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THE FLAMING LIPS The Soft Bulletin (1999)  Rating (Out of 10): 8 Tracklisting: Race For The Prize/A Spoonful Weighs A Ton/The Spark That Bled/Slow Motion/What Is The Light/The Observer/Waitin' For A Superman/Suddenly Everything Has Changed/The Gash/Feeling Yourself Disintegrate/Sleeping On The Roof/Race For The Prize/Waiting For A Superman/Buggin' 'The Soft Bulletin' was the album that made The Flaming Lips famous in the UK. Before this, they remained strangers to our shores despite having been famous in the states since the mid 80's and having already released 9 albums. For a long time I had heard the name The Flaming Lips, but didn't know asingle thing about them. I had percieved them as being a hard punk act, with songs filled with inaccessible noise and screamed vocals, so you can imagine my surprise at hearing this album for the first time. Instead of noise and screaming, I heard lusicous strings combined with keyboards, experimental electronics, and strange yet touching vocals. The first thing that struck me about 'The Soft Bulletin' is the poetic and introspective song titles - 'Feeling Yourself Disintegrate' 'The Spark That Bled', Suddenly Everything Has changed'. They're the sort of song titles loaded with intrigue and promise, that make you want to rush home and listen to the songs straight away. Wayne Coyne is quite an unlikely superstar and frontman. With grey hair and a beard and a nasely voice, he's a unlikely sex symbol, but a sex symbol he most definitely is! His vocals are incredibly distinct and are the main thing that sets The Flaming Lips aside from their contemporaries. Slightly high pitched and weird sounding, it gives the tracks that little bit of something extra, something exraordinary. 'Race For The Prize' is a great song to open the album with. It lets you know at the very beginning that the Flaming Lips don't write songs about the usual sorts of things – 'Two scientists are racing for the good of all mankind/both of them side by side, so determined.' Only The Flaming Lips could write lyrics like that and make it sound cool! The second track 'A Spoonful Weighs A Ton' is very heavily orchestrated, and lets The Lips show off yet another dimension. 'Slow Motion' sees Coyne put in some high pitched, slightly strained vocals against some very noisy accompianment, and it works very well. 'What is the light?' is a strong, deliberate track with good harmonies and great lyrics and is one of the album's definite high points. Another great track is ' Waitin' for a Superman', which is one of the more straightforward tracks on the album. There's just something simple, catchy and wonderful about it. The brilliantly titled 'Feeling Yourself Distintigrate' begins with some really weird vocal noises which continue throughout the song as a sort of strange harmony that adds depth and atmosphere. The entire song is very strange indeed, written in a odd time pattern, which makes in sound a bit strange. The same can be said of most of the songs on 'The Soft Bulletin', and propbably most of the songs on every Flaming Lips album – they write songs that sound strange and different, yet somehow manage to work and sound great! For reasons that only the record company will know, The Flaming Lips have decided to put two different versions of 'Race For The Prize' and 'Waiting For A Superman' on the album. They're definitely two of the best tracks on here, but to put them on twice in unnecessary and gives the album a sort of 'best of' quality which dillutes the strength of the album. It's hard to classify The Flaming Lips into one particular genre. They're not a rock band or a punk band or indie or techno or electronic, but in fact all of these put together and more. They're a very highly experienmental band that combines many different styles and genres to create something very unique and innovative, and 'The Soft Bulletin' is definitely an excellent example of this. Send A Comment Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots(2002)  Rating (Out of 10): 8.5 Fight Test/One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21/Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots pt 1/Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots pt 2/In The Morning Of The Magicians/Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell/Are You A Hypnotist??/It's Summertime/Do You Realize??/All We Have Is Now/Approaching Pavonic Moons By Ballon The Flaming Lips follow up to 'The Soft Bulletin' is the oddly titled 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots'. I've never been someone very keen on concept albums, and a concept album about a Japanese girl fighting an army of pink robots from outer space, sounded bizarre in the extreme. And bizarre it is, but somehow it manages to work. The Flaming Lips have never been a band to court conventionality and 'Yoshimi…' is something that fits them down to the ground. But don't be put off by the title and the concept. Yes, all the songs may be loosely based around this idea, but that is not to make it a bad album. Take the concept away and you're still left with a collection of brilliant songs all with the Lips characteristic humour, vocals and musical style. The first track on the album, 'Test Fight' caused some controversy by sounding very like Cat Steven's 'Father and Son', and this is true to the point that when I first heard it I thought it was a cover of that classic track. But that aside, 'Fight Test' is a great song and provides the album with a strong opening.. 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1) ' is a great song with slightly humorous lyrics. 'Her name was Yoshimi, she's got a black belt in karate'. Not very rock n roll, is it? Yet somehow it still manages to be a really great song with a particularly infectious quality to it. 'Do You Realize??' is a gorgeous track that contains some of the most beautiful lyrics ever written. ' Do you realize that everyone you know one day will die/And instead of saying all of your goodbyes/Won't you realize that life goes fast, it's hard to make the good times last/Realize the sun doesn’t go down/It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.' ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots’ is a very beautiful album and is definitely a high point in the career of The Flaming Lips. With this album The Lips have managed the impossible – they have made a concept album that also manages to be accessible and simply stunning in every way. May there be many more albums like this to come. Send A Comment BACK TO INDEX BACK TO MUSIC REVIEWS INDEX |
