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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
blkadr
739 posts
 
Clbeanz,
Zaireeka is an experiment of sorts that features 4 discs... to be played simultaneuosly! I havent heard it , and i dont think ill buy a bunch of jam boxes to do so, but it sounds interesting. I just think this band is freshly creative and resist the notion that their music is pretentious or that they are self obsorbed. And by the way, my take on the song 'Pink Robots' is that its more of a homage of sorts to aneme than a serious rock statement, and has little in common with 'Mr Roboto'. Like i said, i think the Lips are great fun!
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Clbeanz, I am not a particular fan of "Zaireeka" (and the nickname my username derives from predates it by a few decades:-) ; to me it's mostly an indulgent hodgepodge, with the germs of a couple of good songs on it rendered moot by the artsy-fartsy unwieldiness of the 4-disk simultaneous-play concept (bootleg stereo mixdowns can be found however). I see it primarily as the band's production tune-up for the far-superior and much more necessary "Soft Bulletin", but I can't deny that "Zaireeka" did represent an exponential growth phase in their ever-expanding sound.
phild
603 posts
 
I think Zaireeka has been released (I've seen it new several times over the past few months and that hasn't happened for years), so no reason to kick yourself for not buying it.
zaikesman OP
3,017 posts
 
Yes, the 4-CD set was re-released at a budget-line price after the OOP original issue began commanding collector prices in the wake of the band's "Soft Bulletin" relative commercial break-out. At any price, however, there is still little reason to kick oneself for not buying this set - better to invest in "Clouds Taste Metallic" or "Transmissions From The Satellite Heart", the last two guitar-rock albums they made prior to "Zaireeka". IMO the great Lips LP's are "Transmissions...", "Clouds...", "...Bulletin", and "Yoshimi...", with honorable mention going to "In A Priest Driven Ambulance". The bulk of "Hit To Death In The Future Head" (which fell between the superior "...Ambulance" and "Transmissions...") sounds like a bid for alt-radio acceptance to me, occasionally pleasant or motivating but mostly conventional and forgettable by Lips standards. The stuff before "...Ambulance" can be safely ignored by newbies (sorry Phasecorrect!), right along with "Zaireeka". (Also, the expanded reissue of "...Ambulance" - entitled "The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg" - does not generally make for very edifying or necessary listening beyond the original album tracks, but those do benefit somewhat from the remastering.)
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