CLASSIC REVIEW: Flaming Lips’ 1999 psych-pop zenith celebrates 20 years.
“The Soft Bulletin” (1999), courtesy of AllMusic.com
In early 1999, the Flaming Lips stood at a career’s crossroads.
The Oklahoma-native psych-popsters had already released eight albums in a narrow 13 years. Critically lauded but commercially inconsistent, the band’s discography earned itself favor among those who sought to introduce lush psychedelia to the grounded, DIY leanings of alternative and independent music.
Contemporary, but not identical, to groups like Primal Scream, Spacemen 3, and The Stone Roses, the Lips carved out their clever little niche in the LSD industry’s newest stimulus by combining elements of noise rock, pop, punk, psychedelic rock, garage rock and a spritz of silliness for flavor. Through radio hits like “She Don’t Use Jelly,” (1993) the Warner Brothers-backed quartet seemed prime for commercial breakthrough. The post-Nirvana rock airwaves were rife with half-baked impersonators, and a fresh sound in rock music was necessary. But were the Flaming Lips to provide it?
Events indicated otherwise. 1995’s “Clouds Taste Metallic” fell embarrassingly short of projected sales, and left the band without longtime guitarist Ronald Jones. In confounding response, frontman Wayne Coyne pushed the band towards their most commercially inaccessible record yet. 1997’s “Zaireeka” was an experimental monolith that required four speakers, playing simultaneously, to listen to. All the while, drummer Steven Drozd battled with heroin addiction, and bassist Michael Ivins was temporarily sidelined by a car accident.
So who, then, would predict that the Flaming Lips’ greatest record to date — both commercially and critically — rested just over the horizon?
Very few, including the band. Coyne said in a 2011 interview that he thought the record would be the band’s last. Backs against the wall, Wayne Coyne and co. produced a stunning, cosmic effort that still feels as fresh today.
Like The Beach Boys’ 1966 “Pet Sounds” many decades before it, 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin” is a rock record that isn’t. The departure of Jones and his guitar pushed the band away from riff-heavy alternative rock that crowded the mainstream. Instead, The Flaming Lips opted for symphonic prowess, all produced within the confines of Tarbox Road Studios in New York. To embrace technology while engaging a uniquely human imperfection, the band recorded string parts from numerous synthesizers that had all been slightly de-tuned, matching the slight pitchiness of a genuine orchestra.
It’s this delicate balance so expertly executed that is the genius of “The Soft Bulletin.” It’s cosmic, but it’s real. The emotion is forlorn, but optimistic. It’s bursting at the seams, but tender at the same time.
Look no further than the record’s opener, “Race for the Prize,” as a powerful indicator of this record’s material. It feels like I’ve been cannoned, circus-style, across the galaxy, and Leopold Stokowski has soundtracked my flight. A strict innocence guides the song’s sentiment, as it cheers on two hypothetical scientists in competition who eventually learn to work in eager cooperation. It’s a “Why Can’t We Be Friends” with a happy ending.
Even when the record’s topical material orients itself towards mortality, the band finds solace in an abounding hopefulness, the mark of a group that refused to be knocked down. Wayne Coyne handles the death of his father on “Waitin’ For A Superman” with surprising grace, finding comfort in Thomas Coyne’s strength while he lived. In “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” the singer comes to terms with death in the abstract, and as the music proceeds, grows more and more enveloping, giving the listener a sense of comfortable peace with the inevitable.
Unquestionably, “The Soft Bulletin” is The Flaming Lips finest installment, and is a testament to the ability of people to rebound, even in the face of great adversity.
This is an album that’s deeply personal to me, and I hope the same is true for its other listeners. Happy 20th.
RATING: Classic/5
