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intereact!The Flaming Lips
Retail Price (not our price): $11.98
Release Date: 1999-06-22
Manufacturer: Warner Bros / Wea
Format: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Track List
Now here, for your listening pleasure, the tracks...
| Disc 1 |
Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
1) Amazon.com's Best of 1999
The crazed genius of the Lips comes to full flower on the sonically massive and majestic The Soft Bulletin. Head Lip Wayne Coyne compounds the band's penchant for psychedelic freak-outs with a symphonic extravaganza. The result is nothing short of magnificent, not only the best rock album of the year, but among the best recordings of the decade. In 30 years, your grandkids are going to think you're pretty damned cool for having The Soft Bulletin in your collection. --Tod Nelson2) Amazon.com essential recording
The Flaming Lips' particular and peculiar genius comes to full fruition on the stupendous The Soft Bulletin. Anyone who had the gumption to actually listen to Zaireeka, a song cycle that could only be heard by playing four CDs at the exact same time on different stereos, knows that head Lip Wayne Coyne and his Oklahoma City brethren had it in them. That album, along with the Lips' Parking Lot Experiments, offered proof that Coyne wasn't playing by the same rules as everyone else. He was growing up and away from the splenetic psychedelic freak-outs of earlier albums and emerging as a first-rate composer--perhaps the first alt-rock star to earn such status.The Soft Bulletin is absolutely colossal, a testament to their position as the vanguard of a movement that includes Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs, and Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage. As with those albums, Bulletin shares a love of cosmic, vaguely psychedelic pop and a closet full of pet sounds. But the Flaming Lips only uses these as a launch pad for rocketing into ethereal sonic space. Although Bulletin steps back from Zaireeka's over-the-top indulgence, it manages to be symphonic, bombastic, outrageous, and damned catchy--while still oozing the band's unique weirdness. The sound is massive and complex; gongs, harps, grand piano, bells, pipe organ, strings, oboes, choral harmonies, and, strangely, very, very little guitar squall all merge into one wall--no, wall of sound doesn't do it justice. It's a cliff of sound, propelled by drummer Steven Drozd's tremendous pounding. On top of it all, Coyne's sweet but ravaged voice yields tender lyrics that tag a catalog of Lips stalwarts, such as insects, spirituality, and superheroes. One imagines Coyne in front of a full orchestra, urging them to keep up as he sings, "Ooh, those bugs / buzzing 'round..." on "Buggin." But the Lips orchestrated the entire album in their studio, sometimes manipulating more than 200 separate tracks to achieve Bulletin's vast symphonic excess. Each song is a rare gem. "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" sounds like a collusion of Bach and Tricky. "The Spark That Bled" infuses a fey, Belle and Sebastian-esque ditty with Led Zeppelin-like funky swagger. "The Spiderbite Song" is a shotgun wedding between a tender piano ballad and the industrial noise of things falling apart. "The Gash" is just too singular to adequately describe. It'll be interesting to hear what the Lips do next. If The Soft Bulletin is any indication at all, they can do anything they please. And we can't possibly imagine what it will sound like. --Tod Nelson
Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
1) Knocked me socks off! [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Lying down in the dark listening to The Soft Bulletin letting the music take you on its wonder journey is a delicious experience engaging emotions and mind.2) This album is probably really good... [Rating: 2 out of 5]
...but i wouldn't know, because i can never manage to listen to it all the way through without wanting to change it. don't get me wrong, i've listened the all the songs. i thought this would be one of those cds that just takes me awhile to get used to. i think after about 2 years of owning it, i can say i will probably never like it. the songs are bad, they are just ardously boring. wayne coyne doesn't have a great voice, but he makes it work on other albums, but the vocals stand out here, and that is not a good thing. "giving more than they had" in Spoonful never ceases to make me cringe. the instrumentation is all well and good (but yes, still boring. a good boring, but boring nonetheless), so i think the reason this album fails in my opinion is the vocals. even when the tempo is fast, like the sweet drum beat in "where is the light" he'll just drag out that "cause.....it's.......natuuuuural....." none of the songs on here come close to the best songs on yoshimi, or dare i say even, "she don't jelly". but i know a lot of people listen to boring bands, so if you are one of those people, go right ahead, dig in.3) "They're just humans with wives and children." [Rating: 4 out of 5]
When I think of The Flaming Lips, I think of the somewhat-electronic, extremely happy sound of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I honestly have no idea what they sounded like before. All I know is that after their guitarist left, they decided to change their sound and make a particularly crazy release (A quadruple album with the four discs intended to be listened to simultaneously) called Zaireeka. Afterwards they made The Soft Bulletin, which was extremely acclaimed critically and laid the framework for who they are now.The Flaming Lips never completely gelled with me the way they seem to do with other people. I like them, but I don't quite find them amazing as bigger fans. They do a lot of nice things, and have made some really great, catchy songs. But they never blow me away, and some of their stuff doesn't seem to go anywhere. They have a very pleasant sound, and at their best some of their tunes might as well be the essence of joy, even if the subject matter of the often strange lyrics aren't. They can also still rock a bit too though, with some nice harder parts and solid bass, including a lot of synth. They never really do what other bands do when they want to make noise, but it's still fun to listen to."Race for the Prize" is a perfect encapsulation of what's good about the Flaming Lips, with the infectious melody and distorted vocals. "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" starts off sounding pleasantly orchestral before breaking into the drum and bass part that can only be described as awesome. "The Spiderbite Song" is more of the reason I don't like the band so much. There's a bit of potential but there just isn't much there musically, and the vocals sound more like he's just talking in his singing voice than an actual tune. "Buggin'" is actually a bit traditional sounding for them, but is a nice, enjoyable song. "What Is the Light?" starts with a repeating bass drum that carries through the song and lasts into the next, which is a nice instrumental. It starts off very minimally but builds to a nice crescendo before coming back down. "Waiting for a Superman" is a good, drum and piano-heavy song. I love "The Gash". It starts off sounding like a truly epic song from a final confrontation in a movie or something before moving into a nice groove with somewhat disconcerting vocals. There are another couple nice songs before the album ends a bit strangely. There are repeats of "Race for the Prize" and "Waiting for a Superman", with some slight changes, but nothing enough that seems to really warrant it. I don't mind since they're both good songs, it just seemed weird. I liked The Soft Bulletin more than Yoshimi, but I still didn't love it. It is a good listen, though.4) Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. [Rating: 5 out of 5]
I've owned this album now for 6 years. My friend gave it to me then, and said, "Listen to this. It's amazing." I admit, I didn't really get it. But there was something there. So I kept listening. Eventually, I began to love this album. And then, at some point, I started to loved this album. It's still in my regular listening, a position held by very few others. And still, I feel like I only really "got" what the songs, both individually and thematically as a whole, are about somewhere around 2 months now. And that realization was beautiful. I hope, as I keep listening, that there's more to uncover. The Soft Bulletin is one of those albums I keep coming back to, because it's so beautiful, because it rocks, because it's poignant, and because it's mysterious even though it seems so straightforward. This is one of those truly great pieces of art, comparable, I think, not only to the great rock albums of our time, but to the great musical works of any era - Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt included. A beautiful meditation on life, love, and loss.5) um...it's the flaming lips! what do you expect!? [Rating: 5 out of 5]
As a long-time fan of the lips, this album is totally awesome. can't say much more.