So where does a band go after releasing the most defiantly experimental record of its career? If you're the Flaming Lips, you keep rushing headlong into the unknown -- The Soft Bulletin, their follow-up to the four-disc gambit Zaireeka, is in many ways their most daring work yet, a plaintively emotional, lushly symphonic pop masterpiece eons removed from the mind-warping noise of their past efforts. Though more conventional in concept and scope than Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin clearly reflects its predecessor's expansive sonic palette. Its multidimensional sound is positively celestial, a shape-shifting pastiche of blissful melodies, heavenly harmonies, and orchestral flourishes; but for all its headphone-friendly innovations, the music is still amazingly accessible, never sacrificing popcraft in the name of radical experimentation. (Its aims are so perversely commercial, in fact, that hit R&B remixer Peter Mokran tinkered with the cuts "Race for the Prize" and "Waitin' for a Superman" in the hopes of earning mainstream radio attention.) But what's most remarkable about The Soft Bulletin is its humanity -- these are Wayne Coyne's most personal and deeply felt songs, as well as the warmest and most giving. No longer hiding behind surreal vignettes about Jesus, zoo animals, and outer space, Coyne pours his heart and soul into each one of these tracks, poignantly exploring love, loss, and the fate of all mankind; highlights like "The Spiderbite Song" and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" are so nakedly emotional and transcendently spiritual that it's impossible not to be moved by their beauty. There's no telling where the Lips will go from here, but it's almost beside the point -- not just the best album of 1999, The Soft Bulletin might be the best record of the entire decade.
Sometimes i felt envy western people. your guys always have cool concerts that i who stay in "Third World" have rarely chance to see! I was stunning by The Lips's crazy light shows in Virgin Festival 06. Balloons and confetti, great songs, and Wayne waxing political. Oh! The space ship they made, if you were wondering, is the sweetest light contraption I've ever seen. Bonnaroo 2007 - The Flami...
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man i dont even have a clue which records came out in 2006. i dont think i have enough motivation/determination to keep up with that stuff..if i like it then i like it. its not like ill be listening to that cd only this year and then when next year comes around im like "oh well i like it, but its from 2006..gotta move on"...cherish the memories..seems like the more lists we make the more music ...
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I don't have have anything to say that isn't already known. One of my **Top 5** albums. A great CD to listen to while you lay in bed and stare into the darkness.
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I have stacks and stacks of old ??Rolling Stone?? issues laying around. The magazine used to be my favorite source for new music. When my subscription ran out back in December '05, I couldn't bring myself to re-subscribe for some reason. Maybe because I realized it was simply MTV in print, but mostly because the music review section lost all of it's balls. As I read through my old issues lookin...
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I figure Sundays are about getting ready for the boring Monday. I was listening to the Flaming Lips and started thinking about this picture took in New York. But it just happens to be Spider man instead of Superman...Dizzily.
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All seems to go smoothly for a while, but I guess life is not stagnant - stasis means torpor - so change is in the air. After a stable period in my business, everything suddenly seems to have shifted. I've got staff having yelling matches with each other out the back, petty gossip, and on a more serious scale, another staff member with paranoid tendencies and borderline psychosis brought on by ...
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Sometimes i felt envy western people. your guys always have cool concerts that i who stay in "Third World" have rarely chance to see! I was stunning by The Lips's crazy light shows in Virgin Festival 06. Balloons and confetti, great songs, and Wayne waxing political. Oh! The space ship they made, if you were wondering, is the sweetest light contraption I've ever seen. Bonnaroo 2007 - The Flami...
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In this time I'd serious relationship to industrial, glam-grunge rock(?), death metal, and jam bands like Nine Inch Nails (Year Zero was released), Janes Addiction (thanks to my friend B.), Death, Decapitated (various friends like O.), and The Grateful Dead - actually, with the the dead I've been listening to them for years now but my brother re-enlivened my dead spirit and now I have quite a c...
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man i dont even have a clue which records came out in 2006. i dont think i have enough motivation/determination to keep up with that stuff..if i like it then i like it. its not like ill be listening to that cd only this year and then when next year comes around im like "oh well i like it, but its from 2006..gotta move on"...cherish the memories..seems like the more lists we make the more music ...
More >
Wooo. I threw up in the street it was lovely. and i passed out for a bit now the hung over part.
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 "The Soft Bulletin")
