The Flaming Lips Albums (13)
What The Critics Say
Christmas on Mars might be the Flaming Lips' bona fide sci-fi epic, but Embryonic is the musical equivalent of the final scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey: transformative chaos that results in a new start. From The Soft Bulletin onward, the Lips seemed focused on tidying the loose ends of their earlier work, almost to the point of constraining themselves. Their wilder side is unleashed on Embryonic's 18 tracks, and the band sound, more off-the-cuff than it has in years -- some tracks are barely longer than snippets, others are rangy epics, and it all holds together so organically that listeners might wonder just how much these songs were edited. Musically, Embryonic is the least polite the Flaming Lips have been in nearly two decades, mixing in-the-red drums, blobby, dubby bass, squelchy wah-wah guitars, and sparkling keyboards into a swirl of sounds that are strangely liquid and abrasive at the same time. Occasionally, the band uses noise in an almost ugly way, as on "Convinced of the Hex," which scrapes eardrums with static and distortion before falling into a loose but driving Krautrock groove that adds to the song's tribal pull (complete with growling and wailing in the background). The Miles Davis-inspired "Aquarius Sabotage" opens fuzz bass and keyboards so chaotic, it isn't just free jazz, it's free-for-all jazz, while "Your Bats" is as soulful as it is noisy, piling roomy drums atop more delicate hand percussion, strings, and brass. The Lips balance these confrontational tracks with calmer moments like the vocodered loveliness of "The Impulse " and "Gemini Syringes," an expansive respite that features "additional spoken announcements" by mathematician Thorsten Wormann. Embryonic might not be a literal concept album, but it often plays like one. An astrology motif runs through the ultra-spacy "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" and the tumbling instrumental "Scorpio Sword," another track that suggests that the album's ultimate concept may be that chaos is a profound agent of change. It's also the Flaming Lips' most emotionally raw album, despite -- or perhaps because of -- its free-flowing nature. Wayne Coyne often sounds like he's singing from another dimension, musing on humankind's frailty with the wonder of an alien or a newborn on "If" and "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine." This is also some of the band's most bittersweet work; on the beautiful "Powerless," Coyne sings "no one is ever really powerless," but the music dwells on the weighty implications of that thought rather than its potential freedom. Even the playful "I Can Be a Frog," which features Karen O as a one-woman noisemaker, is minor-key. Then again, little about Embryonic is clear-cut or straightforward -- these noisy, pensive, sometimes meandering songs take awhile to decipher and often feel like they're still in the process of becoming. These very qualities, however, make these songs some of the Flaming Lips most haunting and intriguing music in some time. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"A fantastical and disturbing humanistic freakout!" shouts the cover of the Flaming Lips' seven years in-the-making DVD/CD Christmas on Mars, but the film and its music aren't nearly as overtly wacky or sentimental as might be expected based on that description, or the other work the Lips released while they were working on the movie. In fact, Christmas on Mars is about as subtle and restrained as a film that includes emerald-green aliens, hallucinations of eating babies and a labia-headed marching band can be. Its mostly grainy black-and-white visuals and slow pacing give a surprisingly understated feel to its story, which involves the extreme technical difficulties Major Syrtis (played by the band's Steven Drozd) and the rest of his Mars colonization team face on Christmas Eve, and the alien visitor (Wayne Coyne) who helps them. It's difficult for artists as prominent as the Flaming Lips to make a true cult movie -- which, more often than not, comes from out of nowhere and finds its audience organically, usually through years of word of mouth and passing bootlegged copies from one friend to another -- but Christmas on Mars is as ambitious, strange, and homespun as most underground films. It plays like a three-way hybrid of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Eraserhead, and Plan 9 from Outer Space, throwing together moments of haunted isolation, utter strangeness, kitsch and uneven acting in ways that gel surprisingly often. Even so, the film is strangest and most successful in its lonely silences than in its blatantly weird moments. The look and, not surprisingly, the sound of Christmas on Mars are its greatest accomplishments; its music and sound design (courtesy of the band and their longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann) are more expressive than its dialogue. The film's music is a true score, with no pop songs or musical numbers to break its spooky, sparkling flow. Just as the movie feels like a mix of Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch and Ed Wood, the music suggests equal parts of Bernard Herrmann's swirling tension ("The Secret of Immortality: This Strange Feeling, This Impossible World"), Tchaikovsky's magical, music box wonder ("The Horrors of Isolation: The Celestial Dissolve, Triumphant Hallucination, Light Being Absorbed") and a bit of electronic eccentricity somewhere between Brian Eno and Joe Meek ("Your Spaceship Comes from Within," "The Distress Signals of Celestial Objects"). The score switches between desolation and vivid fantasy, two of science fiction's biggest tropes: "Once Beyond Hopelessness" bookends Christmas on Mars, and though it closes the album by setting the controls for optimism, its gloomy synth melody captures the film's isolation and the colonists' despair, sounding as though it's careening through space, leaving trails of distortion in its wake. In between, the music underscores the film's ambivalent womb imagery with the luminous harps and vocals of "In Excelsior Vaginalistic" and nightmarishly majestic "Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia" and revels in the beauty of outer space with the two-part piece "The Distance Between Mars and the Earth," which moves from dark and lavish to dreamy and almost romantic. The set's extras include interviews with all of the Flaming Lips and "Inside Wayne's Endless Yellow Notepad," which features Coyne's sketches and storyboards and how they translated onto the screen. Christmas on Mars is easily the band's most ambitious undertaking since Zaireeka, and while it isn't quite as successful as that album was, it still offers the impressive multimedia experience that Flaming Lips fans have come to love. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'At War with the Mystics'
Release Date 3/31/2006
Tracks 12
Label Warner Bros.
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Since 1999's The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips have issued an album once every three or four years -- roughly once per presidential term, making At War with the Mystics the second album they've made during George W. Bush's presidency. While Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' themes of seizing the moment and accepting mortality could easily be read as a reaction to 9/11, At War with the Mystics is a more overtly timely album for the mid-to-late 2000s, dealing with the motivation behind the war in Iraq and Bush's presidency. By grappling with heavy subjects like these, it could seem like the Flaming Lips are taking their role as one of America's most prominent and beloved alternative rock bands too seriously, but Mystics' light touch shows that they can still be important without being self-important. In fact, the album's most pointed tracks are the most playful. As they did on Yoshimi's "Fight Test," the Lips couch their aggression in bouncy melodies and playful production tricks. With its robotic doo wop vocals and strummy acoustic guitars, "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" -- which asks its listeners if they could do any better if they were handed all the power in the world -- sounds oddly like a Paul Simon song updated for the 21st (or maybe even 22nd) century. "Free Radicals," which sounds like Prince via Beck with a dash of Daft Punk, and "Haven't Got a Clue," which boasts the refrain "Every time you state your case, the more I want to punch your face," get their points across emphatically -- almost too emphatically, actually, for as catchy as these songs are, they don't really expand on their thoughts or sounds much. However, the middle section of At War with the Mystics is expansive and intimate at the same time, like many of the Flaming Lips' best moments have been. "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion" and "Vein of Stars" play like updates of The Soft Bulletin's effortless, weightless beauty, and "The Sound of Failure" is a reminder that it's OK to be sad sometimes (while getting in digs at the teen pop platitudes of Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani) set to a gorgeous backdrop of soft rock flutes and guitars and twittering electronics. This stretch of songs plays almost like a suite, which ties right in with At War with the Mystics' prog rock leanings. Pink Floyd is a major influence on the entire album: "The Wizard Turns On..." is a spacey, late-night instrumental that could easily be synched to The Wizard of Oz, while "Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung" also taps into Floyd's elaborate, epic power. These trippy moments make At War with the Mystics the most psychedelic and least immediate album the Flaming Lips have done in a long, long time, and the way that Mystics bounces back and forth between its ethereal and zany moments gives it a disjointed, uneven feel that makes the album a shade less satisfying than either Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin. Still, as standout tracks like "Mr. Ambulance Driver" and "Goin' On" show, the band is still fighting the good fight and confronting the bad things in life with hope, optimism, and just the right amount of (magical) realism. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots'
Release Date 7/9/2002
Tracks 11
Label PIAS America
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
After the symphonic majesty of The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips return with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, a sublime fusion of Bulletin's newfound emotional directness, the old-school playfulness of Transmissions From the Satellite Heart, and, more importantly, exciting new expressions of the group's sentimental, experimental sound. While the album isn't as immediately impressive as the equally brilliant and unfocused Soft Bulletin, it's more consistent, using a palette of rounded, surprisingly emotive basslines; squelchy analog synths; and manicured acoustic guitars to craft songs like "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21," a sleekly melancholy tale of robots developing emotions, and "In the Morning of the Magicians," an aptly named electronic art rock epic that sounds like a collaboration between the Moody Blues and Wendy Carlos. Paradoxically, the Lips use simpler arrangements to create more diverse sounds on Yoshimi, spanning the lush, psychedelic reveries of "It's Summertime"; the instrumental "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon"; the dubby "Are You a Hypnotist?"; and the barely organized chaos of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2," which defeats the evil metal ones with ferocious drums, buzzing synths, and the razor sharp howl of the Boredoms' Yoshimi. Few bands can craft life-affirming songs about potentially depressing subjects (the passage of time, fighting for what you care about, good vs. evil) as the Flaming Lips, and on Yoshimi, they're at the top of their game. "Do You Realize??" is the standout, so immediately gorgeous that it's obvious that it's the single. It's also the most obviously influenced by The Soft Bulletin, but it's even catchier and sadder, sweetening such unavoidable truths like "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?" with chimes, clouds of strings, and angelic backing vocals. Yoshimi features some of the sharpest emotional peaks and valleys of any Lips album -- the superficially playful "Fight Test" is surprisingly bittersweet, while sad songs like "All We Have Is Now" and "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" are leavened by witty lyrics and production tricks. Funny, beautiful, and moving, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots finds the Flaming Lips continuing to grow and challenge themselves in not-so-obvious ways after delivering their obvious masterpiece. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
So where does a band go after releasing the most defiantly experimental record of its career? If you're the Flaming Lips, you keep rushing headlong into the unknown -- The Soft Bulletin, their follow-up to the four-disc gambit Zaireeka, is in many ways their most daring work yet, a plaintively emotional, lushly symphonic pop masterpiece eons removed from the mind-warping noise of their past efforts. Though more conventional in concept and scope than Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin clearly reflects its predecessor's expansive sonic palette. Its multidimensional sound is positively celestial, a shape-shifting pastiche of blissful melodies, heavenly harmonies, and orchestral flourishes; but for all its headphone-friendly innovations, the music is still amazingly accessible, never sacrificing popcraft in the name of radical experimentation. (Its aims are so perversely commercial, in fact, that hit R&B remixer Peter Mokran tinkered with the cuts "Race for the Prize" and "Waitin' for a Superman" in the hopes of earning mainstream radio attention.) But what's most remarkable about The Soft Bulletin is its humanity -- these are Wayne Coyne's most personal and deeply felt songs, as well as the warmest and most giving. No longer hiding behind surreal vignettes about Jesus, zoo animals, and outer space, Coyne pours his heart and soul into each one of these tracks, poignantly exploring love, loss, and the fate of all mankind; highlights like "The Spiderbite Song" and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" are so nakedly emotional and transcendently spiritual that it's impossible not to be moved by their beauty. There's no telling where the Lips will go from here, but it's almost beside the point -- not just the best album of 1999, The Soft Bulletin might be the best record of the entire decade. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
A combination of the words "Zaire" and "Eureka," Zaireeka is a term coined by Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne symbolizing the fusion of anarchy and genius. It's a perfect title; Zaireeka is the culmination of the Lips' helter-skelter brilliance. Pushing the concept of interactive listening into new realms of possibility, the work extends Coyne's infamous "parking lot experiments" into not merely one album, but four separate discs that can be played separately or in groups of two, three, and four with multiple stereos. (Properly synchronized multi-disc playback requires more than one person -- it's literally a party album.) Between combining the discs and toying with volume, balance, fidelity, etc., the options are truly limitless. No two multi-disc performances can be repeated, thanks to the space-time continuum and discrepancies from one CD player to another. Musically as well as conceptually, the Lips are defiantly experimental throughout Zaireeka; individually, each disc sounds more like free jazz than pop, although Coyne's diamond-sharp melodic sensibilities prevail even during the most chaotic moments. With each additional disc, the music's force and ingenuity reveals itself: "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)" is an epic orchestral noise suite, "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" is a multi-narrative plane-crash drama remarkably evocative in its depiction of fear and chaos, and "How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos)" features such extreme high and low frequencies that it can lead to disorientation, confusion, or nausea (the track is not recommended to be played while operating a motor vehicle or in the presence of infants). Logistical nightmares aside, Zaireeka is a dense, difficult work, recommended only for the hardiest Flaming Lips fetishists; however, they're in for the musical experience of a lifetime. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Clouds Taste Metallic'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 13
Label Warner Brothers
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The same extraordinary madness that infected the best work of Brian Wilson rears its head on the shimmering and melodic Clouds Taste Metallic, a masterful collection which completes the Flaming Lips' odyssey into the pop stratosphere. The Pet Sounds comparisons are obvious -- two of the highlights are titled "This Here Giraffe" and "Christmas at the Zoo" -- yet not unfair; like Brian Wilson, Wayne Coyne has refined his unique vision into something both highly personal and powerfully universal. Similarly, while Coyne's lyrics remain as acid-damaged and inscrutable as ever, his densely constructed songs convey emotional complexities far beyond the scope of their head-case titles ("Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles," "Guy Who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saves the World"); galvanized by equal parts newfound maturity and childlike wonderment, Clouds Taste Metallic is both the Flaming Lips' most intricate and most irresistible work. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Hit to Death in the Future Head'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 11
Label Warner Bros.
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
With Hit to Death in the Future Head, the Flaming Lips make the leap to major-label status as though it were the moment they've been waiting for all their lives. Though not as conceptually tight as In a Priest Driven Ambulance, the album is no less cohesive or imaginative, and in its way serves as the bridge between the band's noisier, more hallucinatory indie work and the acid-bubblegum aesthetic perfected on their later Warner Bros. albums. Nowhere are the band's pop smarts more evident than on "The Sun," which freely quotes Carole King's "So Far Away," or on the undeniably catchy "Gingerale Afternoon (The Astrology of a Saturday)" and "Frogs"; tracks like "Felt Good to Burn" and "Halloween on the Barbary Coast," meanwhile, indulge fully in the trademark weirdness that got the group this far. (And speaking of indulgence, check out the unlisted bonus track, which offers some 29 minutes of speaker-hopping static assault.) ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Transmissions from the Satellite Heart'
Release Date 6/22/1993
Tracks 11
Label Warner Bros.
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The addition of guitarist Ronald Jones and drummer Steven Drozd recharges the Flaming Lips' batteries for the superb Transmissions From the Satellite Heart, another prismatic delicacy that continues the group's drift toward pop nirvana. In typical fashion, the record's left-field hit, the freak-show singalong "She Don't Use Jelly," bears little resemblance to the album as a whole; the remainder of Transmissions is much more sonically and structurally ambitious -- the towering "Moth in the Incubator" keeps generating new layers of noise before erupting into an amphetamine waltz, "Pilot Can at the Queer of God" dive-bombs with kamikaze recklessness, and the slow-burning "Oh My Pregnant Head" is as mind-expanding as its title. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Oh My Gawd!!!...The Flaming Lips'
Release Date 3/23/1992
Tracks 11
Label Restless/Enigma
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Starting with either a sample or a cool replication of a legendary one-off line in the Beatles' "Revolution No. 9" -- "Take this, brother, may it serve you well!" -- the Lips dive head-on into rock dreams on Oh My Gawd!!! Coyne's sudden resemblance vocally to Paul Westerberg is its own curiosity, but the Replacements never quite got so fried -- drunk, yes, but not fried. The cover, one weird-ass collage of skullmonsters, random photographs of landscapes, dogs and things, and, on the back, somebody literally burning up serves to set the mood just as much as the rampaging fun of "Everything's Exploding." The same combination of this and that which made Hear It Is a fun listen takes precedence here -- Coyne and company can strum along softly or crank everything up to ten and back as they please, and they do. Coyne's knack for utterly brilliant song titles also takes full life here -- how else to explain such hilarities as "Maximum Dream for Evil Knievel" or the flatly phrased "Prescription: Love," a groovy mindbender and arty rave-up all at once. While the Lips here are still a rock band par excellence, evidence of the band's increasing ambition kicks in with the simultaneously mocking and celebratory Pink Floyd vibes of "One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning." All ten minutes of it should really be on Ummagumma -- Richard English's drums are pure Nick Mason from the get-go -- but darn if it doesn't sound equally great here, as Coyne idly wonders what to do with himself in the time allotted. Other songs throw in everything from Led Zeppelin drum stomps to Mountain/Deep Purple raspy rock bellowing and more besides -- theoretically everything mid-'80s American indie rock wasn't, making the Lips that much more of a fun, unique trip. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
