The Flaming Lips [Album Covers]

Clouds Taste Metallic / Hit to Death in the Future Head / The Soft Bulletin	$[ 2 / 37 ] 1986 Hear It Is Hearing Hear It Is years later, after all the band had done up to the new century, makes for an almost surreal experience. No swirling orchestral parts, no Beach Boys-on-Mars homages, even Wayne Coynes immediately recognizable cracked fracture of a voice isnt present. Instead, its raunchy bar-band-gone-insane fun or calmer but not too wracked ruminations from Coyne, with music to match. It isnt as completely discontinuous as might be thought, though -- Coynes vision was already distinctly gone, in ways that most bands would kill for. The gentle acoustic strumming that starts the album on "With You" or the steady pace and mournful singing on "Godzilla Flick" shows that subtlety was as much a part of the game as stomping, fried electric guitar insanity. Throughout Hear It Is, theres a gleeful "try what works" approach that would only become stronger later -- the band may have been punk-inspired and birthed, but Coyne and company drew on everything from country & western to classic rock crunch and more; there are even some clear early goth rock touches. If anybody was kin at the time, it would be the Meat Puppets, with perhaps a little less interest in high lonesome sounds. Texas psych types like the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Krayola were clear forebears -- one can easily imagine Roky Erickson coming up with shaggy dog stories and music for the likes of "Trains, Brains and Rain." The groups own uniqueness comes through, though. Consider the blunt imagery of "Jesus Shootin Heroin" or the clearly humorous yells and climax of "Charlie Manson Blues" as two examples of many. Initial CD versions of the album included the self-titled EP, while later pressings only added an enthusiastic fuzz-take of Eddie Cochran-via-Blue Cheers "Summertime Blues."$ 1986 Hear It Is SR	1987 Oh My Gawd!!!… The Flaming Lips S	1989 Telepathic Surgery SR
1990 In a Priest Driven Ambulance SR	1992 Hit to Death in the Future Head SR	1993 Transmissions From the Satellite Heart SR	1995 Clouds Taste Metallic SR
1997 Zaireeka R	1999 The Soft Bulletin SR	2002 Yoshimi Wins: Live Radio Sessions	2002 Finally the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid: 1983-1988
2002 Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots SR	2002 The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg R	2005 LateNightTales: The Flaming Lips	2005 20 Years of Weird: The Flaming Lips 1986-2006
2005 Void: Video Overview In Deceleration	2006 At War With the Mystics SR	2007 iTunes Originals	2009 Embryonic SR
2009 The Dark Side of the Moon SR	2011 Heady Nuggs: The First 5 Warner Bros. Records 1992-2002	2011 7 Skies H3 S	2012 The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends SR
2012 Playing Hide and Seek With the Ghosts of Dawn	2013 The Terror SR	2013 The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound	$[ 28 / 37 ] 2014 With a Little Help From My Fwends Though it may seem like a quaint, family-friendly entry into their iconic discography, the Beatles made major waves with the release of their eighth album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1967. With wildly intricate and far-out production that wowed listeners, and possible references to drugs and counterculture to freak out the establishment, the proto-concept album would become a major influence on psychedelic music for decades to come. Looking to revisit this landmark album, Oklahomas fearless freaks the Flaming Lips reinvent the classic album with a slew of guests on With a Little Help from My Fwends. No strangers to the covers album, having previously reworked Pink Floyds The Dark Side of the Moon and King Crimsons In the Court of the Crimson King, the Lips, along with an army of guests, artfully transform the album from an intricate pop masterpiece to a fractured, acid-fried freakout. With its skittish and fuzzed-out production and tendency to shift direction on a whim, the album feels as though its trying to re-create the feeling of hearing an album like Sgt. Peppers for the first time in 1967, re-creating that feeling that absolutely anything could happen at any moment. Like some of their past collaborations, the album shows that not all fwends are created equal, so even though cuts like "Getting Better" can be pretty uneven, guests like Miley Cyrus and Tegan and Sara on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Lovely Rita," respectively, provide the bands sound with a new dimension and attitude, providing With a Little Help from My Fwends with the kind of eclectic atmosphere that made the original so charming. Although die-hard Beatles fans might see the album as a bit blasphemous, the Flaming Lips treatment of the classic work makes it clear the band have a great respect for the Fab Fours legacy and influence, making the album a wonderful distraction that provides fans with a window into the influences of one of rocks most enduring and joyously weird bands.$ 2014 With a Little Help From My Fwends SR
2014 Imagene Peise - Atlas Eets Christmas S	2015 Heady Nuggs: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic 1994-1997 SR	2017 Oczy Mlody SR	2018 Scratching the Door: The First Recordings of the Flaming Lips SR
2018 Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (Deluxe Edition)	2018 Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of the Flaming Lips 1986-1990 S	2018 Death Trippin at Sunrise: Rarities, B-Sides & Flexi Discs: 1986-1990	2018 The Mushroom Tapes
2019 King’s Mouth: Music and Songs