The Flaming Lips are an oddity. What other band has been around for close to 30 years, has been signed to a major label for almost 20 years (despite taking ten years to produce an album that achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success) and loves to play with puppets on stage? The Flaming Lips got lucky. After the quick success in the early 1990s thanks to the single "She Don't Use Jelly," the Lips could have been written off as one-hit alternative wonders and left for dead. Instead, the band just kept rolling, getting weirder and weirder (check out Zaireeka if you need proof) until they found success again in the late 1990s with the critically acclaimed Soft Bulletin. But it wasn't until 2002 that the Flaming Lips reached their full potential with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, marrying critical acclaim and commercial success behind an album full of space pop and strange noise, sandwiched between beautifully written songs contemplating the meaning of existence.
Best of the Decade - The Top 10: #7
The Flaming Lips are an oddity. What other band has been around for close to 30 years, has been signed to a major label for almost 20 years (despite taking ten years to produce an album that achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success) and loves to play with puppets on stage? The Flaming Lips got lucky. After the quick success in the early 1990s thanks to the single "She Don't Use Jelly," the Lips could have been written off as one-hit alternative wonders and left for dead. Instead, the band just kept rolling, getting weirder and weirder (check out Zaireeka if you need proof) until they found success again in the late 1990s with the critically acclaimed Soft Bulletin. But it wasn't until 2002 that the Flaming Lips reached their full potential with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, marrying critical acclaim and commercial success behind an album full of space pop and strange noise, sandwiched between beautifully written songs contemplating the meaning of existence.
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