The Flaming Lips...

I heard one of the new songs. It doesn't have drums, and it isn't good.

After an initial listen through of the new record I am struck at just how bad it is. Aimless and middling. Keyboard based but without the eerie tension that makes The Terror so interesting. It's almost like they have been so enamored with re-making other bands music that they have forgotten how to craft their own songs. There is a real paucity of ideas here. Doesn't bode well for the upcoming tour.

Haven't heard the album yet but the two singles go absolutely nowhere. This is probably the least excited I've been about one of their albums (not counting the covers albums) since I got into them 18 years ago.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2017/01/dissected-every-flaming-lips-album-with-guest-commentary-from-wayne-coyne/

Interesting to read Wayne's thoughts here.

cool interview. too bad they didn't get Wayne's Words on "Hit to Death".

is "The Terror" album cover really that bad? it looks like a blown-up JPG full of artifacts. this was a big reason i didn't buy it, i think even the vinyl release looked like that. yuck.

imo the new album cover looks like something one of their interns whipped up one afternoon in Illustrator. not really excited about the new stuff.

fwiw, I think the cover art on "The Terror" suits the music perfectly.

I

Oops

** Is the "Terror" worth another re-listen? Heard it when it came out and liked it, but it seemed too bleak for my current mental state at that time.

i thought it was great when it came out, havent re-listened yet tho

I loved The Terror when it came out and played it a decent amount. I went back to it last year for the first time since around the time it came out, but I don't think I was quite in the mood for it. It's a tough listen if you're not in the right mood.

I just checked and I called The Terror a masterpiece on this thread when it came out. It is definitely not a masterpiece.

I think it's pretty successful at creating that sort of stark and hopeless feeling that the band, I think, was aiming for. And it manages to stay engaging for its entirety. While certainly not a masterpiece, I think it's a more than worthwhile listen. Although I can say that o don't think I've ever spun it in the daylight. It's best late at night.

I think The Terror is close to a masterpiece. You definitely have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it - things weren't going very well for me at the time and it was definitely the perfect accompaniment.

Haven't heard the new album yet but of the first three tracks only "How?" really warrants additional listens. Not looking forward to the rest.

i hadn't cared about anything flaming lips-related since the soft bulletin and i loved the terror when it came out

i dug embryonic a lot but haven't revisited it since '09 or '10. terror sounded cool too but i found it hard to care

listened to this 2 times today. where are the fucking drums?

forgettable as hell. a bunch of keyboard songs that all sound the same and bleed into each other. the most psychedelic thing about this record is flipping on the echo whenever someone says the word "high"

The thing about The Terror is it so successfully conveys a mood or state of mind which it doesn't waver from, but it's not the sort of mood or state of mind that I wanna be in for an hour. That, and the LP is frontloaded.

yes and that mood is this cold desperate mechanical feeling of being In An Priest Driven Ambulance. this album is just, some bored stoned guys with keyboards and echo pedals.

I took a long break from paying much attention to the Flaming Lips after Yoshimi, and only recently went back to the later albums. Only listened once but Embryonic seemed surprisingly incredible.

Haven't listened to the new one in full. The two singles were okay.

You guys weren't kidding about how bad this is. Just listened to it twice and could barely get through it the second time. It's as thin and forgettable as those last three Mercury Rev albums. This could well be their worst album since the 80s. At War With Mystics was disappointing but at least it had songs like vein Of Stars, My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion and It Over Takes Me. The only bit I really enjoyed on this new one is Sunrise and that's just because it borrows from that Miley Cyrus album they worked on. Seems like they used up all their best songs on that album instead.

I finally got around to reading that Wayne Coyne album rundown. Interesting stuff and I was happy to finally hear someone talk about the Ronald Jones years. I happen to love both of those records (esp Metallic) and was sorry to see him go. Seems like being in the public eye didn't suit him, which is too bad. I think when he showed up it was the first time the band had a real proper guitarist. I still appreciate his snakey guitar work to this day. I wonder what he's doing now?

Wayne mentions trying to reach out to Ronald Jones in this interview http://www.popmatters.com/feature/ronald-jones-john-tesh-and-metallic-clouds-an-interview-with-wayne-coyne/

I kinda like the new one after one listen at least! Don't shoot me, but it at least sounds interesting. Certainly has this pop element throughout that harkens back to Yoshime/Mystics, but as a synth slut, the tones and textures really call to me. Play it on a nice set of headphones. It's wonderfully produced at least

FWIW Embryonic and 7 Skies H3 are the only two records I have listened to from these guys more than a couple times in the past ten years.

yeah i would be lying if i said the new one isn't growing on me each time i listen. this may be one of those albums i have to hear a dozen times before it clicks.

You know, Half Japanese's first album doesn't predate Flaming Lips' first album by that much. New Half Jap is wonderful...

“To me, the great revelation about rap music is that rappers don’t look at it like: ‘We’re a band, and there’s a drummer and a bass part and a guitar part and somebody sings,’” he says. “Rappers are like: ‘There’s a track, I don’t give a fuck how it got there but I’m going to do something cool on top of it.’ We liked the idea that we’d be both sides of it. On this record, we’d go in as the Flaming Lips and make a track, then we’d hand it to the other part of the Flaming Lips to sing on top of it.”

It’s a method they’ll also apply to their next project, another Miley Cyrus album, which they’re planning to fit around her current day job. “She’s going to keep being a judge on The Voice, but I know she wants to make music at the same time,” says Coyne. “I’m thinking of a way we can make a record without her having to sit there for months and months. I think she likes it when it’s like: ‘You guys do some of the work, and then I get to come in and do something really cool.’”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/12/flaming-lips-wayne-coyne-on-miley-cyrus-acid-asap-rocky

started skipping "Sunrise" entirely, that must be the most boring Lips song ever. not surprised to hear it originates from their first Miley album. they are making another with her? they will be stuck in this boring dumbed down pop mode forever

there are some live drums in the last song but that's it. the sameness of everything really huts the record. "Almost Home" is a demo of a song that could be good with some live drums and some energy to it. here it sounds like the band is on auto-pilot. add in repeating themes from one song to the next and it's all a blur w the occasional extra farty synth.

fuck the drum machine on "Almost Home" doing those fake fills. i could be listening to Mega Man 2 and hear more far out shit than this.

How to deal with cops (1996): call up the insects you command and the waterbugs attack the policeman

How to deal with cops (2016): give them so much money that they can retire and live the greatest life they ever lived

I can't get beyond the first two tracks. Seems like Wayne is the weakest link - Is it worth it?

all those references to unicorns, wizards, and castles and shit are really paying off in these reviews. "These guys are crazy and psychedelic - they sing about unicorns!" but in almost all cases it's just that, there's no substance to any of it, it's just another thing in a list of Psychedelic Things. "Day Glo Strippers?" oh wow, crazy! what are they doing? anything? no? i suppose the phrase "There should be Day Glo Strippers" alone is supposed to blow my mind.

once upon a time they could make you cry while singing about fucking folding your laundry.

i know this is really old news for most people reading this thread, but i really, really like The Terror. i've been listening to it non-stop on repeat. like a lot of people, they completely lost me with At War with the Mystics. i loved everything they did up to that point, but the combo of the badness of the music + the increasingly saccharine antics drove me away. anyway, i heard The Terror was good when it came out but just didn't bother with it. big mistake. i suppose i should go back and revisit Embryonic as well at some point.

You Lust is a monster track

There's some great stuff on At War with the Mystics.

Embryonic and The Terror are of a piece, the Lips on a bad trip. They're both excellent.

I've been re-listening to the old stuff and it really holds up. Kind of surprised to find that i like "Transmissions" more than "Clouds" nowadays. One thing that really sticks out on those records is the high end: for instance in "Turn It On" even the kick drum has lots of high end to it. Couple that w Wayne's voice and the swirling, churning guitar noise and you have that classic sound. The new stuff is super muted in comparison, with very little high end and lots of bass.

oh yeah and i re-found this old documentary on the making of "Clouds". love the part with Ronald Jones finding "The Lindsey Buckingham sound"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPbMCUSCoM

Tune out the lyrics or consign them to background colour and the new one is a fun, proggy trip.

Man this new album is such a let down.

If you haven't gone back to truly appreciate 'The Terror', perhaps this will convince you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Stirk2PZfY

oh yeah that's great stuff. "You Lust" is really nice too.

the new one does have a lot of really nice moments. they seem to have gone back to a Soft Bulletin songwriting style, where there is a verse and a chorus and the two are pretty different so there is also an instrumental interlude, a nice little orchestrated bridge from one part to the next. some of these are my favorite parts on the new one, and yeah, very prog.

it's weird though, for all the places it goes, it still sounds too similar. maybe they are using the same sounds too many times? that chimey keyboard pops up on several tracks, sounding just a little bit different on each one, but not enough imo.

Wow, I hadn't seen that Turning Violent video before. Such a great song and I think The Terror is going to have a very long shelf life. I saw the band last week and after a very slow start they redeemed themselves with an entertaining (and very loud) second half of the show. Still too much reliance on bells and whistles though. At the very least, Wayne Coyne knows his audience.

i'm a very casual fan but in any case, the balloon thing is so very tedious

Christ, Oczy Mlody surely is the weakest, most pointless "proper" studio album they've released for decades...

Yeah.

Like, you'd have to go back quite far in their discography, probably before Hit to Death... to find a weaker LP...

as long as you're not including priest driven ambulance in that assessment ;-)

Hate that i've been sand-bagging on this one hoping for goodness - SB and 5.1 Yoshimi will have to do

Yeah it's pretty disappointing.

I fuckin' loved The Terror. Soundtracked my own life full of disaster at the time.

I'll not hear anyone say a bad word about At War With the Mystics knowing that Oczy Mlody exists.

I'll not hear anyone say a bad word about At War With the Mystics knowing that Oczy Mlody exists.

Both LPs represent the band reaching the end of a particular thread of creative inspiration (Zaireeka to Mystics and Embryonic to Oczy Mlody) so if my comparison holds up the Lips will soon be yanking the steering wheel towards somewhere else. :)

I'd be very happy if they started knuckling down and writing some songs again ... I like both Embryonic and The Terror , but I also think that At War With the Mystics was unfairly panned. I can't say I'm embarrassed by anything on it, really.