Tag Archives: The Flaming Lips

The 11 Best Flaming Lips Songs (Post-Embryonic)

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The last official album to come out from The Flaming Lips was 2009’s Embryonic.  A rich tapestry of psychedelic melodies that motivate the listener of a powerful cosmic propulsion.  In the four years since, they have been anything but sleeping on the job.  In that time, they have released 9 EPs.  Some of these EPs were distributed normally, some were released in a human skull or in a fetus made out of gummy candy…yes, really.  Along with the 9 EPs, they released a Pink Floyd cover album, a duets album, and an album of romantic songs inside a chocolate heart.  Besides distribution, song lengths wildly varied, from songs that are normal 3-4 minutes long to one that tops 6 hours…and one that takes a full 24 hours to listen to because…yes, it’s 24 hours long.  The following list are the best songs of this chaotic yet creatively productive period.

Here are the 11 Best Flaming Lips Songs (Post-Embryonic):

  1. Is David Bowie Dying (With Neon Indian)
  2. Speak To Me / Breathe (Dark Side of the Moon)
  3. Drug Chart (Gummy Song Skull)
  4. Helping the Retarded To Find God (The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends)
  5. Eclipse (Dark Side of the Moon) 
  6. Heavy Star Moving… (With Prefuse 73)
  7. I’m Working At NASA on Acid (With Lightning Bolt)
  8. Atlas Eets Christmas (With Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band) 
  9. Evil Minds (StroboTrip)
  10. Children of the Moon (The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends)
  11. 7 Skies H3 (24 Hour Song Skull)

Buy The Flaming Lips’ The Terror…now!!

 

 

 

 

The Unknown: The Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka

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Most bands are happy with being homogenous.  Making average songs in the average structure of verse chorus verse.  But the Flaming Lips are not one of those bands.  For years, they have always tried to push the boundaries of what’s normal.  Never happy with sounding like everyone else.  Sometimes the result is amazing (Yoshimi)…other times you get Zaireeka.
 
Now don’t get me wrong…Zaireeka is a pretty amazing album.  But in 12 years…I’ve only listened to it twice.  Why?  Because it’s extremely difficult to listen to.  Zaireeka is actually four CDs…which are all to be played at the exact same time on four different CD players.  The theory is that every time you listen…you will never get the same listening experience since you will never be able to push “play” on all four players at the same time.  The objective was to create an album where every time you listened…the experience was different.  The problem is (especially today) nobody owns four CD players.   Before it was difficult to get four friends to bring together their CD players…now it’s just plain impossible.
 
Here are the four channels for the third song from Zaireeka.  I’ve compressed the file as well…to show that even though the listening experience was a bit bizarre…the music itself was still pretty good.
 
Zaireeks Track 3 – Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair
 
 
Buy The Flaming Lips new album…Embryonic (with bonus tracks)…now!