It was this mixture of elements that has allowed this album to endure the last ten years and become one of great albums of the '90s. Coyne also sang about his father's death in songs like "Waiting for Superman" and "Suddenly Everything Has Changed." It was also about bassist Michael Ivins's car crash). In the earnest "The Spiderbite Song," Coyne sings about losing his friends and family (inspired by Drozd almost losing his arm due to what he claimed was a spiderbite, but was actually due to his ongoing drug use. The Flaming Lips followed-up their interactive 1997 extravaganza Zaireeka in typical unforeseen fashion by releasing their 1999 magnum opus The Soft Bulletin.
Disguised under celebratory choruses, catchy melodies, lush harmonies and Wayne Coyne's typical oddball lyrics, was this darker, much more introspective and existential outlook. With songs like "What Is The Light?" and "The Gash," it was an epic album start to finish.īut it was also their most personal. The Soft Bulletin augmented grooving bass lines and guitars with drum machines, synthesized string parts and lots of electronic studio experimentation. The songs were filled with dense orchestration by multi-instrumentalist Steve Drozd and inspired production from longtime-collaborator Dave Fridmann. It's clear now that these experiments in sound, complex arrangements and studio manipulations were employed during the recording of The Soft Bulletin. This in turn led to their four-disc album Zaireeka, which was to be played on four different stereos, all at the same time. Leading up to the record, the Lips conducted what are now referred to as the "boombox experiments" and "parking lot experiments." As the now well-documented lore says, the band had its fans gather in a parking lot, handed out cassette tapes of music composed by the group, and instructed people to play them in their cars stereos at the same time, creating a thick cacophony of sounds and music. It also didn't sound like most of the music out there at the time. It didn't sound much like the band's previous work, which had always towed that line between noisy psych-rock, prog and some poppier alternative rock of the '90s. The Soft Bulletin is the ninth album released by The Flaming Lips on in the UK, with a US release following on June 22, 1999.
So when The Flaming Lips released The Soft Bulletin in 1999 (May 17 in UK, June 22 in US), it was a total surprise. Listen free to The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin (Race for the Prize, A Spoonful Weighs a Ton and more). It wasn't the first time people had written off the band: Everyone was pretty surprised by "Jelly'"s ubiquitous success, especially since the band had been toiling in indie rock obscurity since the early '80s. The band hadn't had a radio hit since 1993's "She Don't Use Jelly" and the Oklahoma group's followups did not yield anything close to that crossover success. By 1999, a lot of people had written-off The Flaming Lips.
Includes information on the band's feature film 'Christmas on Mars' as well as the EP 'Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell' and a streaming version of 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots'. The Soft Bulletin came completely out of left field for me and many other fans. Homepage of the Oklahoma psychedelic alternative rock band the Flaming Lips.