This album is not only different from what the band was doing, what was accepted and loved in pop music, and what I’d been into until that moment, it actually embodies that jarring, eye-popping thunderclap of sudden and real change in life. It was exciting all the rough, unnerving bits that hit me by surprise like sudden deer in the headlights became the very signposts for the change I was seeking. It was a confluence of events and life changes, but The Soft Bulletin crystallized that feeling in a single disc I could grasp forever. This adventurous, brave, open and attentive nature was overtaking me and my outlook on life literally widened in scope. The thing that meant most to me at the time, I believe, was this feeling of new possibilities and opportunities everywhere. despite never having had much of an extended break from hearing it, I was getting the fresh, brightening outlook, rising sun, open chakra, wide eyed feeling all over again, a decade later. My soul was calling to it, or being called. This is all to preface the fact that when I dug through my collection after moving – when the cds and vinyl are all out in the open like that, it’s easier to become excited about certain albums – I had a lurch in my heart toward this album. I became a total diehard fan in a matter of weeks.
#THE FLAMING LIPS SOFT BULLETIN ALBUM FREE#
I scoured the band’s website, where the entirety of Yoshimi and a handful of earlier album songs streamed free (this was extremely novel and rare at the time, about 2002). I listened half a dozen times before bed. The friend wanted a blank CD and I gave him one on the condition that I borrow this new Flaming Lips thing for the night. I was distracted to the point that I remember images of my stereo, the booklet in my hands, the music and exclaiming about it, and not the drive itself. The warbling tape orchestra, the out-of-nowhere bass thunder on the second track, and that melody on The Spark That Bled had me instantly. In response, my friend bought the only other CD available and inadvertently changed my (musical) life forever. He’d picked up Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and asked if the band was any good I replied with some half thought that I’d heard “their older stuff was better” without any clue if I was even thinking of the right band. One of the most striking moments in my listening life happened the night I heard The Flaming Lips‘ 1999 masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, driving though rural back roads with a friend who had just purchased the CD blindly. Yet the true greats will always have a place it takes at least time to sort them from the intense but short love affairs with slightly lesser albums. My ears have changed, not to mention my tastes. and yet they’re a revelation once again with the right mixture of time, decay, perspective, distance, environment and attitude. What elevated these particular pieces of music to a realm of formative life experiences? These are the albums I used to burrow into for months, knowing every nook and cranny, knowing the texture and contours like my own skin. I think I’m also looking for inspiration, and answers. Lately, with a few notable exceptions, I’ve been listening to a lot of my personal favorite albums in an effort to tap into the exhilaration of something I know I love. There has been a lot going on in life but as always I’m continuously immersed in music. After the complicated musical experimentation of the Lips’ previous album, however, Coyne shrugged, “It didn’t seem like anything compared to Zaireeka.I haven’t been back to Optimistic Underground in a while. On The Soft Bulletin, he turned inward, getting so personal “that I never thought anybody would be able to relate to it.” In fact, it’s Coyne’s naked emotionality that transmits over the multitude of orchestral tracks, causing many critics to compare the album to the Beach Boys masterpiece Pet Sounds. Lyrically, Coyne had previously tended toward the lofty or even the faux-religious (“God Walks Among Us Now” or “Shine On Sweet Jesus”).
#THE FLAMING LIPS SOFT BULLETIN ALBUM FULL#
Vinyl re-press of the ninth full length studio album from the American rockers The Flaming Lips, originally released in 1999.Īs Coyne explains in a video for Yahoo, at the time that the band-drummer Steven Drozd, bassist Michael Ivins, and Coyne himself - was making The Soft Bulletin, “We were working towards things that seemed more emotional.” Coyne’s father was dying of cancer, Ivins had recently been involved in a bizarre traffic accident that trapped him in his car for hours, and Drozd nearly had his arm amputated due to what he said was a spider bite, but that was actually an infection from heroin use.