The Flaming Lips

Submitted by rudolf55 on Sat, 12/02/2006 - 13:14
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  • Hear It Is (1986)


  • 1. With You: 8.6
  • 2. Unplugged: 5.1
  • 3. Trains, Brains & Rain: 5.0
  • 4. Jesus Shootin' Heroin: 6.1
  • 5. Just Like Before: 4.9
  • 6. She Is Death: 7.5
  • 7. Charlie Manson Blues: 5.9
  • 8. Man From Pakistan: 5.6
  • 9. Godzilla Flick: 7.9
  • 10. Staring At Sound/With You (Reprise): 5.5
  • 11. Summertime Blues: 5.7
  • Song Average: 6.1
  • Score: 58%
  • Comment: Not a very good debut, but not very bad either. It's stuck somewhere between the two, never really taking off but never really going down either. There's some talent visible in there, but it hasn't come out yet.

  • Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)


  • 1. Everything's Explodin': 4.2
  • 2. One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Morning: 7.8
  • 3. Maximum Dream For Evil Knievel: 4.9
  • 4. Can't Exist: 8.0
  • 5. Ode To CC (Part 1): 0.7
  • 6. The Ceilin Is Bendin: 3.9
  • 7. Prescription: Love: 3.2
  • 8. Thanks To You: 7.1
  • 9. Can't Stop The Spring: 5.8
  • 10. Ode To CC (Part 2): 5.6
  • 11. Love Yer Brain: 6.9
  • Song Average: 5.2
  • Score: 48%
  • Comment: While their first album was completely average, this one is bad. The good thing about this is that the better songs stand out. You just have to go through several bad songs to get to them. And that's a shame.

  • Telepathic Surgery (1989)


  • 1. Drug Machine In Heaven: 3.8
  • 2. Right Now: 8.1
  • 3. Michael, Time To Wake Up: 0.4
  • 4. Chrome Plated Suicide: 8.8
  • 5. Hari-Krishna Stomp Wagon : 6.7
  • 6. Miracle On 42nd Street: 8.7
  • 7. Fryin' Up: 6.5
  • 8. Hell's Angels Cracker Factory: 1.7
  • 9. UFO Story: 2.0
  • 10. Redneck School Of Technology: 5.9
  • 11. Shaved Gorilla: 9.0
  • 12. The Spontaneous Combustion Of John: 3.6
  • 13. The Last Drop Of Morning Dew: 5.2
  • 14. Begs And Achin: 5.5
  • Song Average: 5.4
  • Score: 50%
  • Comment: Their most inconsistent album of the early years. This one contains some of their first actually good songs but also some of their worst. Not one I'd listen to more than once, in its whole.

  • In A Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)


  • 1. Shine On Sweet Jesus - Jesus Song No 5: 6.2
  • 2. Unconscously Screamin': 5.8
  • 3. Rainin' Babies: 7.6
  • 4. Take Meta Mars: 7.5
  • 5. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain: 8.4
  • 6. Stand In Line: 9.0
  • 7. God Walks Among Us Now - Jesus Song No 6: 6.7
  • 8. There You Are - Jesus Song No 7: 9.2
  • 9. Mountain Side: 5.9
  • 10. What A Wonderful World: 7.2
  • Song Average: 7.3
  • Score: 69%
  • Comment: Their first step towards greatness, even if it isn't quite The Soft Bulletin yet. This does feature their first two actual great songs and their first album without a single actually bad song. Good effort.

  • Hit To Death In The Future Head (1992)


  • 1. Talkin' 'Bout The Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants To Live Forever): 5.8
  • 2. Hit Me Like You Did The First Time: 7.7
  • 3. The Sun: 9.1
  • 4. Felt Good To Burn: 8.0
  • 5. Gingerale Afternoon (The Astrology Of A Saturday): 8.4
  • 6. Halloween On The Barbary Coast: 8.6
  • 7. The Magician Vs The Headache: 9.0
  • 8. You Have To Be Joking (Autopsy On The Devil's Brain): 9.4
  • 9. Frogs: 6.2
  • 10. Hold Your Head: 9.0
  • 11. (Untitled): 0.0
  • Song Average: 7.4
  • Score: 77%
  • Comment: They're going in the right direction: up, up, up and up some more. The first signs of greatness had already been present, but are more focused here. If it hadn't been for the strange experiment at the end, it might've been their first four-star album.

  • Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (1993)


  • 1. Turn It On: 9.0
  • 2. Pilot Can At The Queer Of God: 7.5
  • 3. Oh, My Pregant Head (Labia In The Sunlight): 9.2
  • 4. She Don't Use Jelly: 9.4
  • 5. Chewin' The Apple Of Yer Eye: 9.5
  • 6. Superhumans: 9.0
  • 7. Be My Head: 8.3
  • 8. Moth In The Incubator: 7.8
  • 9. Plastic Jesus: 9.3
  • 10. When Yer Twenty-Two: 8.8
  • 11. Slow Nerve Action: 9.2
  • Song Average: 8.8
  • Score: 86%
  • Comment: It's obvious the new set-up did them well. A great album, great songs, some let-downs but overall their biggest step forward.

  • Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)


  • 1. The Abandoned Hospital Ship: 8.4
  • 2. Psychiatriic Explorations Of The Fetus With Needles: 6.7
  • 3. Placebo Headwound: 9.0
  • 4. This Here Giraffe: 6.4
  • 5. Brainville: 9.2
  • 6. Guy Who Got A Headache And Accidentally Saves The World: 7.5
  • 7. When You Smile: 8.0
  • 8. Kim's Watermelon Gun: 6.0
  • 9. They Punctured My Yolk: 9.1
  • 10. Lightning Strikes The Postman: 6.1
  • 11. Christmas At The Zoo: 8.5
  • 12. Evil Will Prevail: 9.4
  • 13. Bad Days: 9.6
  • Song Average: 7.9
  • Score: 76%
  • Comment: What a disappointment. After Transmissions, their first true great album, they continued but didn't progress. They went a bit back to their ways before, making a alightly inferior record. Still not a bad one.

  • Zaireeka (1997)


  • 1. Okay, I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand
  • 2. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (You're Invisible Now)
  • 3. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair
  • 4. A Machine In India
  • 5. The Train Runs Over The Camel But Is Derailed By The Gnat
  • 6. How Will We Know
  • 7. March Of The Rotten Vegetables
  • 8. The Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now
  • Comment: Postponed till I figured out how to do this.

  • The Soft Bulletin (1999)


  • 1. Race For The Prize (Remix): 9.6
  • 2. A Spoonful Weighs A Ton: 9.2
  • 3. The Spark That Bled (The Softest Bullet Ever Shot): 9.5
  • 4. The Spiderbite Song: 9.6
  • 5. Buggin' (Remix): 9.5
  • 6. What Is The Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical (In Our Brains) by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the "Big Bang" That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe): 9.2
  • 7. The Observer: 8.5
  • 8. Waitin' For A Superman: 9.4
  • 9. Suddenly Everything Has Changed (Death Anxiety Caused by Moments of Boredom): 9.7
  • 10. The Gash (Battle Hymn For The Wounded Mathematician): 9.8
  • 11. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: 10
  • 12. Sleeping On The Roof: 8.8
  • 13. Race For The Prize (Sacrifice Of The New Scientists): 9.8
  • 14. Waitin' For A Superman (Remix): 10
  • Song Average: 9.5
  • Score: 96%
  • Comment: Miles ahead of anything they'd made before. One of the best albums of the '90s.

  • Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)


  • 1. Fight Test: 9.5
  • 2. One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21: 7.8
  • 3. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt1: 9.6
  • 4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt2: 4.1
  • 5. In The Morning Of The Magicians: 9.0
  • 6. Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell: 9.3
  • 7. Are You A Hypnotist??: 8.8
  • 8. It's Summertime: 9.0
  • 9. Do You Realize??: 9.4
  • 10. All We Have Is Now: 9.3
  • 11. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia): 6.8
  • Song Average: 8.4
  • Score: 82%
  • Comment: After the brilliant The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips took their time to release a new album, and at first sight, it seems as if this payed off. The bulk of this is brilliant, but unfortunately, it's garnished with a few weaker songs and unnecessary intrumentals. Yet, it's still convincing.

  • At War With The Mystics (2006)


  • 1. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power): 9.8
  • 2. Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber): 9.0
  • 3. The Sound Of Failure/It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark??: 10
  • 4. My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life as Blazing Shield of Defiance and Optimism as Celestial Spear of Action): 8.7
  • 5. Vein Of Stars: 9.2
  • 6. The Wizard Turns On... The Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts on His Werewolf Moccasins: 8.0
  • 7. It Overtakes Me / The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand a Chance?: 9.1
  • 8. Mr Ambulance Driver: 9.8
  • 9. Haven't Got A Clue: 8.8
  • 10. The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat): 10
  • 11. Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung: 9.0
  • 12. Goin' On: 9.5
  • Song Average: 9.2
  • Score: 95%

  • Christmas On Mars (2008)


  • 1. Once Beyond Hopelessness: 1.7
  • 2. The Distance Between Mars And The Earth-Part One: 1.5
  • 3. The Horrors Of Isolation: The Celestial Dissolve, Triumphant Hallucination, Light Being Absorbed: 2.4
  • 4. In Excelsior Vaginalistic: 1.9
  • 5. Your Spaceship Comes From Within: 1.0
  • 6. Suicide And Extraordinary Mistakes: 1.6
  • 7. The Distance Between Mars And The Earth-Part Two: 1.2
  • 8. The Secret Of Immortality: This Strange Feeling, This Impossible World: 1.3
  • 9. The Gleaming Armament Of Marching Genitalia: 1.5
  • 10. The Distress Signals Of Celestial Objects: 1.3
  • 11. Space Bible With Volume Lumps: 1.4
  • 12. Once Beyond Hopelessness: 1.2
  • Song Average: 1.5
  • Score: 15%
Author Comments: 

Rankings

1. The Soft Bulletin *****/*****
2. At War With The Mystics *****/*****
3. Transmissions From The Satellite Heart ****/*****
4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots ****/*****
5. Hit To Death In The Future Head ***1/2/*****
6. Clouds Taste Metallic ***1/2/*****
7. In A Priest Driven Ambulance ***/*****
8. Hear It Is **1/2/*****
9. Telepathic Surgery **1/2/*****
10. Oh My Gawd!!! **/*****
11. Christmas On Mars 1/2/*****