What the **** are The Flaming Lips playing at?

rcaz

Please temper all of the following post with "imo"

Now, I used to love The Flaming Lips. I'm fairly confident The Soft Bulletin is at LEAST the second best album ever, if not the best. I've bought all their albums, a lot of their singles and EPs, all the DVDs, some of it bought twice, I've seen them play 8 times, have 7 tshirts, have the same keyboard, drum sticks and guitar as Steven Drozd, started playing drums by learning his drum parts exclusively... I was an obsessive fan for a long time.

This is their latest release. 4 songs on a memory stick that's inside a gummy skull. For $150.

Their previous release before that? Heady Nuggs, a boxset reissue of their first 5 Warner Bros. albums for $124.

They went through the late 90s/early 00s making some wonderfully written complicated music, with gorgeous, educated arrangements and great, touching lyrics. Then they had that worrying period of "it feels great to be a rock band again" with At War With The Mystics but I reckon they still made some great music then.

So wtf happened? They seemed to have swapped up their educated approach to music (you can't make Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots without being a VERY well-practiced and well-researched composer/arranger) for weird-for-the-sake-of-weird aimless noisey rock, with cheap drug and sex references...

Now I know a lot of that part about me not liking their new music is subjective, and it's completely up to the artist to make what they want, but I find it really hard to accept that a band will go from The Soft Bulletin to Embryonic without a certain amount of "meh, this'll do" about it. It's still good, maybe somebody else loves it, but it's easier, it takes less effort, I really don't think they're trying as hard as they did.

And, all subjective music stuff aside, making four songs, sticking it inside a giant edible gimmick, and then charging $150 for it? Charging $124 for a ****ing reprint?

And that one-song-per-month bull**** they're doing this year.

Remember what I said about 'imo'?

What happened to The Flaming Lips?

lordgoat

hehe, limited edition flaming lips rant there El. I agree it's getting tiresome. Nearly a tiresome as the wife's boobs on twitter.

ball ox

Well put El Pron, couldn't agree more. I think they're just taking the piss completely at this stage.

I get the impression that Coyne is behind all of this stupid ****, something to keep him busy while Drozd is off writing music.

rcaz

ball ox wrote: »

Well put El Pron, couldn't agree more. I think they're just taking the piss completely at this stage.

I get the impression that Coyne is behind all of this stupid ****, something to keep him busy while Drozd is off writing music.

Yeah I know. I dunno if you're on Twitter but Wayne's constantly posting pictures of his latest psychedelic skull/vagina/naked woman drawing/naked wife (as lordgoat said). I don't get how someone that wrote the lyrics from The Soft Bulletin can revert to being so fascinated with drugs and tits :rolleyes:

ball ox

yeah, I've been following on twitter for a while now, he comes across like a kid with ADD. It's bizarre.

jill_valentine

Wayne's fallen in love with his own image a little, and it's really starting to show.

The aul onstage banter lasts a little bit too long these days too, and their live shows, although still ridiculously good fun, seem to me just that little bit too polished and practiced and calculated.

rcaz

jill_valentine wrote: »

Wayne's fallen in love with his own image a little, and it's really starting to show.

The aul onstage banter lasts a little bit too long these days too, and their live shows, although still ridiculously good fun, seem to me just that little bit too polished and practiced and calculated.

Up till about a year or two ago it was the same show it's been since 1999

Edit; Yeah the onstage banter's a bit ****. I used to think he was really good at it, but in retrospect, he's a bit too preachy maybe? Maybe he had more of a point when there were Republicans in the white house to be complaining about, but even then... I still think playing Taps is cool, if a bit cheap/too easy... I liked how he got everyone to make peace signs in the air. A little cringey maybe, but he got everyone at the show to show some positive energy about something good...

I've opened a beer, my posts might get a little less cohesive...

Miguel_Sanchez

The Flaming Lips bore me these days.

I used to love them so it's a bit disappointing to say that.

jill_valentine

El Pr0n wrote: »

I used to think he was really good at it, but in retrospect, he's a bit too preachy maybe?

It's effective in a rabble-rousing hippy kind of way, but once you realise he probably says every single word on exactly the same beat every night of the tour, it leaves a fairly bad taste in the mouth.

johnny_ultimate

They insist upon themselves.

I like the band, but think they can be up their own arses at the best of times. Yoshimi has the benefit of being both great pop music and wanky electronic mind trippery. Embryonic and that weird thing on YouTube recently is simply wanky.

osnola ibax

Looks like a nod to that Hurst Crystal Skull guy. Outlandish, maybe an emperors new clothes experiment or something?

jill_valentine

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

They insist upon themselves.

Very, very good.

Jamie Starr

Their jump-the-shark moment was the Dark Side of The Moon album. The Flaming Lips (in various incarnations) have been around for years, no band lasts forever at the peak of their creative powers. It's sad when a band you like goes a bit duff, but it happens to all of them, unless they break up in a Beatles-esque manner.

Yoshimi, The Soft Bulletin and Mystics are still there to be enjoyed, but you can't make genius music forever. I think it's why most really good musicians go crackers for extended periods of time. The choice is either go stale or go strange.

rcaz

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

Their jump-the-shark moment was the Dark Side of The Moon album. The Flaming Lips (in various incarnations) have been around for years, no band lasts forever at the peak of their creative powers. It's sad when a band you like goes a bit duff, but it happens to all of them, unless they break up in a Beatles-esque manner.

Yoshimi, The Soft Bulletin and Mystics are still there to be enjoyed, but you can't make genius music forever. I think it's why most really good musicians go crackers for extended periods of time. The choice is either go stale or go strange.

Maybe that's a bit cynical? Radiohead, Autechre, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Aphex Twin, Talking Heads (all chosen just 'cause I have some CDs next to me and they're in that stack) didn't, imo, make a bad album...

Android 666

El Pr0n wrote: »

Maybe that's a bit cynical? Radiohead, Autechre, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Aphex Twin, Talking Heads (all chosen just 'cause I have some CDs next to me and they're in that stack) didn't, imo, make a bad album...

Bob Dylan didn't make a bad album? Even the man himself admits his muse left him in the eighties and he was considered a completely spent force until he released Time out of Mind. Man people point to the beginning of the nineties as a pretty fallow time as well for Bruce Springsteen with the release of Lucky Town and Human Touch. All bands and artists ebb and flow some are just smart enough not to release the ebb.

Jamie Starr

El Pr0n wrote: »

Maybe that's a bit cynical? Radiohead, Autechre, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Aphex Twin, Talking Heads (all chosen just 'cause I have some CDs next to me and they're in that stack) didn't, imo, make a bad album...

As Android said there, there's quite a few Dylan albums even Dylan fans aren't too mad about, like Infidels, Down In The Groove, Empire Burlesque to name a few (I never even knew about Down In The Groove!). Thankfully with albums like Time Out of Mind, Modern Times etc. he's returned to some kind of form, but that's only because he's the exceptional talent that is Bob Dylan.

Radiohead, I'd agree, are the exception, but Hail to the Thief and their latest record weren't up to their usual lofty standards in a lot of people's books, including mine. (Pablo Honey was a fairly average debut also.) Plus, they've only made eight albums in eighteen years, and I can't see them reaching the heights of previous efforts for awhile. (PROVE ME WRONG RADIOHEAD, PLEASE!! I hate criticising them even a little tbh.)

I can't speak on the other artists you've mentioned, I don't know their music that well, but only rabid fans will argue that an artist's career can be perfect, with no slumps whatsoever. Sometimes albums can be brilliant (like Modern Times) but still not at the level of Blood on the Tracks for example.

I think if any musician goes on for long enough, there are periods in their catalouge which aren't as significant as others. Without the resource of Wikipedia for example, I couldn't name too many Lips albums preceding The Soft Bulletin. It's not that they weren't good, but compared to their best stuff, they aren't considered as highly.

I don't think that's a cynical outlook, more realistic. It means I can avoid a bit of outrage when a favourite band of mine release a $100+ musical jelly sweet!

rcaz

Agnostic Mantis wrote: »

It means I can avoid a bit of outrage when a favourite band of mine release a $100+ musical jelly sweet!

Some of us aren't as lucky as you :pac:

kwippleton

If you think the idea behind the gummy skull is dumb or that it's too expensive... don't buy it.

I mean, how much do you think it costs to produce the things? It's something that's never been done before and it looks like they'd be a bitch to design and manufacture. It's not like the tracks haven't been available online since the very first one was sold. The band has stated over and over again that the tracks are all going to be collected in a standard release at the end of the year.

And would you rather that they hadn't reissued those 90's albums on vinyl, which people have been begging them to do for years? Yeah, $125 is a lot, but how much would it cost to buy original copies? Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic both usually sell for at least $50 each and Hit to Death in the Future Head for at least $200, IF you can find a copy.

I guess I just don't understand why everyone always feels the need to complain about the Lips. They can't satisfy everyone, but they try to balance pleasing their fanbase and doing what they want to do. I, for one, am grateful for the 9 new tracks that they've released so far this year.

I love their new direction... it's ****ing weird and loose and psychedelic as hell. It takes everything that they've done in the past decade, the electronics from Yoshimi, the progginess of Mystics, and applies it to the weird psych rock of Embryonic. It's a natural progression for them.

I don't get what you mean by "cheap drug and sex references"... apart from one of the new songs being called "Drug Chart", I don't hear any of that. Yeah, it's in Wayne's art, but we're talking about the same guy who made these:



What other bands are still being creative and trying new things 28 years into their career? They're in the "Dirty Work" phase of their career and they're still more experimental and interesting than most of the bands out there.

I just got home yesterday from seeing them play The Soft Bulletin live in its entirety two nights in a row in Atlanta and it was ****ing amazing. Normally when bands do that sort of thing, it's a sign that they've become creatively bankrupt and have run out of good ideas (see: Mercury Rev), but not for the Lips, who are in the middle of this year-long project of releasing music in new and interesting ways and collaborating with other artists. They played one of these new songs, "Is David Bowie Dying?", during their encore on the first night and it was awesome.

Why is it that people are constantly losing their **** over lame bands like Radiohead and Wilco, but the Lips get attacked by various people for every single thing they do? After 28 years, haven't they earned the right to be trusted by their fans?

I found this forum and thread randomly while searching Google for news articles about the Lips.

Miguel_Sanchez

I think I'd quite enjoy seeing them do The Soft Bulletin, it couldn't fail to be more exciting than that snooze fest they performed at the Electric Picnic a few years ago.

Hopefully they'll up their game for the Forbidden Fruit festival.

rcaz

kwippleton wrote: »

If you think the idea behind the gummy skull is dumb or that it's too expensive... don't buy it.

I mean, how much do you think it costs to produce the things? It's something that's never been done before and it looks like they'd be a bitch to design and manufacture. It's not like the tracks haven't been available online since the very first one was sold. The band has stated over and over again that the tracks are all going to be collected in a standard release at the end of the year.

How much does a pack of gummy sweets cost? You make a mould of a skull, fill it with the same kind of gummy sweet mixture to fill up the skull shape, and stick a USB stick inside. Do you really think $150 is a fair price for that?

kwippleton wrote: »

And would you rather that they hadn't reissued those 90's albums on vinyl, which people have been begging them to do for years? Yeah, $125 is a lot, but how much would it cost to buy original copies? Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic both usually sell for at least $50 each and Hit to Death in the Future Head for at least $200, IF you can find a copy.

I bought an original pressing of Clouds Taste Metallic, the one on the transparent green vinyl, for €20. I know Hit To Death is very rare. They reissued the Soft Bulletin for a fair price. But used market prices are based on rarity and desirability, neither of which should be a factor when pricing a reissue.

kwippleton wrote: »

I guess I just don't understand why everyone always feels the need to complain about the Lips. They can't satisfy everyone, but they try to balance pleasing their fanbase and doing what they want to do. I, for one, am grateful for the 9 new tracks that they've released so far this year.

I love their new direction... it's ****ing weird and loose and psychedelic as hell. It takes everything that they've done in the past decade, the electronics from Yoshimi, the progginess of Mystics, and applies it to the weird psych rock of Embryonic. It's a natural progression for them.

If you read my first post you'd see how much of a huge fan I was. I feel the need to complain about the lips because the band that used to do such great, forward thinking things as the Boombox Experiments and Zaireeka, are now content to make '****ing weird and loose and psychedelic as hell' music that would fit in just as well 40 years ago as it does now.

They try to please their fanbase?? They played the same set list for ten years, it took a ****ing petition to get them to play Mountainside in 2007, and another opinion poll thing to get them to play Enthusiasm For Life, all the while their hardcore fans (myself included) were crying out for some older songs to get played.

kwippleton wrote: »

I don't get what you mean by "cheap drug and sex references"... apart from one of the new songs being called "Drug Chart", I don't hear any of that. Yeah, it's in Wayne's art, but we're talking about the same guy who made these:

What other bands are still being creative and trying new things 28 years into their career? They're in the "Dirty Work" phase of their career and they're still more experimental and interesting than most of the bands out there.

The brain in the skull is cannabis-flavoured, aren't the lyrics of one of the new songs about pussy or something? They're cheap shock tactics to get a reaction out of people, and from listening to previous records, particularly the lyrics on The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, we all know Wayne is better, more creative, and more intelligent than that.

There are plenty of bands who never stop trying new things, but The Flaming Lips aren't one of them. Like the spacial music they did with the Boombox Experiments and Zaireeka, they were way ahead of their time (this is the kind of thing that music academics and composers are investigating with computers now). You say you love their new music because it's 'psychedlic' (which is fine, that's your opinion), but how can you say they're trying anything new? Psychedelic rock is nothing new, and The Flaming Lips are just rehashing stuff that other bands did, arguably better, decades before them. I'd love to hear your argument for the Flaming Lips being creative at this stage in their career.

kwippleton wrote: »

I just got home yesterday from seeing them play The Soft Bulletin live in its entirety two nights in a row in Atlanta and it was ****ing amazing. Normally when bands do that sort of thing, it's a sign that they've become creatively bankrupt and have run out of good ideas (see: Mercury Rev), but not for the Lips, who are in the middle of this year-long project of releasing music in new and interesting ways and collaborating with other artists. They played one of these new songs, "Is David Bowie Dying?", during their encore on the first night and it was awesome.

You mean the year-long project that they ripped off from The Wedding Present?

I'm glad you enjoyed the show, but it's money for old rope. You don't do that if you're busy being creative and trying new things.

kwippleton wrote: »

Why is it that people are constantly losing their **** over lame bands like Radiohead and Wilco, but the Lips get attacked by various people for every single thing they do? After 28 years, haven't they earned the right to be trusted by their fans?

Wilco not so much, but Radiohead genuinely are going in new directions each time. Of course Radiohead are very influenced by all sorts of music, most notably dubstep and grime at the moment, but Radiohead's strength is melting all these influences and creating a (sort of) newish sound from them, with great songwriting to boot. The Flaming Lips aren't doing this, they're making their 'weird' (God Wayne overuses that word) noisey rock like thousands of other bands do, and their songwriting is weaker than it was now too. I think a certain amount of that is objectively provable. (Also every member of Wilco is a hugely talented musician, especially Nels, Glenn and Mikael, definitely more talent in that band than most, including the Lips).

Edit; This is why I stopped posting on the Lips Message Bored and all a while ago, there are so many people defending the Lips blindly without questioning them at all. They were a great band who did progressive stuff, really making headway while writing great songs. They were underappreciated then. now they're getting more noted and they aren't as good anymore. Wayne's insecure enough that he'll forsake his hardcore fans for trying to win new ones with stale setlists of the songs that have had the most exposure. Where's the artistic integrity in that?

Maybe I should also point out that I'm going to see them at Forbidden Fruit, and I'm really looking foward to it, but I'm so worried I'll just be disappointed again.

kwippleton

I'm only going to respond to half of your reply right now... I'll be back later today with the rest.

El Pr0n wrote: »

How much does a pack of gummy sweets cost? You make a mould of a skull, fill it with the same kind of gummy sweet mixture to fill up the skull shape, and stick a USB stick inside. Do you really think $150 is a fair price for that?

How do you know it's as simple as that? If it's like that, how do they put the brain inside? Here's what Wayne said about it....

"My feeling is if you don't have the money, the Flaming Lips make all this music available to you virtually for free anyway. And so if you can't afford to buy a Gummi Skull, so what? I mean you can't afford to buy a Ferrari car. These things are expensive to make and they're expensive to put out, and if you have money you can get it, and if you don't, don't worry about it. I mean to me it's just that simple. Some things you can't afford. That's okay."

I bought an original pressing of Clouds Taste Metallic, the one on the transparent green vinyl, for €20. I know Hit To Death is very rare. They reissued the Soft Bulletin for a fair price. But used market prices are based on rarity and desirability, neither of which should be a factor when pricing a reissue.

Market prices had nothing to do with the price of the box set, but the fact that they are audiophile reissues did. WB's latest Nirvana reissues cost $30 apiece and their four album Neil Young box set cost $150. It's a lot of money, but you're paying for quality.

If you read my first post you'd see how much of a huge fan I was. I feel the need to complain about the lips because the band that used to do such great, forward thinking things as the Boombox Experiments and Zaireeka, are now content to make '****ing weird and loose and psychedelic as hell' music that would fit in just as well 40 years ago as it does now.

What I was trying to get at is that while people bend over backwards to try to like whatever bands like Radiohead are putting out, it seems like they attack the Lips without even really trying.

They're doing collaborations with some of the biggest names in independent 'electronic' music, with Neon Indian, Prefuse 73, and Panda Bear, among others... how is that not forward thinking?

And what 40 year old song sounds like this or this?

They try to please their fanbase?? They played the same set list for ten years, it took a ****ing petition to get them to play Mountainside in 2007, and another opinion poll thing to get them to play Enthusiasm For Life, all the while their hardcore fans (myself included) were crying out for some older songs to get played.

Their hardcore fans make up such a small fragment of their fanbase. The band knows that when people go to see them, they usually just want to hear the vaseline song, the one about the robots, that yeah yeah yeah one, and Do You Realize, so that's what they give them.

And as much as I'd like to see them play "Mountain Side" or "Slow Nerve Action" or "Frogs", it'd just be weird. The songs just wouldn't fit in with their current set, no one would know them, and it'd just seem like they'd be trying to recapture past glories. I'm more than happy with hearing great new songs like "Worm Mountain", "The Ego's Last Stand", "See the Leaves", and "Is David Bowie Dying?".

Ever since Derek joined the band back in 2009, they've been so much better live, I think the best they have since Ronald left. The songs sound fuller and they aren't using as many backing tracks as they used to have to, and they've been trying to change up the setlist a little every night.

Check out this video from the other night.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mCZV3x1nk (yeah, The Captain is totally the new Space Bubble song)

---

Edit; This is why I stopped posting on the Lips Message Bored and all a while ago, there are so many people defending the Lips blindly without questioning them at all. They were a great band who did progressive stuff, really making headway while writing great songs. They were underappreciated then. now they're getting more noted and they aren't as good anymore. Wayne's insecure enough that he'll forsake his hardcore fans for trying to win new ones with stale setlists of the songs that have had the most exposure. Where's the artistic integrity in that?

I'm a big fan, but I'm not stupid. If they do something that I don't like, I'll say something about it. I don't like the lame singalongs that they put in their sets. I kind of get annoyed by Wayne constantly talking about drugs. I wish that they'd do some more back catalog stuff and put out a b-sides album or something.

But I can't really complain much, because I think they're doing just about everything else right. Wayne continues to be the nicest person in the music business (he sent me one of his hand-made New Years Eve posters for free a few months ago), and I think their new direction is great. I really like both of the EPs that they've released this year, and I'm excited to hear the new one that's coming out today.

I think it's silly to expect a band to only try to please it's hardcore fans. When the Flaming Lips only start playing the old songs that the fans want to hear instead of focusing on new material, that will be when they've run out of 'artistic integrity'.

If you don't like them anymore, so be it. I mean, you already said that you only liked them because no one had ever heard of them.

---

Edit: And haven't they always done this? Look back at the setlists from the Transmissions and Clouds tours... they were almost the same every single night. They focused on material from the newest album and the one or two that preceded it.

rcaz

kwippleton wrote: »

How do you know it's as simple as that? If it's like that, how do they put the brain inside? Here's what Wayne said about it....

"My feeling is if you don't have the money, the Flaming Lips make all this music available to you virtually for free anyway. And so if you can't afford to buy a Gummi Skull, so what? I mean you can't afford to buy a Ferrari car. These things are expensive to make and they're expensive to put out, and if you have money you can get it, and if you don't, don't worry about it. I mean to me it's just that simple. Some things you can't afford. That's okay."

Market prices had nothing to do with the price of the box set, but the fact that they are audiophile reissues did. WB's latest Nirvana reissues cost $30 apiece and their four album Neil Young box set cost $150. It's a lot of money, but you're paying for quality.

That "audiophile quality" stuff is such bull****, it has no impact on the quality of the sound, it just means the records are harder to warp, which isn't an issue if you keep your vinyl properly. It's marketing nonsense to get you to part with your money, but then I guess I'm arguing with the whole music industry and not just the Lips. Doing it with a reissue is still way out of line with the way music works today though, imo.

I always wonder why people do stuff like this when The Clash were able to release Sandinista! on triple vinyl for the price of a single album.

kwippleton wrote: »

What I was trying to get at is that while people bend over backwards to try to like whatever bands like Radiohead are putting out, it seems like they attack the Lips without even really trying.

They're doing collaborations with some of the biggest names in independent 'electronic' music, with Neon Indian, Prefuse 73, and Panda Bear, among others... how is that not forward thinking?

Why is collaboration anything to do with them being progressive musicians? Getting other people to help them sound up to date and fresh?

kwippleton wrote: »

And what 40 year old song sounds like this?

Bitches Brew?

kwippleton wrote: »

Their hardcore fans make up such a small fragment of their fanbase. The band knows that when people go to see them, they usually just want to hear the vaseline song, the one about the robots, that yeah yeah yeah one, and Do You Realize, so that's what they give them.

See that's exactly it. They try so hard to please, that isn't art. Artists do what they want, and we love them 'cause we happen to love what they're doing. The Flaming Lips used to start fires, make ridiculous noise, dress up as characters from The Exorcist, and make whatever music they wanted, now they go on greatest hits tours. Or at least they did the last 4 times or so I saw them.

kwippleton wrote: »

And as much as I'd like to see them play "Mountain Side" or "Slow Nerve Action" or "Frogs", it'd just be weird. The songs just wouldn't fit in with their current set, no one would know them, and it'd just seem like they'd be trying to recapture past glories. I'm more than happy with hearing great new songs like "Worm Mountain", "The Ego's Last Stand", "See the Leaves", and "Is David Bowie Dying?".

Look at all the best live bands you can think of, for me they're Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Radiohead, Tom Waits, and Wilco. Their sets are complete retrospectives, playing some hits, leaving some out, playing some standards, leaving some out, playing some obscure songs, leaving some out. That's what a good live show is, that's what a good live band does. That's artistic integrity, that's vitality and excitement and spontaneity. You could probably guess 3/4s of a Lips set off the top of your head. What fan wants to go see that? I could just watch UFOs at the Zoo again.

kwippleton wrote: »

Ever since Derek joined the band back in 2009, they've been so much better live, I think the best they have since Ronald left. The songs sound fuller and they aren't using as many backing tracks as they used to have to, and they've been trying to change up the setlist a little every night.

They shouldn't have to try, they should just be able to do it. That's what a good live band - a good band - does. I don't think The Flaming Lips are anymore.

kwippleton wrote: »

Check out this video from the other night.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mCZV3x1nk (yeah, The Captain is totally the new Space Bubble song)

That is very cool. I'm really looking forward to hearing The Captain at Forbidden Fruit now. Do you know if anything else off The Soft Bulletin Companion is getting played?

rcaz

kwippleton wrote: »

If you don't like them anymore, so be it. I mean, you already said that you only liked them because no one had ever heard of them.

lolwut?

I don't think someone who goes for bands for reasons like that would put so much effort into this discussion and try to make as many points of reference as I have.

kwippleton wrote: »

I think it's silly to expect a band to only try to please it's hardcore fans. When the Flaming Lips only start playing the old songs that the fans want to hear instead of focusing on new material, that will be when they've run out of 'artistic integrity'.

That's a good point. But I'm not asking for them to only do that. I said it in the above post a bit better.


Sorry for the edit war

Colm!

El Pr0n wrote: »

That "audiophile quality" stuff is such bull****, it has no impact on the quality of the sound.

THAT. The only reissues that the Flaming Lips have done that I'm impressed with are the 5.1 reissues, because they actually have an effect on how you listen to the album.

FewFew

El Pr0n wrote: »

This is their latest release. 4 songs on a memory stick that's inside a gummy skull. For $150.

I was very excited until you said it was $150 ... I was hoping for a playful lil quirky edible piece of joy. Charging $150 makes it nothing, not even edible (who the hell would eat the Gummi Venus de Milo)

El Pr0n wrote: »

Up till about a year or two ago it was the same show it's been since 1999

I used to really enjoy that, and every gig conjured up nostalgia for a previous gig which was prrrretty much the same but better due to less new songs.
Now I'm jaded by it though. People freaking out because he gets into a big ball... because he hasn't done that at possibly every gig past a certain point. I'm just cranky.

jill_valentine wrote: »

It's effective in a rabble-rousing hippy kind of way, but once you realise he probably says every single word on exactly the same beat every night of the tour, it leaves a fairly bad taste in the mouth.

That's why the gig where the dude was dying from his sinuses was somewhat refreshing... forced a wander off script

flyswatter

Did someone say Drozd left the band?

Off writing music elsewhere or something.

Colm!

They released a new EP with none other than Prefuse 73. Here's a sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr6mnrQDBC4

Yes. The song is actually called "The Super Moon Made Me Want to Pee!!!"

EDIT: I don't like this EP at all and it's really making me wonder if I'll like anything else by Prefuse 73, I've only one album by him (One Word Extinguisher) and I quite like that.

jill_valentine

Ooooooooooh Wayne. Wayne, no.

Executive Steve

El Pr0n wrote: »

That "audiophile quality" stuff is such bull****, it has no impact on the quality of the sound, it just means the records are harder to warp, which isn't an issue if you keep your vinyl properly.

180 gram virgin vinyl reissues are not bull**** at all actually, granted the sound quality mightn't be improved at all but the thicker and heavier a record is cut (180 grams being the heaviest) the deeper the grooves the cutting head in the pressing plant can make, allowing a louder signal to be transmitted. The use of (much more expensive) "virgin vinyl" rather than a blend of previously reused vinyl pellets avoids the presence of impurities in the cake which then gets pressed down into a record.

Admittedly that's of absolutely ZERO use to a flaming lips fan who is playing their ridiculously overpriced represses on a home stereo system rather than a full Funktion 1 or Void Acoustics rig at a well equipped club or a small festival tent, and most rock albums over the years have been pressed with three or four tracks per side on wafer thin vinyl anyway, but to say it's "audiophile nonsense" isn't quite true (certainly not given the absolute twaddle circulated by the audiophile community - never trust a bald man in his 40's who spends more on his speakers than he spends on his tunes).


Rarely pop into this forum, lots of belly laughs watching (presumably) aging rock fans grow dissatisfied with songs about drugs and pussy... Easy Listening / Jazz forum is over that way folks.......

jill_valentine

It's an indie/alternative forum. Most of us are in our 20s, grandad.

It's just a shame to watch a band that used to be restless and effortlessly imaginative settle into their own caricature like that. I'm not a huge Flaming Lips fan, but it's hard not to look at the stuff they do now and feel a bit embarrassed for them.

Miguel_Sanchez

jill_valentine wrote: »

It's an indie/alternative forum. Most of us are in our 20s, grandad.

With a few older folk here to make sure ye all behave.

jill_valentine

And tell us stories about this Bowie lad we've been hearing so much about now and then.

rcaz

Executive Steve wrote: »

180 gram virgin vinyl reissues are not bull**** at all actually, granted the sound quality mightn't be improved at all but the thicker and heavier a record is cut (180 grams being the heaviest) the deeper the grooves the cutting head in the pressing plant can make, allowing a louder signal to be transmitted. The use of (much more expensive) "virgin vinyl" rather than a blend of previously reused vinyl pellets avoids the presence of impurities in the cake which then gets pressed down into a record.

Admittedly that's of absolutely ZERO use to a flaming lips fan who is playing their ridiculously overpriced represses on a home stereo system rather than a full Funktion 1 or Void Acoustics rig at a well equipped club or a small festival tent, and most rock albums over the years have been pressed with three or four tracks per side on wafer thin vinyl anyway, but to say it's "audiophile nonsense" isn't quite true (certainly not given the absolute twaddle circulated by the audiophile community - never trust a bald man in his 40's who spends more on his speakers than he spends on his tunes).


Rarely pop into this forum, lots of belly laughs watching (presumably) aging rock fans grow dissatisfied with songs about drugs and pussy... Easy Listening / Jazz forum is over that way folks.......

They would be able to cut deeper grooves in the vinyl, but they don't, regardless of the mass of the vinyl it get cuts by the same lathes with the same depth.

Interesting about the 'virgin vinyl' think, I'd heard the phrase before but didn't have it explained. I wonder what kind of difference that makes...

Well, everyone's aging, aren't they? :pac:

Executive Steve

El Pr0n wrote: »

They would be able to cut deeper grooves in the vinyl, but they don't, regardless of the mass of the vinyl it get cuts by the same lathes with the same depth.

Interesting about the 'virgin vinyl' think, I'd heard the phrase before but didn't have it explained. I wonder what kind of difference that makes...

I suppose they wouldn't really bother cutting THAT deeply on rock or metal releases (where they're cutting three or four tracks per side of vinyl and haven't the space to cut any deeper, and where the dominant frequencies wouldn't neccesarily overlap - mastering houses that master vinyl for indie bands would stick to teh conservative end of the RIAA equalisation guidelines... The likes of Valve, Transition, Dubplates & Mastering will - especially on a one off acetate cut - be focusing on volume and bass and not worrying if it sounds crap on a home system because they're cutting it for playing on big sound systems) but on the records I would buy there is a definite perceptible loudness increase on the thicker plates (cut with one track per side).


Virgin vinyl would essentially just reduce impurities and eradicate the little airbubbles that cause needle skippage and sound artifacts - it's a bloody nightmare when you've spent a tenner on a tune and it's rendered unplayable because of a pop-lock or a bit crackle in the breakdown or whatever.

rcaz

Executive Steve wrote: »

I suppose they wouldn't really bother cutting THAT deeply on rock or metal releases (where they're cutting three or four tracks per side of vinyl and haven't the space to cut any deeper, and where the dominant frequencies wouldn't neccesarily overlap - mastering houses that master vinyl for indie bands would stick to teh conservative end of the RIAA equalisation guidelines... The likes of Valve, Transition, Dubplates & Mastering will - especially on a one off acetate cut - be focusing on volume and bass and not worrying if it sounds crap on a home system because they're cutting it for playing on big sound systems) but on the records I would buy there is a definite perceptible loudness increase on the thicker plates (cut with one track per side).

That's interesting. I've never heard of any of that stuff before, feel like bit of a tit now. Guess I shouldn't take on a professional DJ in a record conversation without knowing he's a professional DJ first...

So is that stuff produced for a 2.1 system instead of plain stereo?