The Flaming Lips Album: “The Soft Bulletin”

The Flaming Lips built their reputation on eclectic punk-rock and surrealistic lyrics. However, over the past few years, their music has continued to evolve and improve, both sonically and lyrically, resulting in two of the best albums of the past 10 years, "The Soft Bulletin" and, more recently, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

Sonically, the band has lost none of its wonderful intensity. However, the rough edges have been smoothed, and Wayne Coyne & Co. have continued to experiment with new sounds and textures. The result is simultaneously more innovative and more accessible than their earlier recordings. "The Soft Bulletin" is power-pop meets progressive rock meets trip-hop and space rock.

Lyrically, the Lips have evolved from Dali-like weirdness to songs that movingly reflect the tension between humanity (and concepts like love, hope, courage) and the depression and alienation of post-modern society. Their philosophical searching is reflected in song titles like "Suddenly Everything Has Changed," "Waitin' for a Superman," and "What Is the Light?", and in these lines from "The Gash":

I feel like the real reason that you're quitting is that you're admitting that you've lost all the will to battle on

Will the fight for our sanity be the fight of our lives now that we've lost all the reasons that we thought that we had

Still the battle that we're in rages on 'til the end.

With this record, the Flaming Lips have created a true work of art. This is the band that everyone should be talking about - it is not hyperbole to call "The Soft Bulletin" today's "Sgt. Pepper." Unfortunately, outside of the music press and some dedicated fans, no one else seems to care.

Do yourself a favor - give this one a spin.

This album changed my life. It made the Flaming Lips not only my favorite band but also an inspirational guide. The songwriting on this record is perfect. 1. Race for the Prize- Gets things in motion. You realize that this uplifting gem has more to it than you first expect. Awesome lyrics. 2. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton- Awesome lyrics again. This song has a killer breakdown which makes you feel Brazillian. 3. The Spark That Bled- It gets even better. I stood up and I said "Yeah" 4. The Spiderbite Song- This song perfectly describes friendship, and how when you think that tragedy will strike, your friends are still there. 5. Buggin- Totally fun. The production on this is top notch. 6. What is the Light?- Production Production production. Vocals of Greatness. This song makes you feel like you can actually see auras around people. Boy, did that sentence just make me sound weird. 7. The Observer- This song is an instrumental. It just takes you further on the crazy canoe that is the "soft bulletin". Guitar is dope on this. 8. Waiting for Superman- This is a sad song, but like "Hey Jude" is a sad song. Bass shines on this. Piano is great. Wayne almost makes you tear up on this one. 9. Suddenly Everything Has Changed- This has to do with the shock of life irrevocably changing. It is a great tune. 10. The Gash- I don't want to describe The Gash because it is so ill that you should just go into it blindfolded. Genius. 11. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate- The album builds perfectly up to this song. Wayne talks about life, death and its value. Not for the beach but anyone in the world at any point in life can appreciate the beauty in this song. 12. Sleepin on the Roof- This song has a sprinkler-like sound in it. You actually feel like you just watched the OU game on television and decided to rest outside. Listening to this song makes you think about all that Wayne, Steve, and Michael have shared with you on the album. 13 and 14- Remixes to Race for the Prize and Waitin for Superman. They are the same chords, but the moods are different. When it ends, you feel forever enlightened.

This band changed my life.

A triumph of sheer sonic perfection, "The Soft Bulletin" picks up where "Pet Sounds" and "Dark Side of the Moon" left off so many years ago. Awash in a beautiful airy effects-laden atmosphere, the entire album is gloriously cohesive in an "Abbey Road" sort of way. While each song is strong enough to stand on its own, the sheer genius of "The Soft Bulletin" becomes obvious when the disc is played through in its entirety. Sonically, the album is literally miles ahead of almost everything else being created in the modern rock/pop world. Let's just say that the average MTV band isn't concerned with creating the intricate soundscapes that Wayne Coyne and company paint so beautifully here. Listen with headphones to fully appreciate the pocket symphonies which lift songs like "The Gash" and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" into rarified air. The array of instruments which color each song is simply mind-boggling. Ditto the innovative chord changes and song structures. In hands of lesser talents the "Soft Bulletin", with its kitchen-sink production, may have fallen into overkill territory. However, the arrangements manage to stay affloat and even achieve a light subtlety thanks to shifting dynamics and clever rhythmic structures.

"The Soft Bulletin" is that rare album which is made for the sake of great art, not commerce. How refeshing that a modern band actually cares about being great rather than just appealing to the lowest common demnominator fanbase. The results really show as the overused term "masterpiece" certainly applies when describing what just might be the best American album of the 1990s.

Let me first confess that this is the first album of Flaming Lips that I have heard, and as many listeners have said, it is kind of hard to dig in it at a first listen; I am one of those who thought at the first listening that he/she was hearing a piece of "idiotic" and "directionless" music. I only remember two other albums that caused me such a strong impression in their own field of music experimentation: Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine, and Lateralus, by Tool. Those albums had the virtue of turning me, after several attentive listenings, in a follower of each group. So has it happened with Soft Bulletin, by The Flaming Lips. The album really sounds strange, weird, and that is because it is a melting pot of different styles of music both in form as in function. The Soft Bulletin is a treasure containing original treatments of country-folk, blues, godspell, surf rock, symphonic rock, choral music, psychodelia, and possibly other types of music that I have not yet been able to identify. At the same time, the songs are highly melodic, harmonically dense, catchy and even very danceable at times, turning them into a part of a pop flavoured ouvre that can appeal to listeners not used to the complexities (and pretentions, some would argue) of some art prog rock music. And finally, the texture of the sound and the atmosphere of the music make you imagine sometimes a film of some sort, or imagine distant and strange environments. Sometimes the music suggest relaxation, sometimes induces to dance. I hope that someone in the near future will lay out the comparisons between the Soft Bulletin and Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by the Beatles, Smile, by Brian Wilson, and Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd, among other historical albums. I cite those albums in order to give the readers the parameters within which The Soft Bulletin should be considered: art pop music, because this is what those albums are about: the fusion between artistry, musicianship, and pop sensibility. A word should be said about Coyne's lyrics and voice in this album. I think that voice and lyrics make the perfect match, because Coyne sings with a very ironic style, like someone who is saying something serious in a not so serious way, which is the trait that befuddle listeners that in the first try consider the music "idiotic". And the lyrics themselves are ironic, revealing the frailty and at the same time marvel of the human condition, as a product of the struggle between the ilusion of power given by knowledge, science or politics, and the reality of our finitude, our limitations and contingent existence. So it is that the best and competitive scientist is in the end a human, with children and wife or husband, and the unexpected bite of a spider in the band guitarrist's hand can destroy the author (Coyne) and the band, and so it is that we cannot wait for a Superman to save us if we do not decide to save ourselves together!!! Folks, some of these lyrics bring tears to my eyes. From now on I will search for the music of these guys! So, what can I add? Listen The Soft Bulleting, and if you do not get it at a first try, give it several chances, you will not repent, and on the contrary, will give thanks to God that there are still creative musicians able to uplift you, as Superman would do.

When I got home after buying this CD I immediately popped it in the stereo. I was sitting in front of my stereo at this point. By the time it was into the third track I was lying in the middle of my living room floor on my back with my hands behind my head and a HUGE smirk on my face. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing and how good it was. I was almost ready to give up on new music or any music for that matter. I was tired of the music I owned and couldn't believe the stuff on the radio, the so-called "new rock." In a decade of Korn and Limp Bizkit clones, it totally restored my faith in music. Period.