO U SEE??

I actually saw the strangest show in San Francisco featuring the Flaming Lips. It's was all about audience participation. I'm still not sure what the hell is it was, it seems to be called "Boom-Box Experiment #4"

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-flaming-lips/1998/bimbos-365-club-san-francisco-ca-73f81271.html

Wow, it's online. Haha I was at this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coBvv2r1gQU

I think that was one of the precursors to Zaireeka, when they were playing around with the idea of orchestrating sounds from many sources.

Yeah, iirc, there was also one where Wayne had a bunch of people play tapes from their cars as they were dispersed around a parking garage.

I was not at the one that Bee OK references but I was at the one that j/v/c2.0 refers to. Can confirm it was wild.

also as an aside, I want to say that I often misjudge how good "Hit To Death" is, might be their best album when all is said and done.

I know this was covered in the Rolling Obituary thread, but thought worth bumping in their proper thread... been a really rough few days for this band.

First, Nell Smith, a young musician they collaborated on an album of Nick Cave covers with a few years back died at the age of 17, in a car accident. And Steven Drozd's 16 year-old daughter went missing on Saturday.

drozd's daughter has apparently been found!

Oh, that's great news! Hadn't seen that update!

wonderful news

Haven't listened to them for a while but have felt for them (for want of a better phrase) over the last couple of days.