Album of the Week - Vol. 10

Greatest Hits Vol. 1 THE FLAMING LIPS (2018)
Week: Sat 7th Jul to Fri 13th Jul 2018
Format: Vinyl/3 CD Deluxe Edition
Producer: various
Track listing:
VINYL EDITION
Side 1:
1. Do You Realize?? *
2. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1
3. Race For The Prize *
4. Waitin' For a Superman *
5. When You Smile *
6. She Don't Use Jelly
Side 2:
1. Bad Days (Aurally Excited Version)
2. The W.A.N.D.
3. Silver Trembling Hands *
4. The Castle
5. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 45:25

DELUXE EDITION
Disc 1:
1. Talkin' 'Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants To Live Forever)
2. Hit Me Like You Did the First Time
3. Frogs
4. Felt Good to Burn
5. Turn It On *
6. She Don't Use Jelly
7. Chewin' the Apple of Your Eye
8. Slow Nerve Action
9. Psychiatric Explorations of the Foetus with Needles
10. Brainville *
11. Lightning Strikes the Postman
12. When You Smile *
13. Bad Days (Aurally Excited Version)
14. Riding to Work in the Year 2025
15. Race For the Prize (Sacrifice of the New Scientists) *
16. Waitin' For a Superman (Is It Getting Heavy?) *
17. The Spark That Bled
18. What Is the Light?

Disc 2:
1. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 *
2. In the Morning of the Magicians *
3. All We Have Is Now
4. Do You Realize?? *
5. The W.A.N.D.
6. Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung
7. Vein of Stars
8. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song 
9. Convinced of the Hex
10. See the Leaves
11. Silver Trembling Hands *
12. Is David Bowie Dying?
13. Try to Explain
14. Always There, In Our Hearts
15. How?? *
16. There Should Be Unicorns
17. The Castle

Disc 3:
1. Zero to a Million
2. Jets (Cupid's Kiss vs. The Psyche of Death) (2-track demo)
3. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair
4. The Captain
5. 1000ft Hands
6. Noodling Theme (Epic Sunset mix #5)
7. Up Above the Daily Hum *
8. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (In Anatropous Reflex) *
9. We Can't Predict the Future *
10. Your Face Can Tell the Future *
11. You Gotta Hold On
12. What Does It Mean?
13. Spider-Man Vs Muhammad Ali
14. I Was Zapped by the Lucky Super Rainbow
15. Enthusiasm for Life Defeats Existential Fear Part 2
16. If I Only Had a Brain *
17. Silent Night/Lord, Can You Hear Me?
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 3:43:47

I've been a fan of The Flaming Lips since the early part of the 21st century. I heard She Don't Use Jelly when it came out in 1993, and thought it was kinda loopy, but I still dug it. After that song faded from the spotlight, I didn't really give the band another thought.

Until around 2002, I think. A few friends were asking me about the band and if I knew any of their stuff. Their albums The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots were getting rave reviews from music critics a-plenty. I still thought of them as that noisy band who had a hit with She Don't Use Jelly and scored a track on the Batman Forever soundtrack. 

I decided to dig a little, and I think the Yoshimi album was my first decent jump down the rabbit hole.  I was pretty taken with it, from memory, and headed straight to Bulletin. Nearly twenty years later, and those albums remain very special to me, but it's 1995's Clouds Taste Metallic that I call my favourite now. My golden Lips period is 1995 to 2006. I didn't really get into the experimental 4CD Zaireeka from 1997, but I appreciated the concept. They lost me a little with 2009's Embryonic, particularly as I was quite taken by their go at Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. 

The 3CD set offers up a pretty good overview of their early output to the present day. The first two discs consists of most of their singles from 1992 to 2017, presented in chronological order. We are treated to demos, B-sides, soundtrack contributions and outtakes a-plenty on the last CD.

If you're after something a little more concise, the vinyl edition is pretty taut, consisting of just eleven tracks. The really well known songs are there too, Do You Realize??, She Don't Use Jelly, Bad Days and Race For The Prize. I've picked out five favourites from each CD and five from the vinyl tracklisting. Have at it! He he he...

Got Lips?

They're not for everyone, but there should something for all tastes here. If you can tolerate Wayne Coyne's high singing voice.