Inevitable Flaming Lips Backlash Thread

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It's getting fashionable to bash the Flaming Lips on ILM. I predict the backlash will hit full steam upon publication of Pazz & Jop.

Does anybody disagree?

― J (Jay), Monday, 6 January 2003 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)

It's always been fashionable to bash the Flaming Lips on ILM.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I never understand why anyone bashes Flaming Lips. Guess those who nearly alwaysliked them when they were flavour of the month, and now instigated the backlash themselves.
Still if someone wants to bring themselves down to the level of an NME hack then let them.

― Baron Smedley (Tim) (BaronSmedley), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

My guess is that people bash them for the usual reason anything gets bashed - they read the praise, bought a record and resent wasting their time and money on it.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Tom is correct. They were mentioned on the Obsessive Fans faves VS music fans' faves thread also. I think their hardcore fans might be a bit nonplussed that the group are suddenly reaping kudos for recs they see as being inferior to "In a Priest Driven Ambulance" or "Clouds Taste Metallic". I like old and new Flips, but I will not join in the backlash, as I think the last 2 recs are their best, and deserve the hype.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

bashing flaming lips=most obv euphemism 2003.

― michael wells (michael w.), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Thankyou Michael Perry.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Type flaming lips and either julio or melissa into the ILM search to see one of the all-time grebt ILM fites!

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

i couldnt be bothered with the new one, but soft bulletin was really drab and lifeless. i probably backlashed pretty much when that appeared (although i didnt really care for clouds taste metallic that much, it had its moments but...)

to be honest i preferred them when they were a spangly pop group (hit to death, transmissions), they are too drab and serious now (see mercury rev also)

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Gareth = OTM

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i got yoshimi and quite liked it but never feel compelled to go back to it. the best bit is the instrumental bit at the end of 'it's summertime' which is quite brief.

― michael wells (michael w.), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

''Type flaming lips and either julio or melissa into the ILM search to see one of the all-time grebt ILM fites!''

yeah, entertain yourselves at our expense dammit!

''but soft bulletin was really drab and lifeless''

wrong. its their best rec.

''be honest i preferred them when they were a spangly pop group (hit to death, transmissions), they are too drab and serious now''

wrong again. radiohead seem to take themselves far too seriously. FL seem to enjoying the ride.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 6 January 2003 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Julio is right. A cleaner, lusher production, but definitely not more drab and serious on the last two records. Listen to "The Gash", for instance. Incredibly silly and overdone, but they pull it off. I still like some old Lips, mind.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Queen did it lots better I fear.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:23 (twenty-two years ago)

You wouldn't call Queen drab either, though.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

"wrong. [Soft Bulletin]'s their best rec"

Julio's right again, of course.

Are you going to see them on the forthcoming tour Julio? We're off down to Bristol on the 18th and I can't wait!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I still can't help but get that Emperor's New Clothes sensation whenever I listen to Yoshimi though.

Live last summer though, they were FUCKING OUTSTANDING.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

But where's the energy in Yoshimi & the Soft Bulletin? I interviewed the Lips for Yoshimi, and I asked Stephen Drozd about the radical shift of the band after Clouds, and he essentially admitted that this is a different band now. That after Ronald Jones left no one could really play guitar the way he could, so they had no choice but to shift directions. Fair enough. I just find the band they've become since Clouds (which was a major flop, which I imagine might have caused the shift as well) a dull, stuffy one that contains none of the vitality of their earlier work.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

A different and BETTER band! And the Flips live show is unmissable. It's anything but drab.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

''Are you going to see them on the forthcoming tour Julio? We're off down to Bristol on the 18th and I can't wait!''

if they come down to london, then I will try to make it of course. have a good time at bristol stewart.

''I just find the band they've become since Clouds (which was a major flop, which I imagine might have caused the shift as well) a dull, stuffy one that contains none of the vitality of their earlier work.''

some of it is v v good but after jones left they became crazy studio scientists. One of the few bands to actually use the studio for more than the micrtophones and the 'ambience'.

''Queen did it lots better I fear.''

tom I love you so don't make me hate you.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I shall be at the Brizzol gig replete with lady and a handful of crazy Lips obsessed mates. After the last one I'm looking forward to it so much.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

flaming lips classic or dud?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"If they come down to london, then I will try to make it of course"

They're at The Forum on the 21st and 22nd Julio!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:39 (twenty-two years ago)

thanks stewart.

no thanks to sterling for that link.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 6 January 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a Radiohead fan and I like the Flaming Lips. Does this mean there's something I'm not 'getting' about The Soft Bulletin despite really liking it?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 6 January 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I'm the oldest FLips' backlasher. They played the East Coast a bunch circa the early Restless era, and I saw them about half a dozen times. The one I remember most vividly was when Beat Happening opened for them and effortlessly blew them the fuck off the stage (though I was the only one of my little group to think so). At the time, I found them too in love with their own supposed genius. Seeing them open for Beck in November confirmed that, 14 years later, the same problem exists on a larger scale. They clearly believed they were offering up a rock & roll spectacle, but I remained unmoved.

― mike a (mike a), Monday, 6 January 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

kilian- you emailed abt this thread and I emailed you back. hope you got it.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 6 January 2003 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

yes i did, cheers julio.

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 00:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a dream the other night that I went to see Beck and Flaming Lips play live in this big theater. Beck was finishing up as we came in, he was boring. Then the Flaming Lips came on, but they weren't the Flaming Lips, they were these four guys that were younger and looked generic. They were playing the album over the PA and projecting footage of them playing on a screen behind them, and then sometimes the band would start to play for real over the prerecorded music and then stop abruptly. Then the lights went out, and when they came back on, the band was only wearing underwear and glittery makeup. They played an acoustic song. But then they suddenly stopped and ran offstage. An announcement came over the PA that the Flaming Lips wanted members of the audience to come onstage and play a song. So I went up and grabbed a guitar and started to set up. One of the other audience members who came up asked what we were going to play, so I said "Let's just play an improv noise jam." So we did and it was really awesome and sounded like we knew what we were doing. I was lying on the floor playing guitar noise, and we were so crazy that a food fight started. I was wearing my glasses in my dream and I got some kind of creamy sauce on my glasses. That's the end.

There are some obvious parallels to real Beck/Flaming Lips shows, even though I've never seen either, probably prompted by descriptions I've read of shows. This is mixed with some odd homoerotic tinges, but it was a fun dream.

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

After reading an avalanche of press I bought "The Soft Bulletin" a few months ago and found it to be pleasant but overall very disappointing. It's few melodic ideas were overlaid with the same gee-whiz production gimmicks over and over again. And it reminds me of the kind of record hifi geeks use to show off their stereos, like "Dark Side of the Moon". I think it's ok, but honestly (as in I'm not saying this to raise a ruckus) don't see what the big deal is about them.

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

And now back to the mean portion of my post: which band is uglier, Flaming Lips or Phish?

― Sean (Sean), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

who sounds more like Supertramp - Mercury Rev or Flaming Lips?

which sounds more like Styx?

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I think their hardcore fans might be a bit nonplussed that the group are suddenly reaping kudos for recs they see as being inferior to "In a Priest Driven Ambulance" or "Clouds Taste Metallic". I like old and new Flips, but I will not join in the backlash, as I think the last 2 recs are their best, and deserve the hype.

I got into them right after Clouds came out, so I was already big in the back catalog when Zaireeka was released. I still think that it's one of the 5 greatest records of the 90s and they'll never be able to come close to topping it, but the last two albums have been good attempts.

I'm glad they have all the acclaim and (presumably) bigger sales now but I definitely see a decline in quality. Half of the record are amazing and the other half are either retreads of older ideas (orchestral metaphysical pop) or very dull instrumentals.

― Adam Bruneau, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:27 (twenty-two years ago)

first Lips song i heard was 'Waitin For A Superman' - didnt like it

then heard 'Race For The Prize' and loved it

then heard 'Do You Realise' and loved that too

thats my experience with Flaming Lips to date! shocking eh? as a relative newcomer to them and the Rev its weird to see them getting praise seemingly everywhere but this forum...and i havent worked out yet why if the latest stuff is no good, then is it cos the people who don't like it just don't like their style or is it cos they think there are much better examples of that style? e,g, what's better than 'do you realise' lately for what that kind of song is and does?

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

The great thing about the Flaming Lips' "Soft Bulletin" is their forced sense of slackjawed wonder: keen eyes, held open with matchstick stocks, pupils shaped like cartoon cigars, and bubblespeach 'woooooooahhhhs...' Also that 'booooooooooooom' electronic bass-drum that's like that UK Garage drawldrum but stretched out and fleshed out, flatted, and widened. Totally forced, like fake blood and fighting nun-puppets: forced incongruity: it's nuns! They're fighting!! It's like suddenly realising that your childhood in front of the Super Nintendo is as great, viable, fruitful, whatever a place to start yr journey from ie it isn't to be reacted against ie it doesn't go into you but round you ie blipblapblopblap "Mario, it's karikiki village, what shall we do" *bleepbleep low... health... bleeeeep* All your childhood is here: it's finally realising that nostalgia is a kind of judgement and that it reveals and that... ghknhkljsjolkej *game over*

― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I like Clouds Taste Metallic.

Yoshimi I got fed up with quite quickly, and I think my copy is scratched so I can't listen to it without it jumping anyway.

And those are the only Flaming Lips albums I have, Lotion are better.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Who are Lotion, jel? Olivia Tremor Control are better if we're assuming that that's a fair comparison: I mean sonically they both have that swirly haze bubbbbbbbbbbbbbble pound mishmash whhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeee down pat but I think in sense of direction or where they're coming from, not going to, different places are involved.

Flaming Lips are more overtly twee: yeah, it is manifest in the way that it sounds like the ice melting in computer game Ice levels but it's also there in the 'look! hey! leeeesten!' [(c) Zelda: Ocarina of Time]-isms of the lyrics, ants carrying 5 times their bodyweight, oh it's a human eye they're carrying, oh whatever.

Where, the sense of pheeeeeeeeeeewoooo I get from OTC comes only from the sounds not the packaging or the lyrics or whatever. They're one side of Brian Wilson's brain, FL are both sides (without the other side). Or Van Dyke Parks = OTC.

― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/x.dll?UID=5:45:27|PM&p=amg&sql=B40114

I'm listening to them now, and they are probably my fave rock band of the 90's.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

(lotion that is)

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Jel and Sterling in Lotion mindmeld shocker. I gotta say, I still don't see how Lotion inspire such devotion -- I understand fandom, but rabid fandom over Lotion always bemuses me.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 02:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Soft Bulletin was a tender-hearted Goliath slightly deluded about his grace and grandeur
Yoshimi's a half-awake one-winged behemoth high on ephedrine

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Jel is Thomas Pynchon!

― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 05:26 (twenty-two years ago)

It was fun for a while but the fight between the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev to try and out-McCartney the other is getting a little tiresome. As for great symphonic records, "Sea Change" kinda trumped both of these guys, IMHO.. and did it will some reservation and simplicity.

But then again, my introduction to the Lips was "Drug Machine in Heaven" -- from Telepathic Surgery -- and that 23 minute "Hell's Angels Cracker Factory", which was this amazing droney Amon Duul II meets Led Zeppelin jam session. So, it's still boggling how they arrived where they're at right now.

Similarly, my intro to the Rev was "Yerself is Steam" and "BOCES".. so I'm analogously puzzled with them.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 06:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Lotion have nothing in common with the flaming lips as their overproduction came in the service of glorious powerpop.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 06:49 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

Achy Breaky Heart sounds like a flaming lips song

― -- (688), Tuesday, 7 November 2006 11:56 (eighteen years ago)

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