+RSS
 
 

The Flaming Lips "The Sound of Failure"

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

It became safe to assume with the release earlier this year of At War With the Mystics that we’re never going to see another Soft Bulletin or Transmissions From the Satellite Heart from the Flaming Lips. Yoshimi was a dumbass cartoon retread of the basic sentiment and cinematic sweepishness that the band had honed the previous three records, and not surprisingly perhaps, it was also their most popular album by a long shot. And this new one, the really clunky political one, had more cross-promotional tie-ins than a new Cingular phone to go with its tired textbook liberalism and lazy riffs. Yeah, I’m supposing that the albums are just going to get worse and worse as the band realizes it’s the most popular metaphysical rainbow-psych band of all time, and that they’ll still get Apple ads and Queen tribute opportunities if they keep mixing up the same formula—universalist odes to the toils of scientists, story-songs about misunderstood girls who lapse into fantasy escape-worlds, dippy larks abou–wait a sec, there’s one good song on Mystics, and it falls into that second category, the one that I thought was pretty well decimated by Yoshimi and her lots of vitamins. It’s called “The Sound of Failure” (mp3), and it’s one of the most touching songs to be released this year, and easily the only good song on this turd of an album. I like it for the same reasons I like the best songs by the Flaming Lips—it manages to combine a wide-eyed natural wonder with an understanding of the way things work, and leads to a sort of revelation, but with dark undertones. The main character of “Failure” has just, I’m assuming, realized that her emotional needs, which will often lapse into the type that aren’t discussed at parties, are not being anywhere near addressed by the likes of Britney and Gwen (Wayne’s characters, not mine), whom I’m assuming are the same people that you’re assuming they are. And instead of digging into the vaults and looking for some old Joan Armatrading or Rickie Lee Jones or, I don’t know, Grace Jones records, the girl just lets the dark feelings, the sounds of failure, take over for a while, because they’re actually pretty alluring if you let them be, like that softly drilling guitar and the chirping flute you hear. Shit, more alluring than that Gwen song with the yodeling and shit in it.
You can buy At War With the Mystics here if you want to. It’s used, and it’s pretty cheap.

ELSEWHERE: You already know this, but this post over at Said the Gramophone, written by a man I heretofore had no idea existed but will now search, is one of the best things I’ve ever read on the Internet.

6 Comments

*
*