Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin

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Music reviews of Soft Bulletin

Music Review: An incredible triumph for alternative post-psychedelia.
Rating: 5 Stars

The whole judging factor is when you ignore the album for a week and pick it up again, that's when you get it. In a way, what the Flaming Lips do on this album is reintroduce the attitude and sound of jolly dreamscape songs (say, "Singing in the Rain" perhaps) and add a grunge crush, making the album no less than eclectic. The Lips may first seem to exploit bad musicianship, like off-beat drumming and synthesized full-fledged orchestras, which is unlike anything heard much in the last decade, but when put under the Lips's spell, they're giving you the biggest high without taking a single drug.

The mastermind of this album is Wayne Coyne, whose high-pitched songs always sound like they belong on the soundtrack to Breakfast at Tiffany's (like the "Heart and Soul" progression of the piano in "The Spiderbite Song"). He's also the vocalist which, as I mentioned earlier, can be Barbara Streisand's worst nightmare. Then again, that's the point.

"Race for the Prize" and "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" are perfect ways to start an album. Race is a peppy song with a great melody and wacky mixing. "Spoonful" on the other hand shows the budding maturity in the material of the Lips. The song is well structured and attempts to go cinematic in its composition.

Probably one of the best written and performed songs on the album is "The Spark That Bled," a six-minute epic about that feeling one gets when he or she suddenly gets a huge burst of inspiration from out of nowhere. Coyne relates this event to being pierced in the head with "the softest bullet ever shot." The music perfectly compliments the actions in the song, putting a "Peter and the Wolf" brilliance in its writing. The synthesized orchestras are more than tolerable, they're essential. They match Coyne's whine perfectly. The song also progresses fluidly, making the entire experience very cinematic. It could be said that this is the song that will help you enjoy this album the most.

From here on out songs tend to flow from one to another. "The Spiderbite Song" and "Buggin" and fun listens, meanwhile you're taken to psychedelic heights with "What is the Light?" and "The Observer."

Wayne Coyne has an interesting way of putting the most reality into his lyrics when his musicianship is anything but. Picture this conversation from "Waitin for a Superman": "I asked you a question, but I didn't need you to reply. 'Is it getting heavy?' but then I realized, "Is it getting heavy?! Well I thought it was already as heavy as can be!'" A perfectly normal embarrassing moment for someone taken by surprise when Superman drops by, but that entire monologue is the song's lyric. The melody is somewhat familiar, but still a sweet tune that begs to be sung along to.

"Suddenly Everything Has Changed" is the most awkward of the songs on the album. Though it has an interesting development and ultimate breakdown, it can be seen as skippable.

The next song, though, will catch anyone off-guard. A huge sudden chorus comes in and takes you into the song. It's at first so awkward and strange, but this is another one of Coyne's lyrical and musical masterpieces. "The Gash" is a cry of defeat in battle, and the chorus helps in its message. The music carries such an energy that breaks down to an ending I haven't heard since "I am the Walrus."

"Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" starts with an innovative vocal drum beat, and comes with another wonderful melody, while the lyrics carry the message of love being the reason to live, otherwise you're feeling yourself disintegrate. Right afterwards is the closer to the album, "Sleeper on the Roof" and taking a cue from "Observer", sticks to one riff and plays with it to a silent finale. This mellow end is a fitting ending to a rather colorful assortment of songs.

This album has been praised as the best album of 1999. It certainly is one of the most concentrated, solid and musical contributions ever produced, and it is sadly disappearing into history. This album has a replay value that could go on for weeks for some people and is definitely worth the two weeks to get used to the over-the-top production and chippy melodies. Wayne put it best when he said his concerts were like birthday parties for nine-year-olds. His music also gives off the sense that he, himself, has never left being nine-years-old. If that is so, it's to our best interest, then, that he never reaches puberty.

Description of Soft Bulletin

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

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