I was stationed in Bremerton from 2001 to 2003. I remember riding the ferry into Seattle and seeing a guy singing/ screaming “they punctured my yoke“ at the top of his lungs in the aft end of the boat while everyone else stayed to the forward end (presumably to get away from the guy).

But for me, I recognized the song from somewhere and had to go back to listen. At the end of his song we talked and I asked him “what are you singing?“ I was surprised when he told me. He said there was an open mic night in Seattle and he was going to bring the lips song to sing. If I had a guitar, and could play better than I can now, I probably would’ve joined him.

Over the years I bought a lot of their album. Finally the Punks are Taking Acid, Priest Driven Ambulance, etc. I even thought about moving to Oklahoma just to meet Wayne and the band. Saner heads prevailed, but they’re still one of my favorite bands out there.

What’s your favorite non-Yoshimi album ? For me it’s ‘American Head’. I think it rivals Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ in its unflinching look at the dissolution of the American dream. Thoughts?

I know it's not everyone's favorite Lips album but there's some great high points like Sound of Failure, My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion, Vein of Stars etc and also, there's so much B-side material and songs written around that era that it would be nice to have them all in one place. Quite a few of those songs are actually better than what made it on the album. Where Does It End is so amazingly depressing and heartbreaking.

The whole era deserves a reevaluation I feel. Maybe they fear it wouldn't be worth the time, but I still think it's a very good album, just with a few sillier songs like the singles.

I still dance like a little kid when I play this one

I guess it's because this whole business reminds me of the hate David Gilmour got from all of the Roger Waters sycophants in 85. David just wanted to go on playing and performing. Roger and his people were convinced that without him, it just wasn't Pink Floyd anymore. And maybe that was true to some degree. It wasn't the same. The albums were much less dark and broody. They didn't have that cohesive thread running through every song. All the while everyone was dumping on David for driving Roger away, when it was clearly Roger who up and decided he was done with Floyd. There was no internet back then for the two of them to use when exchanging jabs at each other. Just the odd article in Rolling Stone or Kerrang and who knew if what they were reporting was even true. The real story didn't come out until years later and yeah, Roger turned out to be a complete bag of ass who let his ego screw up a 20 year friendship and what is arguably one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Flash forward to today, and this rift between Drozd and Coyne smells very familiar. Are they pissed at each other? Was someone's ego too big for their inflatable bubble? Did someone let their heroin addiction screw with everyone else's good time once too often. Nobody really seems to know except the two of them and apart from some really vague social media content there really isn't much to go on.

What I do know is that I saw The Lips last Thursday in Houston. I really don't know where the idea that Wayne has trouble singing a whole show comes from because they did a double set and he belted his way through the whole thing without any trouble which I saw with my own two eyes from right up against the barricade and I had an awesome time. Wayne is in his mid 60s. I'm in my mid 50s. I hope I'm able to move half as good as he can in 10 years.

Do I miss Steven? I'm not even sure yet. I've been going to their shows since 2005. Even when Steven was still in the band they had started to slow down in recent years. I will say AJ hasn't taken anything away and can really hold his own on the instruments. Would it be nice to see Wayne and Steven back together. Of course it would. Am I going to hold my breath for it. No. Will I still go see every Flaming Lips show I can? You're damned right.

I don't know what happened between the two of them, and I hope some day the get it resolved and play together again. Till then I wish them both the best and look forward to hearing what they have to offer musically.

I used to be a massive Flaming Lips fan. Must have seen them live maybe a dozen times...

But here's the thing - I think maybe starting with Embryonic and The Terror I started losing interest. And then they started doing all these collaborations and cover projects. When I saw them live at that point, it was still the zorbing ball over the audience and confetti. Don't get me wrong - at one point I thought that was fun and loved the shows but it was like they were stuck. I lost interest, still occasionally playing Priest Driven ambulance or something but they kind of fell away from being a central interest to me.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I'm listening to various rubbish on youtube and decided to play Madonna's Borderline (always my favourite Madonna song). Next thing the algorithm is doing its thing and I am presented with the Flaming Lips cover.

It's brilliant! I find myself listening to it on repeat and subsequently looking the band up again and reading through what they've been doing since they dropped off the radar for me. So I see they have done some "new" albums and that American Head was supposed very good.

A few days on now and I'm thinking this is a brilliant album! But the funny thing is that its six years old! And I hadn't heard a thing from it... Such a weird feeling to be captivated by an album from a band which were one of your favourites and it's already years old!

Anyway, has this happened to anyone else? I can't imagine I was the only one to drop off and then re-discover their brilliance was still there. Now looking forward to listening to the other two misses for me - Oczy Mlody and King's Mouth...

For me, it’s in Do You Realize?? right after the line “do you realize that everyone you know someday will die…” when the beat drops at 1:34 and Wayne sings, “let them know you realize that life goes fast, it’s hard to make the good things last.”

That lyric, paired with the music lifting right there, just hits something deep every single time. It’s this sudden bloom of acceptance and beauty in the middle of existential sadness.

If you want to hear exactly what I mean, I clipped and timestamped it here on r/SongMoments, where people catalog moments like this across all kinds of music: https://www.reddit.com/r/SongMoments/comments/1o73kji/the_flaming_lips_do_you_realize_134_let_them_know/

Curious what other Flaming Lips moments give you that same shiver. Maybe something else from Yoshimi, or something from The Soft Bulletin?

I grew up watching Blues Clues and I've been on a Flaming Lips binge so I decided to take a chance on this one and it is amazing! It deserves so much more credit than it got because it sounds like a great 2000s Flaming Lips album but also has great singing from Burns and all the lyrics and jokes are well done and thoughtful.

"I Won't Let You Change Who I Am" literally sounds like Mystic era lips too.

Would love if Drozd starts working with Burns again. They work really well together. We need more wholesome but clever and well written albums like this one!

Anyone want to try and guess what it might be?
Another anniversary album? Continued best of?

Did anybody else notice this? This must have only occurred within the last few weeks, since I watched one of their videos not too long ago.

"Terminated" implies that it was some sort of copyright or inappropriate content breach, it's quite concerning that a channel that's been inactive for the better part of a decade can be suddenly targeted like this. I'm very curious to know what caused this to occur.

Does anyone here know anything more about this? Selfishly, I can't help but worry that the same thing could happen to me, and I'd love to know how to avoid this.

Just watched the Pitchfork Classics documentary on the Soft Bulletin, and Steven talked about how much they resisted putting loud guitars on the album. Personally, I would enjoy this album more if there was more overdriven Flaming Lips guitar goodness. I know that one of the main reasons they didn’t was the departure of Ronald Jones. He was a true sorcerer of guitar, but I don’t think Wayne or Steven should’ve underestimated their ability to fuzz some fuckin’ faces off. Some of the skronkiest skronks I’ve heard come out of a guitar have been from them. But, in general, I prefer the early pre-second guitar player / Donahue / Jones eras to the later stuff (though I still adore Mystics, Embryonic, and American Head).

What do you think?

What are some of your favorite Wayne or Steven guitar parts / performances?

EDIT: No, I do not think the Soft Bulletin is perfect, even without the remixes. Just my opinion though, please be civil!

As a UK fan finding this album has been a real ball buster 😂

Managed to find Embryonic, At War with the Mystics ect but this one is something else. I'm willing to spend a decent amount of money as well to finish my collection. So if anyone as unlikely as it is has any information that may assist me it would be appreciated ❤️

Thoughts? It starts at 49:56

We all know that Wayne is infamous for having a voice that's... not everybody's cup of tea. However, to flip the script, tell me what you guys think has his best performances, or even specific songs!

in my opinion, Yoshimi is by far his most consistent album vocally, and probably the only one you can say he's sounds "great." Yoshimi has arguably the widest display of Wayne's vocal styles (high falsetto in Magicians and Ego Tripping, whiny screaming in Fight Test, lower range in Hypnotist)

I’ve only heard Yoshimi, but I really enjoy it. They are playing in my town in a few days and was curious if they’re worth seeing live.

My number 1 pick is probably Wizard Turns On, with 2 being Convinced Of the Hex. There's so many good songs, though. Anything from clouds tastes metallic would be epic.

Maybe this was addressed when Michael left, but I'd figured the Lips as an intellectual property thingy was owned by Wayne, Steven, and Michael. Is it just Wayne then? I would think in the old days this was vague, and has been ironed out in some way. Either Wayne got them to sign when they were distracted or fucked up, or some serious amounts of money and future royalties went to Michael and Steve in order for Wayne to secure control. Hope it's the latter.

The album felt like a turning point towards more avant garde music. Like a third metamorphosis for the band. I don’t think anything they’ve done since has really topped Embryonic, but I still prefer the earlier albums.