Which artists legacies have improved/worsened during the 2010s?

I really hope freak folk/new weird america has a revival, it was so great I thought

I enjoyed a lot of the flaming lips stuff up to a point but I have the same reaction now as UMS, I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking. I hear Yoshimi and Soft Bulletin now and they sound like garbage. I still enjoy a couple tracks from HTDITFH but that’s all strictly based on memory, haven’t listened to it in years. It’s all independent from Wayne Coyne.

Their best stuff is pre-Soft Bulletin. Never understood why ppl freaked over that record.

fuck The Soft Bulletin, 1999 was the year of Musick to Play in the Dark, The West, Eureka, Goodby 20th Century

•Goodbye

No idea what any of those albums are lol

part of the lips thing as Omar said is those records *sound* terrible, so harsh and shitty

Dave Fridmann should be jailed

[redacted long diatribe against The Flaming Lips]

Jack White on the other hand I've 100% come around on and think he's super-great and I understand why people were losing their shit about him at a time when I didn't really know or care

Mercury Rev's popularity always surprised me and I don't think I've ever been able to enjoy any of their albums. In 2003 I had to agree with the other server that she wouldn't ever put on Deserter's Songs and I wouldn't ever put on Solex.

I liked Deserter's Songs, but not much else by them. Flaming Lips, I liked several of their albums, up through Yoshimi. Haven't heard the last few, but The Terror and Embryonic were pretty good, iirc. I haven't listened to them in years, tbf, but I want to say they were darker and weirder and less Muppet Music and more Krautrocky?

'Embryonic' and 'The Terror' were excellent, and I'd long since written them off as bunny-suited dayglo cartoons. Those albums had an edge, clarity and vision. I haven't followed closely since but it seems like they've reverted to Yoshimi silliness?

The Wayne stuff mentioned upthread turned me off of them along with their stupid take on Dark Side of the Moon.

Oh damn I must admit I loved Embryonic and also that really long one-track thing they did, I always forget I saw the flame on that lip that one time

Embryonic is definitely very good, will rep for The Terror too

'Embryonic' and 'The Terror' were excellent, and I'd long since written them off as bunny-suited dayglo cartoons. Those albums had an edge, clarity and vision. I haven't followed closely since but it seems like they've reverted to Yoshimi silliness?

― Soundslike

I'd mostly agree with this although I've barely gone back to The Terror since it came out. Their 2017 album, Oczy Mlody definitely calls back to the silliness of their commercial peak, but was so lightweight and forgettable. I think they used up their best songs on the Miley Cyrus album from a couple of years before that.

The Flaming Lips are one of the best examples on this whole thread. They won a lot of people back round with Embryonic but that now seems like one last hurrah just before the new decade began and people really moved on. The Heady Fwends and Beatles tributes were just more gimmicky nonsense and they just released an album for RSD that I've seen barely any discussion about anywhere. I still love just about everything from Hit To Death to Embryonic (even most of At War With The Mystics). 2009 would have been the perfect place to stop.

Mercury Rev were great for the first five albums. Since then they've had a massive drop off in quality. I felt embarrassed for them when they came back with The Light In You after such a long gap.

As long as we’re surveying this particular corner of the music world: I think (Embryonic featured players) MGMT’s lengthy fallow period popularly, & for a slightly shorter duration critically, might’ve actually helped them ride out the great Indie Hype Band’s From 2009 culling, since there was always that residual goodwill and desire to see them live up to the promise of their early singles. So when their record last year had a bunch of strong pop songs that rewarded both the true believers who stuck it out as well as more casual people just peeking their heads back in on the continuing MGMT story, it seemed like there was a genuine resurgence of positive attention, increased sales+streams, video essays about their career arc etc. that, if they’re inclined to, they could parlay into a more enduring spot in the public eye (if not necessarily the bonanza with rap features etc. of their breakout). At the very least they probably deserve one of the numerous slots on alt radio playlists currently occupied by a band who lifted their entire bag of tricks from “Kids” or “Electric Feel”.

“Congratulations” is severely underrated and this band will be cited as geniuses despite the “Electric Kids” whatever thing that was whatever

I think it’s great that the Flaming Lips can vacillate between big serious art-rock projects like Embryonic/The Terror and just goofy RSD shit. They basically just like making stuff, sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn’t. More power to em

To that point I think their legacy plateaued in 2006, once they stopped being part of THE CONVERSATION, and has been basically steady for the last 13 or so years, through good projects and bad

Well I think they made a bunch of crap records that were unjustifiably rated highly and were a bunch of dicks while at it but that’s just me, there are few bands I will extravagantly leave the coffee shop when they come on but Flaming Lips are that only band

the lips dudes voice is just so so bad

That band’s success predicted Trump’s populist victory but what do I know

It’s wild to think this band was playing punk shows in 83

http://stevenblush.com/prod/DC/images/NTFlamingLips.jpg

I won a contest guessing the two most played albums of 1984 on KUSF and the first Flaming Lips EP on colored vinyl was one of the prizes. I really loved them back then

xp think I'm right in saying that they covered DSOTM in full at this very show, so whatever ppl think of their various stunt projects they're not a recent development per se

Down - hypnagogic pop

Didn't think Flaming Lips would be that polarizing.

Honestly I can't imagine coming to the Flaming Lips for the first time in 2019 and not just cringing at their whole aesthetic. Especially for anyone under 20 those albums would just reek of how lame previous generations could be.

some of the worst nauseatingly twee hippy shit I've ever heard, and the NME used to cream themselves over them.

Honestly I can't imagine coming to the Flaming Lips for the first time in 2019 and not just cringing at their whole aesthetic

noisy power-pop-era circa transmissions from the satellite heart holds up regardless of their weird baggage imo

i also revisited the soft bulletin the other week and it was the most important album in the world to me in high school so i guess i'm doomed to love it forever. i get other people finding it radioactive though

clouds taste metallic is the one that holds up best

mercury rev were two bands. the first one lasted two albums and was one of the best of its time, the other was mediocre at best and a pile of garbage at worst, and has existed ever since

the soft bulletin isn't too bad though - it's considerably better than deserter's songs for a start

clouds taste metallic is the one that holds up best

yes but "superhumans" is their best song

one of the strengths of both Embryonic and The Terror is that Wayne is probably the least obnoxiously goofy he's ever been on those

The Soft Bulletin is alright but has never really lived up to its gigantic reputation to me. skimming through it now there's some good moments and it's a little better than i remember but i still hate "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" and "Waitin for a Superman"

I remember saying about the Soft Bulletin at the time “finally we have our own Pet Sounds” which was a very 1999 way of thinking. I still like it a lot, especially the second half’s pop meditations on death. I couldn’t get into Yoshimi though.

The Soft Bulletin was the beginning of the end for me. Then Yoshimi finished them off, I have listened to some of the stuff after that but just not really interested

some of the worst nauseatingly twee hippy shit I've ever heard

― calzino, Sunday, July 14, 2019 12:45 PM

I get people not being that fond of his vocals but he's not even within miles of worst tweeness of the era.

Both Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips are the perennial “oh well you obviously haven’t listened to [insert album here]” bands. Yes I have heard everything, Yerself Is Steam in particular I’ve made many attempts, I chalk up their popularity to there being no other good bands in Buffalo or OKC respectively, and people enjoying music that sounds like the way farts smell, or something else, but they are two completely unjustifiably popular 90s acts that I’m extremely happy to never speak of or listen to again and my day is already ruined by thinking of somebody telling me “oh well you obviously haven’t heard Boces”

mercury rev were two bands. the first one lasted two albums and was one of the best of its time, the other was mediocre at best and a pile of garbage at worst, and has existed ever since

The feeling of listening to “Race For The Prize” or “Carwash Hair” is doubly unpleasant because the music in bad to listen to, and you feel gaslit that these are considered to be masterpieces of the era. I would rather come down with a cold tbh

I’ve never been able to work up any enthusiasm for the Lips, and they’re not interesting enough for me to hate. I thought Soft Bulletin was a not-unpleasant experience, sort of like seeing that the bread you like at the grocery store is two-for-one this week. The earlier stuff doesn’t even rise to that level; it sounds like people getting together and thinking, “hey, it would be cool if we were a band,” and not putting in any further effort than that.

I was not really aware of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips until the late 90s and even then not *that* aware, but a housemate in 2003/2004 was really into them, so I heard the entire catalogue at that point.

Mercury Rev have two or three good tracks per LP up until 2000s.

I like Clouds Taste Metallic, other FL albums are of less interest, cannot listen to Yoshimi with the exception of In The Morning Of The Magicians, which is great at least in the bits where he isn't singing.

Man, the Lips did make this one really amazing 45 minute long song that I listened to a lot and I can’t find any evidence of it because it seems they made far too much music in 2011 but Satomi sang on it iirc. Anyway.

I am surprised but not unhappy about the fact that despite so many Canadian indie bands’s caché kind of going poof in the past ten years, that Broken Social Scene continue to be very popular and loved and that is very fine with me

Has the critical/popular world finally realized that Mogwai/Godspeed You Black Emperor/Sigur Ros/et al was total crap?

Also--The Strokes are not "canonical" at this point, right?

fgti you might be thinking of the short version of 7 Skies H3, their 24 hour song. the short version is 50 minutes

Also--The Strokes are not "canonical" at this point, right?

They are for whatever SiriusXMU station made that list that we keep polling.

xp
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sigur-ros-agaetis-byrjun/

This thread has made me think of some of the bands that people were really into when I was in college circa 2003-2008, and among the sounds I can say has gone down *significantly* in terms of cultural cache is Deerhoof. Do people still listen to Deerhoof? They still make albums!

I think the trend that's made me saddest is similar to the one expressed about Six Organs of Admittance, etc. There was a moment in the mid-2000's where groups like No-Neck Blues Band and Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice were getting a lot of love, and while I'd argue that Excepter influenced a generation of weirdos and that shit still slaps, there doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the former aleatoric/free/noise type thing despite the reassessment of the Dead and "jam" type shit that's happened in recent years. I can't stand the Dead or Phish or any of that, but still listen to some No-Neck sets and tapes etc. Perhaps it's because the fanbase was more firmly grounded in more occult and noise type scenes rather than the hippie festival circuit shit.