The Flaming Lips are awesome!! I'm a big fan of them, they're arguably my favorite band of recent times. I have the Yoshimi and Soft Bulletin albums, as well as the "Jesus Egg" collection with Priest-Driven Ambulance and its outtakes, oh, and the Ego Tripping EP. They're an awesome act, and have gone through many mutations over their mostly obscure career, going from psychedelic, distorted punk rock to their current brand synthesized, proggy-psychedelic pop-rock. Great, great music.
YESSSSSSSSSS! I'm a a total Lips freak. There's two shows that I missed that I hear rocked recently: Bonnaroo 2003 New Years 2004 with White Stripes in Chicago Did you happen to see either of these shows? Moraga
I just recently discovered them, thanks to Steve Burns. I LOVE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bought the Soft Bulletin album first, which I couldn't really get into. Now I have Yoshimi and I have fallen in love with that CD. I know it is kind of backwards to not like The Soft Bulletin, yet like Yoshimi so much. I will give TSB another try now that I am more used to Wayne's style of singing. I think Wayne is beautiful, I love his voice, and I think the rest of the band is excellent, especially Steven (the drummer/etc).
Steven Drozd's not only a great drummer, but an amazing musician overall. He's been the main musical brain of the Lips not long since he came on board.
Yoshimi IMHO is one of the most boring pieces of self-indulgence I've heard in a while, an incredibly overrated album as was The Soft Bulletin, sorry but they bore the pants off me
I enjoy them b/c they're so much different than most of the stuff out there right now. You can only take so much "teeny-bopper" music before it all starts sounding the same.
I like Flaming Lips from 1985-1995. Zaireeka has it's great moments, but it's not a very easy album to listen to. My favorites have always been In a Priest Driven Ambulance and Hit to Death in the Future Head. They have really let me down lately though. They have been writing really good music, but the way they present it isn't really to my taste...too much electronic stuff for alternative rock to me, I guess...I have noticed the self-indulgent stuff a bit, too...especially since Wayne became so atheistic. I really noticed that in his writings in the EGG compilation. Peace, Ben.
Yes I love them! I own Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and Zaireeka... that album is one of the most incredible pieces of music I ever heard, it's genius.
Wayne's kind of become a sort of agnostic universalist, I think, with his sci-fi-ish themes lately... which is cool by me. I'd love to get Zaireeka once I get a proper speaker setup to play the four CD's...
Zaireeka has a cool effect. I haven't listened to it in a while, but I still have it, just listen to it with friends... like I said, it isn't the easiest album to listen to. There are some tracks that contain warnings in the liner notes for high frequencies, and to be sure that animals or small chldren are not in the room when that particular song is on, that particualr song hurt my ears a bit. There is some really good songwriting on the album, though. Some things could be disturbing to some. There have even been accounts of dizziness and disorientation while listening to the album and someone even said that they heard music coming out of speakers that they didn't even think were on! Ben.
Zaireeka is certainly an amazing listen. They certainly pushed the concept as much as it would go, putting effects designed especially for a song that takes it's form from four discs at once. They did some great neo-psychedelia.
My introduction to the Lips came with "Zaireeka", so naturally I thought they were amazing! Here's what I had to say just after I heard it a second time... ""Zaireeka" certainly is genius! I've only heard it twice, only having one CD player at hand, first time my friend Chris had to come equipped with three of his own, bless! Just Friday gone though I was round his and it was all much easier to get started. There really is something about it, more than just the volume factor of having four machines on the go, that makes it that bit more emotional than your average album. I gather there's a story and remember something about the guy in "Driving to Work in the Year 2025" pretending to be invisable because of his social anxiety. You feel so worried for him! You also feel bloody terrified for your own safety in "The Big Ol' Bug is the New Baby Now". And I think it must have been "The train runs over the camel but is derailed by the gnat" which was so lovely I cracked up laughing. It's great how you can play each album on it's own merit too. Taking Chris's word for this but apparently all four are pretty decent. And how technically you never hear the same album twice. It's just fantastic, I've said it before and still believe- most groundbreaking album of the 90's." So aye, I still stand by that! Recently got "The Soft Bulletin" and that hasn't disappointed me the way it seems to have most people. It's no "Zaireeka" but I can't think of too many better albums from 1999.
hmm... I saw the lips at Bonnaroo 2003, and they were alright... they had people in animal costumes jumping around everywhere, and there was a bigscreen behind them. On the bigscreen about halfway through the show, it showed a guy open his head, take out his brain and snort it. Then on the big screen, it said "Don't snort your brain." I got the hell out of there after that. A little too much for me... needless to say, I haven't really given them too much of a chance after that.
