I'm reading a 33 1/3 book on The Flaming Lips. It's about their album Zaireeka. Now this is interesting for several reasons. For one I did not know the Flaming Lips had been around for so long (since the early 80s); I first heard of them around the time of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and the accompanying hit single Do You Realise?? but that was 2002, their 10th album, and leader Wayne Coyne was already over 40 by then.
The other reason is Zaireeka itself sounds like a very left field art rock statement which I would not have given the Flaming Lips credit for believing they were a fairly average middle of the road sort of indie band (notwithstanding their amazing live shows). I had heard they had done something a bit experimental more recently, after their commercial breakthrough with Yoshimi, and had assumed this must be the Zaireeka album on picking up the book, but no, that was 1997 (before commercial success had really reached the band so not an album you could really say was a career suicide). A quick scan through post 2002 albums does not readily reveal which one I was thinking about but it could have been Embryonic or The Terror? [It's Embryonic, Ed.]
Full Lips Discography:
Full Lips Discography:
Hear It Is (1986)
Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)
Telepathic Surgery (1989)
In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)
Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)
Zaireeka (1997)
The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
At War with the Mystics (2006)
Embryonic (2009)
The Terror (2013)
Oczy Mlody (2017)
King's Mouth (2019)
So what about Zaireeka? Well I haven't heard it and as you will read shortly I'm not likely to either. Infamously given a rating of 0.0 by Pitchfork (the follow up Soft Bulletin scored 10.0 from the same reviewer!) the album comes on 4 CDs each containing a quarter of the whole! Wtf? The concept was that four friends would have listening parties where they would each bring their CD player and play one of their CDs in synchronicity with the other 3 thus hearing the whole as it was intended. As it was rare for different players to run at exactly the same speed or even for the operators to start the process at exactly the right moment interesting phasing and echo effects would ensue, and no two "performances" would be exactly the same. It sounds similar to some avant garde experiments going on in the minimalist classical world by composers like Cage, Reich and Riley.
The zero Pitchfork review (since deleted although there is an archive link below) was based on the impracticality of the concept rather than the music. In fact the reviewer had not actually heard the 4 parts in unison admitting he'd "never know because I don't have the proper amount of stereo equipment" concluding that the product was "completely useless".
Later Pitchfork published a more favourable response from the 33 1/3 author Mark Richardson that praised the album for being...transient, variable and social.
The 33 1/3 book is honest. It says The Flaming Lips weren't very good and Wayne Coyne has a weak voice that could not even hold a tune for the first few albums.
This isn't news to me as they've always struck me as a high profile band without much substance, relying hugely on their original stage performances which involve amazing props, animal costumes, confetti guns, lazers, blow up balls and balloons (the arena carnage the morning after a headlining gig at Green Man Festival back in 2010 was something to see).
Fair enough, they started out like many high school bands without any pretensions and band members picked from friends and family dependent on whether they possessed any equipment (let alone if they could play it at all). Coyne kept his regular job in a restaurant for many years after the The Flaming Lips' formation.
But in 1996 the ever creative Coyne decided to try something different. The band convened a series of interactive concerts or events dubbed parking-lot and boom-box experiments. Concert goers or "volunteers" would convene at a space and "lend" the band their car or boom-box cassette decks and would orchestrate the simultaneous mass playing of pre-recorded tapes to provide an immersive surround sound experience.
It sounds like a recipe for chaos and understandably concert flyers would warn: "we are sceptical about the entertainment value," but herein was the genesis of the Zaireeka idea.
At roughly the same time as Zaireeka the band recorded the more conventional The Soft Bulletin album which (as the only Flaming Lips album I own) does gain a place in the magazine this week.
Although it was already their 9th album it represented a leap forward in quality to what had come before and for many fans was their masterpiece.
There are some epic string drenched songs with multiple parts / some pleasant acoustic guitar fronted sing-a-longs / interesting electronic effects / thumping drums perhaps veering off into out of context funky drummer territory in places / and some fluttery synths which match Coyne's fluttery voice.
It's an ambitious project and does sound a bit like everyone is playing different tunes sometimes and... that voice: High, weak and reedy but without the emotion of Neil Young. It's hard to hear past it actually and I do wonder what sort of band they may have been with a better singer. It's a wonder they've survived so long and Wayne Coyne is such a confident front man. Granted the instrumentation is excellent, the lyrics are good, and the melodies lovely (especially on regular set opener Race For The Prize, Waitin' For a Superman, What Is The Light? and Suddenly Everything Has Changed), but can Coyne carry them..?
... sometimes, but his singing sounds so much on the edge of breaking down most the time especially on the high notes it makes for an uneasy listen. A difficult song like A Spoonful Weighs A Ton is an example - such a vocal performance on X-factor would ensue an early red buzzer. I wonder whether he has ever considered just singing in a lower register like Lou Reed, Nick Cave, or the Geddy Lee of latter years?
No surprise then that some of the instrumentals are the most pleasing tracks with The Observer for example worthy of Kid A era Radiohead.
Having said that he's the maverick leader, the songwriter, the creative genius, so notwithstanding these shortcomings, The Flaming Lips would not exist without him.
The 0.0 review in Pitchfork
Mark Richardson's Response
The 10.0 review in Pitchfork
So what about Zaireeka? Well I haven't heard it and as you will read shortly I'm not likely to either. Infamously given a rating of 0.0 by Pitchfork (the follow up Soft Bulletin scored 10.0 from the same reviewer!) the album comes on 4 CDs each containing a quarter of the whole! Wtf? The concept was that four friends would have listening parties where they would each bring their CD player and play one of their CDs in synchronicity with the other 3 thus hearing the whole as it was intended. As it was rare for different players to run at exactly the same speed or even for the operators to start the process at exactly the right moment interesting phasing and echo effects would ensue, and no two "performances" would be exactly the same. It sounds similar to some avant garde experiments going on in the minimalist classical world by composers like Cage, Reich and Riley.
The zero Pitchfork review (since deleted although there is an archive link below) was based on the impracticality of the concept rather than the music. In fact the reviewer had not actually heard the 4 parts in unison admitting he'd "never know because I don't have the proper amount of stereo equipment" concluding that the product was "completely useless".
Later Pitchfork published a more favourable response from the 33 1/3 author Mark Richardson that praised the album for being...transient, variable and social.
The 33 1/3 book is honest. It says The Flaming Lips weren't very good and Wayne Coyne has a weak voice that could not even hold a tune for the first few albums.
Coyne's voice can be good when he finds the right setting, but can also seem frail and thin, and on early records he almost never sang in tune.
Mark Richardson
This isn't news to me as they've always struck me as a high profile band without much substance, relying hugely on their original stage performances which involve amazing props, animal costumes, confetti guns, lazers, blow up balls and balloons (the arena carnage the morning after a headlining gig at Green Man Festival back in 2010 was something to see).
 |
| The Flaming Lips @Green Man Festival, Wales, 2010 |
Fair enough, they started out like many high school bands without any pretensions and band members picked from friends and family dependent on whether they possessed any equipment (let alone if they could play it at all). Coyne kept his regular job in a restaurant for many years after the The Flaming Lips' formation.
We will need you and your car, and your tape deck, and your co-operation for about 2 hours.
But in 1996 the ever creative Coyne decided to try something different. The band convened a series of interactive concerts or events dubbed parking-lot and boom-box experiments. Concert goers or "volunteers" would convene at a space and "lend" the band their car or boom-box cassette decks and would orchestrate the simultaneous mass playing of pre-recorded tapes to provide an immersive surround sound experience.
At roughly the same time as Zaireeka the band recorded the more conventional The Soft Bulletin album which (as the only Flaming Lips album I own) does gain a place in the magazine this week.
Although it was already their 9th album it represented a leap forward in quality to what had come before and for many fans was their masterpiece.
There are some epic string drenched songs with multiple parts / some pleasant acoustic guitar fronted sing-a-longs / interesting electronic effects / thumping drums perhaps veering off into out of context funky drummer territory in places / and some fluttery synths which match Coyne's fluttery voice.
It's an ambitious project and does sound a bit like everyone is playing different tunes sometimes and... that voice: High, weak and reedy but without the emotion of Neil Young. It's hard to hear past it actually and I do wonder what sort of band they may have been with a better singer. It's a wonder they've survived so long and Wayne Coyne is such a confident front man. Granted the instrumentation is excellent, the lyrics are good, and the melodies lovely (especially on regular set opener Race For The Prize, Waitin' For a Superman, What Is The Light? and Suddenly Everything Has Changed), but can Coyne carry them..?
... sometimes, but his singing sounds so much on the edge of breaking down most the time especially on the high notes it makes for an uneasy listen. A difficult song like A Spoonful Weighs A Ton is an example - such a vocal performance on X-factor would ensue an early red buzzer. I wonder whether he has ever considered just singing in a lower register like Lou Reed, Nick Cave, or the Geddy Lee of latter years?
No surprise then that some of the instrumentals are the most pleasing tracks with The Observer for example worthy of Kid A era Radiohead.
Having said that he's the maverick leader, the songwriter, the creative genius, so notwithstanding these shortcomings, The Flaming Lips would not exist without him.
John Martyn Glorious Fool
Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Jayhawks Smile
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side
Emeralds Does It Look Like I'm Here
The 0.0 review in Pitchfork
Mark Richardson's Response
The 10.0 review in Pitchfork