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The Flaming Lips are Go Manifesto

Anybody catch The Flaming Lips on CBS's Late Late Show last night, playing their single "Do You Realize?" (from their current album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots")? How about the same song being featured in a new Hewlett-Packard TV commercial? Anybody see one of these who's never heard The Lips before? If so, what did you think?

IMO The Lips are, bar none, the finest rock band - artistically speaking - in the world right now, and the only currently-active group or artist still in their prime (and maybe just entering it their case) whose best work I would classify as being up there near the cream of the all-time greats. And it's funny to think that they came out of Oklahoma City, of all places, over fifteen years ago as a charmingly amatuerish and noisily raw poppish hardcore band with a humorous streak, and have steadily evolved (what other band or artist in the field can you name who has put out ten albums, each one a clear advancement beyond the last?) into the sublimely tuneful and powerfully lyrical art-pop group they are today, seamlessly mixing equal parts experimentalism and classicism in a sound that's uniquely original and yet timeless in its sheer creativity.

They are lauded around the globe as The Best Band In The World by the international rock press (surpassing even Radiohead I think), yet when they're not touring with Beck as they are now, I can still see them play in a reasonably-sized club gig in their own country. Maybe this will be changing now, I don't know, but if they do finally move up the rock food chain, they will have deserved it long ago (their only semi-hit came back in '93 with the hilarious "She Don't Use Jelly").

To me, it's The Flaming Lips, not Nirvana or The Smashing Pumpkins, who in the end truly represent the possibility for the ultimate triumph to be secretly carried out on behalf of America's seminal underground 'indie-rock' explosion of the 80's. Nirvana signaled the movement's artistic death at the same time that it hailed its commercial breakthrough, while The Lips - there before Nirvana, still here (and growing) after - continue as the genuine surviving spawn and blossoming link to Rock's continuum (now reduced as it is to the desicated thread of an art form whose golden age was in twilight even long prior to today's utter [and utterly disgusting] industry/market squelching or co-opting of any remaining original artisitc impulse that kids raised on MTV and video games can possibly muster) of dynamic creative expressionism that exploded for the second time in the 60's and then again (and for the last time, but mostly underground) a decade later.

Whereas Nirvana exuded the youthful (even if realistic) rage of nihilism, and the frustration of (and eventual defeat by) unavoidable compromise, The Pumpkins the fascination of mere narcissism, and bands like Pearl Jam the comforts of conventional arena-rock (oops, better make that 'alt-rock' nowadays) career-mongering, The Flaming Lips have quietly metamorphosed from their earlier ironist and obscurist leanings into an encouraging exultation of optimism and celebration of universiality not seen at this level since the early days of U2, but without the preachiness, humorlessness, or social-commentary pomposity. In fact, the bands whose unfulfilled larger-market promise I see The Lips as potentially inheriting more successfully than they could manage in their time - and with more artistic integrity than the grunge cohort - are the original casualties of indie-rock's doomed flirtation with the big-time, bands such as Sonic Youth, The Replacements, Husker Du, and Dinosaur Jr.

Can I get a witness from any members who are fans? I know that perhaps not many audiophools have this kind of taste in music (and none of The Lips' recordings are audiophilic aurally), but anybody who loves the legacy Rock at its best has given us as a truly modern art form and has a yearning for the adventurous and the expressive, could definitely do worse than to bend an ear to this most accomplished yet promising group of middle-aged bubbling-unders we have on Earth today. For the curious uninitiated, good places to start are either their present release mentioned at the top, their previous album (and breakthrough record, sound- and approach-wise) "The Soft Bulletin", or for those with a good tolerance for guitar-noise, 1995's great "Clouds Taste Metallic".
zaikesman
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
Zaikesman yeah I'm still here but I am busy sewing a complicated Rush logo on the back of my denim jacket.
The Lips played the UK a lot this year and as such they were on TV a lot,last time I saw them they made King Crimson look like the Sex Pistols such was the pompous drivel that Wayne whatshisface was singing way off-key about.
I haven't changed my mind a bit-they still sound like Styx doing Mr Roboto and I try to kick to my TV screen in every time they appear...
:-)
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
It's so comforting to know some things will never change... (Hey, about that Rush logo jacket - you sure we didn't go to the same junior high school? ;^)
phild
603 posts
 
I recently picked up my first Mercury Rev album (Desserter's Songs) and I was amazed at how similar the last few Lips albums sound to it (it preceeded them). I realize that Dave Friedman (the producer of both) is a member of Mercury Rev, an obvious connection, but it's more than that...it's the way some songs are sung as well as the overall melodies and sounds. Perhaps Mercury Rev was heavily influenced by earlier Lips (Maybe Zaireeka??), but whatever the reason, I think it's very odd that two bands sound so much alike and both get praised for being so very original. Mercury Rev gets bonus points from me (so far) for being a little less grating with the vocals. They're wimpier, but not quite as atonal.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
My brother, also a Lips fan, is into Merc Rev, and I've heard some of their stuff, but wasn't moved to get it for myself as I am with the Lips. Maybe it's because I actually enjoy Wayne's vocal stylings?... :-) BTW, some delayed leftovers from the Yoshimi sessions have been dribbling forth on EP's and DVD, including such outstanding tunes such as "Funeral In My Head" and "Up Above The Daily Hum".
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Now a car company (I don't even remember which one) is running TV ads using "Do You Realize?" as the sound track. The previous HP spot didn't make this song the radio hit it deserved to be (din't this work for Moby?), and though MTV/VH1 still won't play the Lips' own videos, they frequently use Lips music as backing tracks in their productions about other things (including about the music of other bands). It's almost as if there's a conspiracy of sorts to capitalilize on the Lips' genius without acknowledging it, even though the band is surely getting paid well for the usage. Why is corporate America simultaneously so attracted to and yet seemingly afraid of a phenomenon that they apparently feel they need to tamp it down at the same time they try to exploit it? I keep thinking that sometime, somewhere, some radio programmer is going to get the bright idea of surrendering to the obvious and actually play this stuff, making it a belated hit - but then I remember, Oh yeah, there are no more independent radio programmers anymore, only corporate chain bean-counting panderers who lack the artistic insight to "Realize" they could be making money off something new if only they possessed the balls to play quality music by 40-year olds. I guess the advertising geeks are hipper, and more subversive, than the radio geeks nowadays.
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