Awesome The Flaming Lips

We always get chills when we hear the The Flaming Lips track Do You Realize?? Musician Viktoriya “Vika” Yermolyeva performs her original piano arrangement of the song that manages to capture the emotion and weight of the original, an impressive feat without Wayne Coyne’s lyrics and vocals.

One of The Flaming Lips’ trademark theatrics is for lead singer Wayne Coyne to crowdsurf the audience inside of a plastic sphere. Thanks to COVID, they decided to perform their entire NPR Tiny Desk concert inside of the bubbles as well. Next up, the band plans on performing for an entire audience inside of bubbles.

The Flaming Lips and Deap Vally hooked up and made an awesome musical baby, blendy sultry vocals, garage rock, acoustic folk, and eclectic electronic sounds. The album drops 3/13/2020, but you can listen to Home Thru Hell and Hope Hell High now.

Wonderfully enigmatic musicians The Flaming Lips teamed up with the Colorado Symphony and conductor André de Ridder to re-record their 1999 album The Soft Bulletin with a full orchestra. Race for the Prize gives us a preview of the live album, which drops 11/29/19.

Wayne Coyne and gang play to a church filled with balloon audience members in the video for this David Bowie cover, which embraces the sort of enigmatic performance that itself would not exist if it weren’t for Bowie himself. A fitting tribute to the master of theatricality.

There’s no question the ethereal, theatrical, enigmatic style of The Flaming Lips owe quite a bit to the fertile ground sowed by David Bowie. At Belly Up, Aspen, they repaid the favor with an eight-song tribute to the Thin White Duke. We only wish we had a direct audio feed.

Blank on Blank provides an animated illustration of Jennifer Van Evra’s 2002 interview with The Flaming Lips leader Wayne Coyne, in which he shares a near-death experience he had as a teen which changed his everyday perspective on life.

The Flaming Lips (and friends) apply their unique low-fi fuzz sound to this track-for-track remake of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Stream the album at NPR, or buy it and support animal charity The Bella Foundation.