Phasecorrect, I'm even a little older and fartier than you, and one of the main things about The Lips that impresses me so greatly is that they *have* managed to change so much, yet continue to take their work to new highs, over such a sustained period. Yeah, they'll never sound 'like that' again if you're a fan of their early days, but neither did The Beatles. From what I've been able to glean from a few band interviews, I think that even the founding members themselves are more than a little amazed at how far they've come. I like to think I know the genuine article when I hear it, and in The Lips case, I'm forced to pay attention as with no other band I know of today.
There are very few instances over the years where an artist or band with an established level of career excellence expands its sound to the degree that The Lips managed with "The Soft Bulletin" - records like The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?", or The Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" come to mind - and reach an even greater level of artistic achievement than before, and even fewer still that have then gone on to successfully capitalize on that achievement with their next record to the extent that I believe The Lips have with "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots".
I'm not saying that The Lips are better or more important than any of the artists I mentioned above, of course; just that when it comes to even striving for, much less actually grasping, that sort of an accomplishment today, they're about the only game in town - and the fact that such a thing can be done at all at this late date just blows me away. I admit that maybe if it were 20 or 30 years ago, they wouldn't seem so special to me, and that a big part of my assessment of their songwriting and record-making quality has a lot to do with the prolonged lack of new exposure to anything its equal (I'm a guy who believes that rock as an art form during its golden age basically finished dying by about the time that the CD and MTV began their ascent [not uncoincidentally]), but given the landscape today, can you really blame me for wanting go overboard when the opportunity presents itself?
As Wayne sings: "'Cause it's gettin' heavy/Well, I thought it was already as heavy as can be/Tell everybody waitin' for Superman/That they should try to hold on best they can/He hasn't dropped them forgot them or anything/It's just too heavy for Superman to lift". The Flaming Lips are trying, and they're succeeding against all odds if you ask me. :-)
There are very few instances over the years where an artist or band with an established level of career excellence expands its sound to the degree that The Lips managed with "The Soft Bulletin" - records like The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?", or The Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" come to mind - and reach an even greater level of artistic achievement than before, and even fewer still that have then gone on to successfully capitalize on that achievement with their next record to the extent that I believe The Lips have with "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots".
I'm not saying that The Lips are better or more important than any of the artists I mentioned above, of course; just that when it comes to even striving for, much less actually grasping, that sort of an accomplishment today, they're about the only game in town - and the fact that such a thing can be done at all at this late date just blows me away. I admit that maybe if it were 20 or 30 years ago, they wouldn't seem so special to me, and that a big part of my assessment of their songwriting and record-making quality has a lot to do with the prolonged lack of new exposure to anything its equal (I'm a guy who believes that rock as an art form during its golden age basically finished dying by about the time that the CD and MTV began their ascent [not uncoincidentally]), but given the landscape today, can you really blame me for wanting go overboard when the opportunity presents itself?
As Wayne sings: "'Cause it's gettin' heavy/Well, I thought it was already as heavy as can be/Tell everybody waitin' for Superman/That they should try to hold on best they can/He hasn't dropped them forgot them or anything/It's just too heavy for Superman to lift". The Flaming Lips are trying, and they're succeeding against all odds if you ask me. :-)