the flaming lips
The Flaming Lips Round Up 50+ Unreleased Tracks for Yoshimi 20th Anniversary Box
The Flaming Lips have raided their vaults for a 20th anniversary boxed set edition of their beloved 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, which will be released in six-CD form and on streaming services Nov. 25, and in a five-LP package on April 14, 2023. All editions can be pre-ordered here. On CD, Yoshimi will include more than 50 previously unreleased songs, while the vinyl set had more than 30 of the same, comprising “B-sides, demos, remixes, radio sessions, two concerts and other assorted rarities from the era,” according to Warner Records. The two concerts are a 2002 performance for radio contest winners in Boston and a show the following year at the Forum in London. Highlights of the editions include covers of Radiohead’s “Knives Out,” Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My H...
The Flaming Lips, Haim, The Roots Set for ‘The Big Climate Thing’ Festival
The Flaming Lips, The Roots, Haim, and Khruangbin are among the artists confirmed for The Big Climate Thing, a new three-day festival taking place Sept. 16-18 at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium just outside Manhattan. Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., Courtney Barnett, and Princess Nokia are also on the bill for the event, which is dubbed “a concert for people and the planet” and aims to raise awareness about environmental issues. Additionally, the eclectic lineup includes Antibalas, Guster, The Weather Station, Bonny Light Horseman, Sting’s son Joe Sumner, Ayoni, Sunflower Bean, Pom Pom Squad, Sean Kuti and Egypt 80, Valerie June, Mykki Blanco, and Seratones. Tickets go on sale at 10 am ET on Thursday (June 30) via the festival’s website. The Big Climate Thing is hosted by Climate Control Projects...
Nell Smith and The Flaming Lips Team for Nick Cave Covers Album
The remarkable story of 14-year-old Nell Smith begins at a Flaming Lips concert. As a fan growing up attending their shows, Smith is now joining forces with the Lips. Smith and the Lips announced Where the Viaduct Looms, a record of Nick Cave covers that is set to release November 26. Smith first met singer Wayne Coyne at a Flaming Lips show in Calgary three years ago. A regular at Lips’ concerts always bearing a parrot costume, Smith was eventually recognized by Coyne, who sang a David Bowie cover directly to her in Calgary, and Smith sang back. Staying in contact with Smith through her father, Coyne inspired Smith to pick up the guitar and write her own songs. Coyne planned a trip to record with the band in Oklahoma and suggested that Smith record some Nick Cave tracks and email them to ...
The Flaming Lips Announce 2021-2022 World Tour
The Flaming Lips are set for a nearly year-long world tour starting summer 2021 and running until mid-2022, and also plan to reissue The Soft Bulletin Companion, on June 12 as part of Record Store Day. The Soft Bulletin Companion was originally released over 20 years ago as a CD alongside The Soft Bulletin. It contained unreleased material, outtakes, early mixes, B-sides, international bonus tracks, and stereo versions of songs from their prior album Zaireeka. Those not lucky enough to acquire it the first time will soon be able to own The Soft Bulletin Companion pressed on double silver vinyl. The Flaming Lips are issuing only 16,000 copies worldwide and they will be available exclusively at independent record stores. Frontman Wayne Coyne put his creative brain to...
Flaming Lips Cover Bob Dylan’s ‘Lay Lady Lay’ for Dylan Revisited Tribute LP
Bob Dylan is being honored with a covers album, and Uncut magazine, which is offering the Dylan Revisited LP with its June issue, has shared The Flaming Lips’ rendition of Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” off the collection. Dylan Revisited is in celebration of Dylan’s 80th birthday on May 24 and Dylan himself contributed an acoustic version of “Too Late” that is unavailable elsewhere. As for the slightly psychedelicized version of “Lay Lady Lay,” Lips main man Wayne Coyne told Uncut, “I think every songwriter loves this type of ‘romantic’ Bob Dylan song – he really can be very charming. That line ‘Whatever colours you have in your mind/I show them to you and you see them shine…’ It’s the type of wordplay, though it seems kind of like jumbled surrealism, that actually gets t...
The 50 Best Alt-Rock Love Songs
Not all love songs are romantic. Not all love songs are even happy. It all depends on your definition of the term. For every “My Girl” or “Your Song,” there’s at least one track with a nuanced take on the darker, more complicated sides of love — the drama of a long-term relationship, the fear of losing a partner, the void left in love’s wake. Many of those songs fall under the admittedly broad umbrella of “alt-rock.” So to mark Valentine’s Day, we decided to gather 50 of our favorite “love songs” in the genre — both conventional and otherwise. Throughout this list, you’ll find lines about blooming romance and marital bliss. You’ll also find nods to drug addiction and car crashes. There’s something for everyone. – Ryan Reed 50. that dog. – “I’m Gonna See You” You take the good, you tak...
The 30 Best Albums of 2020
After a deluge of canceled or delayed tours, drive-in experiments, Bandcamp Fridays and bedroom livestreams, we’re finally here. Yay? It’s hard to celebrate much of anything in 2020. But one encouraging sign from the music industry has been the number of artists innovating on the fly — figuring out ways to sustain their careers through the madness. And as fans, at least we’ve had new albums to help us process our continuing semi-apocalypse. Having (mercifully) reached the end of this awful year, we have even more perspective on the functionality of a great record. The 30 we’ve assembled here have prompted us to dance, helped us grieve, made us laugh, or even just allowed us to escape into a transportive riff or soundscape. We assume they did the same for the artists themselves. Let us reme...
Watch The Flaming Lips Perform to an Audience in Giant Bubbles
In something out of a Black Mirror episode, psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips have hosted a concert wherein everyone was encapsulated in giant bubbles. Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has been using a bubble over the course of his career to walk on top of crowds, but the Oklahoma City show marks the first time the band has required fans to utilize them on a large scale. While the globes were primarily used to thwart a potential spread of COVID-19, they also offered quite a live music experience. More importantly, the use of the bubbles offers a glimpse into what the immediate future of concerts could look like as many regions continue to struggle to navigate the convoluted process of reopening. Check out footage from the unprecedented show below. Prior to the show, Coyn...
Bubble Boys: The Flaming Lips are Planning a Concert With Audience in Giant Globes
No, we are not in the Matrix. The Flaming Lips are planning a performance in their hometown of Oklahoma City amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but they have a unique way of thwarting a potential spread of the virus. According to frontman Wayne Coyne, each member of the audience will enjoy the show while encapsulated in their own giant bubble, a-la Jake Gyllenhaal from Bubble Boy. Coyne, of course, has encased himself in a plastic bubble many times over the course of his career, using it to traverse on top of crowds. The Flaming Lips also recently used the bubbles in their remote Fallon and Colbert late show sets following the onset of the global lockdown period, doling them out to a limited capacity audience for the latter performance. However, the fabled psyc...
The Flaming Lips Perform ‘God and the Policeman’ From Their Trademark Space Bubbles For Fallon
The Flaming Lips stepped back inside their trademark space bubbles Friday night for another socially distanced performance, this time for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The band performed their latest single “God and the Policeman” off their brand new album American Head. While Kacey Musgraves lends her vocals to the studio version, she unfortunately was not bubbled up with the band. “God and the Policeman” follows previously released songs “My Religion is You,” “Will You Return/When You Come Down,” “Dinosaurs on the Mountain” and “You N’ Me Sellin Weed.” Watch the performance below. [embedded content] We recently chatted with singer Wayne Coyne about the new album and the future of live music. Unsurprisingly, the Lips are actively trying to figu...
The Flaming Lips Share ‘God and the Policeman’ Video
The Flaming Lips’ American Head is out now and to celebrate it, they dropped a new video for “God and the Policeman.” Directed by Wayne Coyne and Blake Studdard, the video, which takes place in Oklahoma and Texas, presents various strong images, from a baby boy in a field of sunflowers to a dead body on the road. And to add to the drama, Coyne is found running. At first, we’re not sure where to or from. But towards the end, the police finally catch up to him, put him in cuffs and take him away. “God and the Policeman” also features the vocals of Kacey Musgraves. And while she doesn’t appear in the video, her vocals are strongly felt. The Flaming Lips have previously released “My Religion is You,” “Will You Return/When You Come Down,” “Dinosaurs on the Mountain” and “You N’ Me Sellin.” Ahea...
The Flaming Lips Share New Video for ‘Will You Return/When You Come Down’
The Flaming Lips have managed to be quite productive recently despite being in quarantine for most of the year. With their new album coming out in less than a month, the Lips have released yet another video with “‘Will You Return / When You Come Down.” Directed by Wayne Coyne and longtime Lips collaborator George Salisbury, the clips sees them performing separately while being divided from each other behind a plastic sheet. The song is about loss (if you didn’t gather that from the title) and Coyne’s lyrics are reflective of that in the somber tune, especially with lyrics like “Shooting star/Crashing in your car/What went wrong/Now all your friends are gone.” So far, the Lips have released “You N’ Me Sellin’ Weed,” “Dinosaurs on the Mou...
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