Review Summary: They don't even care
On record store day, The Flaming Lips released their newest product,
The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. This compilation features many artists that no one would ever even think would ever be on a project with The Flaming Lips, such as Ke$ha, Yoko Ono, Chris Martin, and that one dude from My Morning Jacket, his name might be Brian but I really don’t know. Almost similar to
Embryonic and the
Dark Side of the Moon cover, yet something totally different, this compilation manages to be extremely weird yet thoroughly enjoyable. With its fair share of fuzzy riffs, electronics, and slow spacey songs, these songs come together to form a consistent album that’s actually pretty good. The slow melodic “Helping the Retarded to Find God,” paints a picture in your mind of a Christian doctor in a stone garden trying to help someone with Down syndrome locate the Almighty. “I’m Working At NASA on Acid” is somewhat of a stoner anthem, distortion and a sweet rhythm hanging out like the nutsack of a male prostitute, and its successor with Yoko Ono lays down a sweet groove as well. Of course you’re all wondering “What’s the Ke$ha song like?” and I'm just going to type it out for you. It rules. Take your preconceptions about her and exile them like the Shah of Iran. The Lips keep her in check and drop some sweet distortion and she sings about her rump all while you nod your head to the beat. “Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee” is chock full of good psychedelic riffs, and lyrics, and gets the energy of the album up. The song with that Erika chick is like pretty good but probably too long for its own good at 10 minutes of droning psychedelia. Oh and the Chris Martin track was underwhelming.
Basically this compilation is a collection of the Lips’ latest results of dicking around lightheartedly. My biggest complaint is that it didn’t have enough songs that were actually really groovy, like some off of
Mystics. If you haven’t heard this be hearing it now.
