Music Monday: Flaming Lips’ Latest Is Moody and Masterful

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Flaming Lips
Embryonic
Warner Bros.

Confession: I don’t know much about The Flaming Lips. Sure, I’ve heard a few of their big songs, like “She Don’t Use Jelly” and my favorite, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” But it was from a mostly neophyte perspective that I listened to their latest release, Embryonic.

Verdict: Why have I been missing out on these guys? From the opening strains of “Convinced Of The Hex” to the closing growl of “Watching The Planets,” the Lips create a hypnotic, moody world reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s epic “Dark Side of the Moon.”

The group’s neatest hat trick is to be both sprawling and focused, due in large part to thematic consistency between its lyrics and music. While the tone of the album is often animalistic—pounding drums, primal vocals—the lyrics literalize the concept in tunes like “Worm Mountain” and “I Can Be a Frog” (featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Karen O doing creature impersonations). Similarly, in “Evil,” when a cacophonous melody gives way to sparse beauty, frontman Wayne Coyne croons, See the sun, it’s trying again.

Like many great albums, Embryonic is best enjoyed as a complete entity. Rather than a string of singles, it feels like a universe of sound, carefully created and richly textured. If the Lips’ other CDs or live shows are anywhere this good, I may just have to become a full-fledged fan.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate