New flaming lips album

[VHSTAPE777]

Are you guys excited for the new flaming lips album?

[Vindaloo]

I am looking forward to it immensely, but i hope it's not mastered ear-splittingly loud...... i dont hold much hope though. Ibuprofen ahoy!

[VHSTAPE777]

Ibuprofen ahoy!

Haha

[moop]

I am looking forward to it immensely, but i hope it's not mastered ear-splittingly loud...... i dont hold much hope though. Ibuprofen ahoy!

with dave fridmann producing it's likely to be mixed loud, but it seems as though it wont be as over-the-top as the previous few albums. I found this in an interview with steven drozd.. "There’s no songs with major chords or great, happy messages. They're dreary and bleak, but in a good way." In other words, if you were intrigued by the chipper and blown-out "Sun Blows Up Today"... then you might want to adjust your expectations accordingly.

That sounds like good news to me.

[redcloud]

We have debated these guys in here on multiple occasions. I stand firmly on the side that their best work was pre-'Soft Bulletin'. Nothing from that album onwards interests me.

[runaway]

We have debated these guys in here on multiple occasions. I stand firmly on the side that their best work was pre-'Soft Bulletin'. Nothing from that album onwards interests me.

ditto

[TheWarmth]

There were a couple of tracks from the last album that I thought were pretty cool. The first single ... can't remember what it was called. Something "Hex". Good track. For the most part, though, I can't get into the Lips at all, the old stuff or the new.

[jack white]

i'm still interested.

i thought their anthem-years were good, i think TSB is especially superb. Yoshimi much less so. Mystics was a weird one, very hit & miss. neither were particularly great but they were always "fearless", trying something even if it didn't really come off so credit where it's due, & i think that's something that can be said for most of their earlier stuff too tbh. Embryonic i thought was excellent, some great songs (Evil) & an overall great temper & ambition.
i'll always look forward to their proper releases but this one especially has me intrigued due to the personal bullshit they've been going thru.

[Dreamweapon]

I heard something on 6music recently tha they were also releasing an album covering whole of The Stone Roses' debut.

[moop]

I heard something on 6music recently tha they were also releasing an album covering whole of The Stone Roses' debut.

please God no!!

much as i'm definitely in the 'donahue/jones eras flaming lips were the best!' camp, I have to admit that I think steven drozd's is a pretty amazing musician. I know it's hard to tease the two eras apart without having the two versions of the lips in opposition, but i think aside from the whole 'moving away from guitars' thing, what really stops them from being great these days is that it became too much about wayne and his gimmicks. in my opinion, subtlety, genuine emotion and quality of songwriting are often obscured by this, and we're left with the over-produced, brick-walled, ibuprofen-necessitating sound. I have a feeling that any album which is more drozd than coyne will be a massive improvement. reading the recent drozd interview on pitchfork sort of confirmed my suspicions that he doesn't really like all of the gimmicky stuff either, and is proud to do something more personal/meaningful.

in no way do i want this to turn into the same old debate as mentioned on here before, but I have a feeling that for those who are still at least vaguely interested in the band's output, this may well be worth investigating. I have a feeling the difference between whether it is just ok or great will depend on how much the OTT production and gimmicks are reigned in. purely speculation, of course!

[runcible]

Very interesting moop - and well put too.

I agree that Drozd is a very talented guy but he is also the greatest drummer I have ever seen which makes it sad for me that he doesn't really do that these days.

This is the first thing I have read that has raised any excitement in what the Lips are doing since Zaireeka.

[BzaInSpace]

In the last series of Peep Show, there was a great bit which had the two characters of Jez and Super-Hans playing a 'guess-the-band-name' game. What was the clue for the Flaming Lips?

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20love%20bunker

Sums it up better than anyone else I believe. I have no interest them, pre or post puppet shows I'm afraid.

Next!

[davedecay]

there's been a leak - not sure if it's alleged to be the real thing or not...

[jadams501]

i thought their anthem-years were good, i think TSB is especially superb. Yoshimi much less so. Mystics was a weird one, very hit & miss. neither were particularly great but they were always "fearless", trying something even if it didn't really come off so credit where it's due, & i think that's something that can be said for most of their earlier stuff too tbh. Embryonic i thought was excellent, some great songs (Evil) & an overall great temper & ambition.

I too am a fan of their anthem years, and honestly it's most of their stuff that I'm interested in hearing on any kind of regular basis. All three of those albums were pretty mixed, but if you boiled the highlights down to one CD (like their Live at the Zoo concert did) it's some pretty transcendent melancholy pure pop. I prefer ambitious songs written for the world to weird druggy excursions from their earlier days. To me Embryonic had the same market-tested desire to please as the previous few albums but the market they were pandering to was the music intelligensia who'd had enough of the verse-chorus-verse and wanted something "offbeat," so to me the album feels self-sabotaged and a touch too deliberately left field, though there are some good tracks on there.

I have no interest them, pre or post puppet shows I'm afraid.

The slightly desperate over the top stoner theatricality of the Lips kept me from getting into them for a long time. But ultimately their best stuff should please any fan of classic pop or psychedelia. It's easy to dismiss a group so eager to please but they succeed despite themselves.

[sunray]

In the last series of Peep Show, there was a great bit which had the two characters of Jez and Super-Hans playing a 'guess-the-band-name' game. What was the clue for the Flaming Lips?

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20love%20bunker

Sums it up better than anyone else I believe. I have no interest them, pre or post puppet shows I'm afraid.

Next!

Way to go with the constructive criticism and intelligent well thought out argument. I remember when this board used to be...yawn.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[angelsighs]

they were always into gimmicks weren't they? wacky song titles? 4CDs that have to be played at the same time? christmas lights?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. after all, who's to say that releasing an album in a blisterpack, or playing the 'Highest Show on Earth' are also gimmicks?
I'm not really a fan but they seem decent guys and their musical development just seems like an evolution into a certain direction, rather than any attempt at money-grabbing.

agree about the headache inducing production though

[BzaInSpace]

Way to go with the constructive criticism and intelligent well thought out argument. I remember when this board used to be...yawn.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The irony.

[davedecay]

in the past decade, i may have felt the most pure JOY at their live show than any other band made me feel.

maybe not the BEST BAND per se, but they certainly made the HAPPINESS vibes shine!

[redcloud]

they were always into gimmicks weren't they? wacky song titles? 4CDs that have to be played at the same time? christmas lights?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. after all, who's to say that releasing an album in a blisterpack, or playing the 'Highest Show on Earth' are also gimmicks?
I'm not really a fan but they seem decent guys and their musical development just seems like an evolution into a certain direction, rather than any attempt at money-grabbing.

It is inevitable that conversations will go back to pre-SB Lips...but you can't have a thread about them without somebody praising that era. Back then, they got on stage and played chaotic yet beautiful music. Yes, they had some primitive effects but they still created incredible atmosphere. The tiny bars would be filled with thick dry ice smoke and a projector that was placed on a stool behind the drummer was aimed at the ceiling above the tiny crowd. The flickering film projectors light danced through the heavy dense smoke and into the crowd to brilliant effect. Sometimes you would stare at them other times looking up at the surreal films. I'll take that show any day over Wayne wearing big goofy animal paw/mittens or Wayne inside a bouncy ball.

That said, I have nothing against them either. They have been a band since the mid 80's and have worked hard for their success and deserve it. But, I have to admit their rise to fame still amazes me. When I think back at those early shows or listen to albums like 'Priest' or 'Hit To Death' they really are the last band in the world I could imagine making it prime time.

[spzretent]

They have had to adapt to shifting band members. They apparently hit on something with Soft Bulletin. They probably sold more of that record than their entire previous catalog.
Things always change. Bands change. They are laughing all the way to the bank which is ultimately a good thing. I'd rather see them cash in than 99% of other bands whether or not I like the direction they went in. Which in the end is irrelevant.

[Hofstadter]

http://pitchfork.com/tv/youtube/27-pitc ... -bulletin/

Have not watched yet, but it is the second documentary made by Pitchfork in the "Classic" series, the first of which being the Belle & Sebastian one which already has its own thread. Thought I would post here for those interested.

[VHSTAPE777]

The leak is real and the album is amazing

[toomilk]

http://pitchfork.com/tv/youtube/27-pitc ... -bulletin/

Have not watched yet, but it is the second documentary made by Pitchfork in the "Classic" series, the first of which being the Belle & Sebastian one which already has its own thread. Thought I would post here for those interested.

Another great one. Fantastic stuff. They have a third for a Modest Mouse album. I'm not too keen on them, but I'll give it a whirl as well.

[toomilk]

Also, I've only ever had the UK version and didn't realize it was that much different than the US. "The Spiderbite Song" ? Never heard of it...

[moop]

Also, I've only ever had the UK version and didn't realize it was that much different than the US. "The Spiderbite Song" ? Never heard of it...

yeah, and the american release didn't get 'slow motion' for some reason, which is a shame cos that track is great. I also don't see the logic of putting buggin at the end of the uk album while it's track 5 on the US version. i mean even if it was done to keep the 3 'remixes' together you would put it before the ones that have already appeared in the album (those other tracks add nothing anyway)... so dumb!

the vinyl tracklist has both, so that's probably the way to go. why the cds have to be different is lost on me..
Vinyl release
1. "Race for the Prize"
2. "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton"
3. "The Spark That Bled"
4. "The Spiderbite Song"
5. "Buggin'"
6. "What Is the Light?"
7. "The Observer"
8. "Waitin' for a Superman"
9. "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"
10. "The Gash"
11. "Slow Motion"
12. "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate"
13. "Sleeping on the Roof"