Listen, man, I’ll admit it: I had given up on the Flaming Lips.
God bless ’em to pieces, they’d discovered and summited amazing peaks of rock over their career, but after The Soft Bulletin they seemed to hit a holding pattern. I was cool with it all — I mean, they can do what they want and they were still making tons of people happy. Plus, great bands rarely get paid for their best albums, so I can’t begrudge any body givin’ the people what they want.
But the e-mails I was getting from their list were more often about expensive new coffee-table books than music. And then I heard Wayne Coyne say that they hadn’t changed their stage show in years because the confetti, the giant ball, and all that jazz were what people were expecting. I was a little disappointed that they had seemingly lost their love for experimentation.
So when I saw they were headlining Treasure Island, I pictured the same show I saw the last two times I saw them, only with less-interesting music.
But then HOLY CRAP have you heard their new album Embryonic? Aces! The love of sound has returned! Wayne’s back to being unsettling and not just cuddly! And they’ve FINALLY put out another album cover that will give acid-heads nightmares:
I’ve only seen a brief clip of the new stage show, but it’s definitely got me rethinking my usual leave-early plan. 9:05 Sunday night. See you on the last bus!
Here’s two streamies from Embryonic:
The Flaming Lips – The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine
The Flaming Lips – Evil
… and for good measure, here’s “Shine On Sweet Jesus – Jesus Song No. 5″ from the 1990 album that marked the turn of a great corner for the Lips, In A Priest Driven Ambulance:
