The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips, “Assassination of the Sun”

We here at Five Songs are big fans of EPs, when bands treat them seriously. You get a good chunk of new material, enough to be satisfying, but they often come out as a surprise. It’s good stuff! This comes from Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, an EP that came out in the wake of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, so during their peak period. The remixes of songs from Yoshimi are fine, whatever, but getting four new tunes from this period is fantastic.

Sharon Jones, “Make It Good To Me”

Fuck me, listen to that organ. I try and play a decent amount of soul around the kids, because it’s just such amazing music, and with luck, they’ll get the same appreciation of it. I try not to make a big deal about it, but my dad used to do the same thing, and it just kind of seeped into my brain. I’m trying the same approach, as it worked on me!

You know, now that I’m not linking out to YouTube, I suppose I don’t have to do these intros, do I? I mean, I don’t have to do any of this, I suppose.

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Same”

Our first go-around with Oneohtrix Point Never, with a track off his best album since Replica. Rather than diving deep on a time period and exploring all the sounds from there, Age Of draws widely from whatever noises Daniel Lopatin wants to use. The result is unpredictable, but always interesting, and not a bad spot to start listening to OPN.

Today!

The Flaming Lips, “Be Free, A Way”

On 2013’s The Terror, The Flaming Lips were using their psychedelia to explore not shiny wonder but the depths of despair. With Wayne Coyne’s romantic life falling apart and Steven Drozd again struggling with substance abuse, the Lips were not in a good place in their personal lives, and it comes through in the stark bleakness of their music. Piercing and melancholy, The Terror is one of their best records, although it’s not always a whole lot of fun.

Today!

Queens of the Stone Age, “You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire”

This is one of those songs where that little opening background riff will just pop into my head and stay there for hours and hours, just looping. It’s not unpleasant! This album just smokes, front to back.

Gorilla Biscuits, “(Untitled Hidden)”

I think I’ve introduced this old-ass straight-edge hardcore band before, so instead, I’ll just mention that they contributed personnel to Quicksand, which we heard from yesterday. As for the track itself, on my copy of Start Today, there is a series of little sub-10 second “songs” which are indistinguishable and unnamed. And, because of stupid tech limitations, I can’t tell which one this is. So, I’ll do another song today.

Pretty good one today.

Public Enemy, “Give It Up”

Pretty sure I’ve talked about how uneven Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age is, and it really is. It’s the album that marks the sharp decline of PE from the legendary band to the often baffling outfit that’s still out there still making stuff. But the album really has some peaks. This is one of them. The beat is dense and bouncy, Chuck kicks several different flows, and they basically capture their glory days. The verse that kicks off “I never did represent doin’ dumb shit” is one of my favorite verses from him ever.

Pretty uninspiring today.

Hurl, “Faceman”

Another fine song from old Pittsburgh band Hurl. There’s an expansiveness, a warmth here that’s really pleasant to listen to.

Negativland, “In The Beginning, So Many Different Kinds Of Gods…”

Yeah, I’m kind of mad at some of the choices that Past Josh made. This is, of all damn things, a live album of a recreation of a radio show.

And, look, I couldn’t get this “song” uploaded. My conversion things keep crashing. So, screw it, we’re going to do an extra today.

Today’s music.

The Flaming Lips, “Stand in Line”

Prior to turning into the atmospheric, melancholy, fuzzed-out band they are today, the Flaming Lips were an experimental, drugged-out psych band that really didn’t know where things were going, but didn’t particularly care. They released a series of albums that you can charitably describe as “uneven” but most would probably categorize as “unlistenable”. They started going in the right direction with 1990’s In A Priest Driven Ambulance, which gives us today’s song. Somehow, Warner Brothers signed them to a major label based on this record. Anyway, I actually like it better than the immediately following album, and this albums is where to stop if you’re going backwards through the Lips’ discography.

I kind of feel like I should give a Jim Anchower-style apology here for disappearing for a while, but the truth is, I was traveling and didn’t queue up any entries for while I was gone. Sorry about that! Back into the music mines with me, though!

The Microphones, “I Am Bored”

That was not the triumphant, rockin’ return I was hoping for. Oh well. Live by the shuffle, die by the shuffle. Anyway, I like the breakdown at the end of this song.

Starts slow, but some interesting stuff today.

Coldplay, “Swallowed In The Sea”

Like I said last time, I’ll defend the first couple albums, but this album (X&Y), NOOOOPE. Too boring.

The Flaming Lips, “Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand”

Well, I’m not sure what to do with this album. This is from Zaireeka, the transitional album between *Clouds Taste Metallic and The Soft Bulletin. So, what’s the problem? Well, at the time, the Flaming Lips were doing a lot of experimenting with how music is played back. They were doing “car stereo orchestras”, where they got a ton of cars together and gave each of them a specific tape, to be played in unison to produce a single piece. They decided, hey, that’s cool, and went for an at-home version of that with Zaireeka.