The Flaming Lips
Photo: Blake Studdard
Over the course of four decades, Oklahoma City’s the Flaming Lips have endured as the reigning weirdos of mainstream rock music. Emerging into view in the early 1990s, and staying put ever since, the Wayne Coyne-led collective is a heady mash-up of psychedelic freakouts, occasionally gruesome provocations and a loving hopefulness that’s often deeply moving.
The band — currently comprised of Coyne, Steven Drozd, Derek Brown, Matt Kirksey, and Nicholas Ley — is in the midst of celebrating one of its landmark albums, 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, by performing it live in full. The Lips will bring that Grammy-winning record and its attendant good vibes to Dallas and the Music Hall at Fair Park on Nov. 9.
To help get you ready for that sure-to-be-confetti-drenched appearance, here is a playlist charting the sonic evolution of the Lips over the band’s 40-year career.
“Unconsciously Screamin’”
The further back you go into the Lips catalog, the more defiantly abrasive and confrontational it gets, so start here, with a track from the band’s 1990 LP In a Priest Driven Ambulance. “Unconsciously Screamin’” splits the difference between the band’s past and future — melodic and propulsive, but also laced with nigh-indecipherable vocals and an aggressive wall of guitars.
“She Don’t Use Jelly”
Most first became aware of the Lips in 1993, when the band’s sixth album (and second major-label release) Transmissions from the Satellite Heart arrived. It was powered by this sunny, quirky hit, which might be one of the more peculiar love songs to ever be released.
“Race for the Prize”
The Flaming Lips took a giant leap forward with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin, fusing its gonzo musical style with a profound humanity to remarkable effect. The grand sonic landscapes the band conjured were met with existential lyrics — “Upwards to the vanguard/Where the pressure is too high,” Coyne sings — and the Lips entered a bold new phase.
“Do You Realize??”
Perhaps the apex of Coyne’s heart-on-sleeve ethos — “Do you realize/You have the most beautiful face?” — this single from 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a gorgeous slice of early aughts acid rock, smushing together acoustic guitar, synthy oddness, choral harmonies, and a bouncing bassline to make you think about humanity’s place in the great galactic order.
“My Religion is You”
The Lips spent much of the latter 2000s exploring its darker impulses — 2006’s At War with the Mystics and 2013’s The Terror are phenomenal examples — but moved back toward the lighter side of things with its most recent LP, 2020’s American Head. This track, the closing number of Head, finds Coyne reflecting on a relationship atop a beautiful guitar riff and shimmering piano line.
The Flaming Lips at Music Hall at Fair Park, Dallas. 8 p.m. Nov. 9. Tickets are $39.50-$99.50.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
