![]() ![]() They're not exactly embraced by everybody outside of the mainstream either, though: ultimately, the band (for most of its life) has been making pop music, and what's so exciting about pop music if you, as a listener, have "graduated" onto more exotic things? The band isn't exactly obscure, and they've had some attempts to push themselves more into the mainstream than they've been, but their main impact on the pop culture world at large was basically limited to (a) a bizarre appearance on 90210 where they played "She Don't Use Jelly," (b) "Bad Days" getting used in Batman Forever and (c) "Do You Realize?" getting voted the official rock song of Oklahoma (their home state). One thing that's clear to me, though, is that they tend to get a level of adulation from me and other amateur reviewers like me (not to mention from Pitchfork and other semi-mainstream reviewing organizations) that's disproportionate to the amount of love they get from people on the whole, and this is of interest to me. Their 80s work is fairly hit-and-miss for me, but their 90s albums entertain and interest me on the whole as well as anybody else's could from that era (not to mention that, starting with Zaireeka, they became a top-notch art rock band), and rating the band as highly as I do happens without any hesitation on my part. The Flaming Lips are a pretty bland choice to have as one of my favorite bands from the 90s and beyond, but I'm a pretty bland person, so they suit me just fine. "Yeah, So If It's Sad, Well, You Still Gotta Live Till You Die" Initial CD versions of the album included the self-titled EP, while later pressings only added an enthusiastic fuzz-take of Eddie Cochran-via- Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues.The Flaming Lips Completely confused by the rating system? Go here for an explanation. Consider the blunt imagery of "Jesus Shootin' Heroin" or the clearly humorous yells and climax of "Charlie Manson Blues" as two examples of many. Texas psych types like the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Krayola were clear forebears - one can easily imagine Roky Erickson coming up with shaggy dog stories and music for the likes of "Trains, Brains and Rain." The group's own uniqueness comes through, though. If anybody was kin at the time, it would be the Meat Puppets, with perhaps a little less interest in high lonesome sounds. Throughout Hear It Is, there's a gleeful "try what works" approach that would only become stronger later - the band may have been punk-inspired and birthed, but Coyne and company drew on everything from country & western to classic rock crunch and more there are even some clear early goth rock touches. The gentle acoustic strumming that starts the album on "With You" or the steady pace and mournful singing on "Godzilla Flick" shows that subtlety was as much a part of the game as stomping, fried electric guitar insanity. It isn't as completely discontinuous as might be thought, though - Coyne's vision was already distinctly gone, in ways that most bands would kill for. Instead, it's raunchy bar-band-gone-insane fun or calmer but not too wracked ruminations from Coyne, with music to match. ![]() No swirling orchestral parts, no Beach Boys-on-Mars homages, even Wayne Coyne's immediately recognizable cracked fracture of a voice isn't present. Hearing Hear It Is years later, after all the band had done up to the new century, makes for an almost surreal experience. ![]()
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