Zaireeka was recorded while they were piecing together the simplest, most anthemic record in their catalog: The Soft Bulletin, a permanent fixture in best-of-decade lists. They followed up the winningly daft alt-rock breakout hit “She Don’t Use Jelly” with Clouds Taste Metallic, an album of honed, buzzy guitar-pop tunes, then followed that with Zaireeka, a record designed to be heard on up to four CD players simultaneously. The band has ebbed between periods of intense experimentation and relatively straightforward songcraft.
For 30 years, he’s been the Flaming Lips’ own Paul McCartney, the man who keeps things moving by setting creative challenges, enlisting collaborators, and providing indefatigable enthusiasm. It connects whether your sympathies lie with punk, urbanity or secular humanism.) Of course, the Lips broke out of the Sooner State with one hell of a psychedelic crowbar: Wayne Coyne, a restless, boundlessly energetic musician and performer. (Their wonderful origin story holds that the band heisted its instruments from a church. And like Guided By Voices, Melvins, and Ozric Tentacles (and unlike the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who’ve had four between-album gaps of four-plus years) they’ve maintained a steady release schedule for decades.Īll of this - the longstanding major-label relationship, the continued relevance, the tens of thousands of people gleefully becoming hamster-ball supports - is remarkable stuff for a one-time acid-punk band out of Oklahoma City. Unlike fellow ’83 alums Phish, Camper Van Beethoven, and My Bloody Valentine, who had their own reasons for pulling the plug, the Lips have never taken an extended hiatus, despite major lineup changes and personal struggles.
Of the Class of ’83, the Flaming Lips have outlasted Bathory, Killdozer, Poison, and the Jesus & Mary Chain. This happy, heady band of self-tabbed freaks has indulged nearly every creative whim in a career that has taken them from Oklahoma (state rock song: “Do You Realize?”) to the festival circuit, which they rule on the regular. The first anniversary reflects the band’s perseverance the second, their canniness. Which is more amazing: that 2013 marks 30 years of the Flaming Lips as a functioning concern, or that it heralds the 23rd year of their partnership with Warner Bros.
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