Friday, April 07, 2006

The flaming lips - at war with the mystics

The flaming lips have been going since 1983. They started off as a drug addled psychadelic punk band in ohio. They were influenced by the Butthole Surfers and quickly made a name for themselves with their high impact live shows. Their initial records were not very good.

Over the years they got better. The line-up changed many times with only two constant members. Luckily singer Wayne Coyne is a very determined man and kept the band going. They started to produce great songs (like 'can't exist' on oh my gawd....), they great albums, hit singles (she don't use jelly) before a series of classic albums including the soft bulliten and yoshimi battles the pink robots. The live shows continue to be spectacular.

Now we have 'At war with the mystics'. The same but different. I have heard this album described as prog rock but that doesn't fully cover it. Opening song 'the yeah yeah yeah song' is great. It's an attack on george bush (like every second american song seems to be now) with lyrics like 'if you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch would you do it?' before a computerised muppet voice sings 'yeah yeah yeah'. It also has the pay off 'if you could make your own money and give it to the masses would you do it?' followed by 'no no no no'. Basically this is a song about how power corrupts and geroge bush is extemely powerful.

Free Radicals and The W.A.N.D continue this political commentary. Past lips records have been more about human relationships, feelings and big questions but this album is about NOW! as seen through the eyes of Wayne Coyne.

A good album. A unique sound. You should hear it.

phunky

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The flaming lips are from oklahoma, not ohio.

11:20 AM

 
Blogger drphunk said...

sorry for being a total fuckwit. I knew it began with an O and I didn't check my facts. I should have remembered because they do mention oklahoma in a few of their songs.

1:13 PM

 

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