[rating=8.00]
The Flaming Lips are justifiably famous for any number of reasons — their eclectic aural imagery, leader Wayne Coyne’s floating bubble that carries him over the crowds during their concerts, their oblique lyrics and oddly inspired references, a host of critical kudos and five Grammy nods to boot. And yet, ask any outsider for a ready description of Flaming Lips’ music and they’re likely to come up empty handed, such is the unlikely and indefinable element that’s always shaped their sound. Much like early Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and Robyn Hitchcock, putting them into any kind of neat category is all but impossible and highly impractical to boot.
In recent years, the band has made a tentative move towards greater accessibility, due no doubt to their affiliation with a major record label and greater mainstream awareness, but their psychedelic sound still prevails, making them as unpredictable as any outfit that’s on the wider radar. Consequently, the novice might find it well worthwhile going back to the beginning and discovering Clouds Taste Metallic, an early opus issued after their signing with Warner Bros., and the various and sundry sides and songs that accompany this expanded three disc reissue.
Included are two early EPs, the long-winded Due to High Expectations The Flaming Lips Are Providing Needles for Your Balloons and The King Bug Laughs, a collection of oddball covers sung with slack indifference (Frank Sinatra’s “It Was A Very Good Year” and Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” among them). Like the rest of the disc, they’re fairly dispensable — their ramshackle take on “Little Drummer Boy” and Coyne’s incessant stage patter prove the point — but as a collection of curios and cast-offs, it’s worth at least a perfunctory hearing. Disc three, on the other hand, grotesquely titled Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus with Needles, offers an intriguing insight into the band’s concert capabilities circa the mid ‘90s.
Nevertheless, newcomers ought to pay special heed to the original Clouds Taste Metallic itself to get the fuller assessment of Flaming Lips’ seminal sound. For the most part, it’s surprisingly accessible, and while titles like “Placebo Headwound,” “Lightening Strikes the Postman” and “Guy Who Got a Headache and Accidentally Saves the World” tend to be obtuse and more than mildly provocative, there are enough soft spoken melodies in this set of songs to counter the cosmic cacophony that proves their primarily stock in trade. Although there’s little chance it would ever win them radio play, even on stations open to more freeform programming, more astute listeners could conceivably find a clear connection.
