The Flaming Lips. The Worlds Most Frustrating Band?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Gavman, Jul 23, 2018.

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  1. Jeffreylee

    Jeffreylee Rock 'n' Roll Typist

    Location:
    Louisville
    Man oh man! What's it like not having a soul?
     
    InStepWithTheStars likes this.
  2. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Ha! Just not my bag.
     
  3. Zapruder

    Zapruder Just zis guy, you know?

    Location:
    Ames, IA
    I never dug Yoshimi either...or Mystics. Hit To Death/Transmissions/Clouds are the bees knees.
     
    Trbnado and manybiscuits like this.
  4. shirtandtie

    shirtandtie Forum Resident

    I know what it is. They’re trying WAY too hard to be weird and avant garde. It’s forced and not in their DNA.
     
    Diamond Star Halo likes this.
  5. DPK

    DPK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeastern U.S.
    What I have at home (not counting CD singles):

    Flaming Lips EP: C-
    Hear It Is: C
    Oh My Gawd: C
    Telepathic Surgery: C+
    Unconsciously Screamin' EP: B+ (the beginning of prime FL in my humble opinion)
    In a Priest Driven Ambulance: B+
    Hit to Death in the Future Head: B+
    Transmissions from the Satellite Heart: A
    Providing Needles For Your Balloons: A-
    Clouds Taste Metallic: A
    Zaireeka: B-
    The Soft Bulletin: B+
    Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: B
    Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell: C+
    Fight Test EP: B-
    At War With the Mystics: B (the end of prime FL in my humble opinion, although there have been some great stuff since this album)
    If You Could Blow Up the World With the Flick of a Switch EP: B-
    Once Beyond Hopelessness/Christmas on Mars: C
    Embryonic: B
    Peace Sword EP: C
    The Dark Side of the Moon: D
    Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends: B-
    The Terror: B-
    7 Skies H3: C+
    With a Little Help From My Fwends: D
    Lightning Strikes the Postman: C-
    Onboard the International Space Station Concert For Peace: B-
    Oczy Mlody: B-
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2018
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  6. mr. steak

    mr. steak Forum Resident

    Location:
    chandler az
    Yep.
    Thanks for telling us you're "freaks" cause I don't see it.
     
  7. malcolm reynolds

    malcolm reynolds Handsome, Humble, Genius

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    I love it all. I have the hard to find stuff from the USB sticks, vinyl etc that I got from umm...uh... well you know...
     
  8. dprokopy

    dprokopy Senior Member

    Location:
    Near Seattle, WA
    I like 'em a lot. Enough to hunt down all their core albums, plus a sizable chunk of their singles and other stuff. Am I paying hundreds for the super-ultra-limited stuff? No. I've also seen them live a handful of times over the past decade or so, and always had a good time, though I'm not super-eager to see them again anytime soon.

    I actually like pretty much all of their "eras." There's always something interesting in all of their albums, I've found. I appreciate that they've grown and changed their sound over the past 30+ years. It's almost impossible not to, really.

    I try to block out a lot regarding Wayne's off-stage life these days, as, yeah, it's a little cringe-worthy (to say the least). Seems to be going through some serious midlife-crisis stuff. But if I stopped listening to everyone that I had some sort of issue with on a personal/human level, there wouldn't be much left in my collection.
     
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  9. CrombyMouse

    CrombyMouse Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vienna, Austria
    I am a big admirer of Flaming Lips but during last 5 or so years they gradually start loosing me. As it was mentioned, too much weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Their last LP was a disappointment. Like they forgot how to write good music and turned to complete show act.
     
    George Co-Stanza likes this.
  10. Great collection! What you need now is:

    UFOs At The Zoo
    Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz
     
  11. B. Bu Po

    B. Bu Po Senior Member

    I have most of their regular albums starting with Clouds Taste Metallic, but not Soft Bulletin, which seemed like a good idea, but for me fell flat. I've heard the earlier albums and never took to them, with the exception of a song here and there. Zaireeka I heard once, when it came out, and still feel it is probably their best album. Their Dark Side Of The Moon is, for me, preferable to the original. I've seen them three times and only enjoyed them the first time, before it became a costumed glitter-fest. I like to watch their Christmas On The Moon at Christmastime, but can't if my girlfriend's around because she hates it. I generally like their more experimental side. So now you know how I feel about the Flaming Lips!
     
    Purplefowler likes this.
  12. DPK

    DPK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southeastern U.S.
    Thanks! "UFOs" hasn't been released as a CD, right (just DVD and maybe Blu-ray)? And it looks like that Miley Cyrus thing is digital-only, so I'll have to skip it, unless I can get ahold of the "unofficial CDr" listed on Discogs. I also need to get the Fearless Freaks compilation, and I'm missing about half of the CD singles.

    I sure do love that band.
     
    starduster likes this.
  13. Tree-bot

    Tree-bot Senior Member

    Location:
    Australia
    They totally lost me after At War With the Mystics. Up till then, Transmissions and Yoshimi were my favourites. Saw them live 3 times. Brilliant entertaining shows even with Wayne's vocals being below par.
     
    rancher likes this.
  14. I like a lot of their stuff. When they get it right they really nail it for me. They are highly creative which we need more of in this world... but I stopped obsessively collecting when they put out singles made with urine and blood and *** that are too expensive to find. Also their greatest hits on vinyl is bs, one disc where as the cd contains 3.

    Fearless Freaks was a great documentary.
     
  15. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    I only own one Lips album and it's on constant rotation on my TT: In A Priest Driven Ambulance.
     
    Gavman likes this.
  16. Minty_fresh

    Minty_fresh Forum Resident

    Location:
    B.
    The Flaming Lips are a great band whose sales mean they get major label support and the freedom to not make the same record repeatedly and experiment.

    Obviously the OP’s lack of imagination means that he/she doesn’t get the pop records of their middle years anymore and is solidly unhappy.

    Radiohead’s Kid A must have crushed their world then.
     
  17. rancher

    rancher Unmade Bed

    Location:
    Ohio
    Basically agree, Transmissions thru Yoshimi era is the best
     
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  18. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Agreed. I saw them on the Mystics and Embryonic tours and they were amazing. Then I saw them on the out for The Terror and the magic just wasn't there anymore. And they ended the show with a painfully slow cover of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
     
    CrombyMouse likes this.
  19. marigoldilemma

    marigoldilemma Forum Resident

    Location:
    usa
    I worked in a record store when the album came out and after we closed, we all brought in our boomboxes and and we had 8 of them going, with two copies of the album blasting forth. It was one of the coolest first listens of an album I've ever had.

    A couple years later I put all of the tracks into Cool Edit Pro and made my own mixdown. To me, you can hear the beginnings of what would find its full expression on The Soft Bulletin. "March of the rotten vegetables" is still one of their best songs in my opinion.

    I've seen them live four times, if you count the "boombox tour" for Zaireeka! in which random fans were invited on stage and given a boombox to play a tape on. That show, ironically, was in Lawrence, KS with future member Kliph Scurlock in attendance.

    Hit to Death in the Future Head is probably my favorite of the early albums. I like 7SkiesH3 quite a bit. Embryonic is painful, but there a good songs. I do think Steven Drozd is a major reason for their "late blooming" period; by many accounts, he's a musical genius.
     
  20. misterdecibel

    misterdecibel Bulbous Also Tapered

    I'm almost convinced that the Lips are a gigantic put-on.
     
    Trbnado likes this.
  21. beatleroadie

    beatleroadie Forum Resident

    I think Side 1, track 1 of their debut is the best song they ever did, and haven't topped it:

     
  22. CrombyMouse

    CrombyMouse Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vienna, Austria
    Not to mention that Wayne barely can sing live. His voice is so thin. Instead he just banters and..acts!

    On a good day The Flaming Lips are Pink Floyd of 21st century.
     
    Gavaxeman likes this.
  23. Ma Kelly

    Ma Kelly Senior Member

    Location:
    England
    Ah cool - I never got around to picking up the Waitin for a Superman single when it came out, despite them being possibly my favourite band at the time. The stereo downmixes make sense, more so than the versions on the Race for the Prize single, though I guess that gave some sort of taster as to what the proper Zaireeka experience sounded like.
     
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  24. soniclovenoize

    soniclovenoize Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minneapolis, MN
    I used to be a hardcore Flaming Lips from 1998 up until probably 2013 or 2014. I was one of the very first to register/post on the official messageboard back in 2001/2002 (I was NightclubDwight btw). I've seen them live eight times between 1999-2015. It was their mid-90s albums that made me fall in love with them, and I'd say Clouds Taste Metallic is my second-favorite album of all time, it being the album that got me into the band. Ronald Jones specifically was a big influence on my own guitar playing. Going back and discovering their older albums, I easily fell in love with them as well. After consuming their entire discography by 1999, I was taken back when they "went orchestral" on The Soft Bulletin, but I grew to love it and that era of the band and appreciated the genius. They were the still the same guys really, Wayne who hauled his own gear on-stage and would talk to fans. I remember having a huge conversation with him about recording techniques on Soft Bulletin after a show in 2001. We were so into the conversation, that we were the last ones left in the parking lot and a roadie had to actually remind Wayne it was time to go, and dragged him away lol

    Yoshimi was pretty good, and was my soundtrack for 2002--especially the leaked early version with a different tracklist! To me, that is the real version of Yoshimi. At War With The Mystics was just alright... I thought they were sort of coasting now, which was a shame. Regardless, the album got me through some really tough times in 2006. I did not like Embryonic went it first came out, but I appreciated that the band recognized they were coasting, and reinvented themselves. Like Soft Bulletin before it, I grew to love Embryonic too (although I liked my single-disc edit of the album much more than then the official release!), and embraced this new era of the band, free of the constrains of a label and were doing just whatever they wanted. 7 Skies H3 was the last thing they did I truly loved, and my 100-minute edit of that is often on rotation. I maintain some of the best music they ever did was on 7 Skies H3.

    But all the colab albums were a turn off for me (what's the point?), and while I can admit to The Terror being one of their greatest artistic achievements, I just cannot listen to it and is not a very enjoyable experience unless I'm really in a specific mood. This was also the point that I--and almost all old school FLips fans--noticed a change in Wayne. This friendly guy who would talk to any fan and hauled his own gear was replaced by this old weirdo obsessed with sex and drugs. Someone earlier called this "post-Michelle Wayne", which is a really good description for it. And then the Kliph debacle-- while Wayne wasn't necessarily in the wrong, Kliph was definitely a direct line of communication between the band and their fans. That was now gone. Oczy Mlody was the nail in the coffin. I was actually relieved that it was just simply awful, so I wouldn't have to emotionally go through this again.

    I was lucky, though, that my final two Flaming Lips shows was when they played Transmissions From The Satellite Heart in it's entirety in 2014, and of course when they played Clouds Taste Metallic in it's entirety in 2015. Clouds was what got me into this band, so I thought it was appropriate that was my final goodbye to the band that was the soundtrack to my college years and into my 20s.
     
  25. Gavman

    Gavman Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Grimsby. UK
    Far from it. I loved Kid A. In response to your derogatory remarks; I refer you to the Original post: If you fully read the post, you would notice that my frustrations are only with the release formats not the music contained therein (ok, I admit that I was a little less than complimentary towards the cover versions albums).


    Kid A would have 'crushed my soul ' as you put it if it was limited to 20 copies only on a flash in an elaborate jelly 'evil teddy bear ' with an rrp of £400.
     
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