The Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
Warner Bros
2012
Rating: 5 nail clips out of 10
Holy clusterfuck, Batman. The Flaming Lips have been on a productive tear lately, and I'd like to award them at least some points for trying new things, even if I have disliked most of them. They worked with a lot of different artists last year when they released all those EPs, and some of those collaborations are here (Prefuse 73, Yoko Ono, Lightning Bolt & more). It's a mixed bag at best. Then there are the new tracks, which I'll split into two camps - those with artists I care about and those who elicited a "what the fuck?" when I saw them listed. The collabos with Bon Iver, Jim James and Nick Cave are all ok - nothing groundbreaking, but listenable. But they also decided to pair with Ke$ha, Edward Sharpe and Coldplay...oof. The only real surprise/highlight is the ten minute long Erykah Badu venture, which turned out much better than I ever would have expected. I was not expecting much, mind you.
Maybe they can now turn to the novel idea of making another proper Flaming Lips record.
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