Please help me get into the Flaming Lips!
 

I just saw the Flaming Lips perform war pigs with chan marshall, and now i really want to get into this band. I know very little about them, please fill me in. A history lesson on them, and which albums i should pick up. thank you

Chan Marshall is a babe. I'm not a big fan of the Lips.

No history lesson here, but i recommend "In A Priest..." "Transmissions..." and "Hit To Death..." in reverse order.

i only have transmissions from the satellite heart but its a great album, well worth picking up,

and was a good first impression for me, so hey why not?

I'd say start off with Transmissions....it's a pretty accessible album for a new listener and damn good. Pilot Can at the Queer of God!!!

"yoshimi battles the pink robots" great record. the only one ive heard by them. but still great

Yea transmissions first... then i say check out preist... it's their noiziest and best. Then after that it gets shakey... from soft bulletin on they get pretty poppy and extravegant/indulgent, and the rest of the stuff is shakey.

Same here.

totally agree... avoid anything post 1998... especially the new one..it sucks to high heaven!!!

cant agree im afraid.. the most overhyped and overappreciated album of all time. right up there with dark side of the moon.....in my opinion

i was like u , wanting to like them, but never happened. Transmissions is ok, but yeah, overrated in my book. A band like later Mercury Rev is sorta doing a similar thing with better results. The Lips just seem forced...(but that's just my opinion)

Yoshimi is possibly their worst album.

as for mercury rev... they went downhill when they kicked dave baker out....... shady ruled the rev!

Narcotic Candy better than Deserter's Songs? I don't think so.

Alright... now I love the Flaming Lips and all, but I think i'm one of the few people on this planet who thinks The Soft Bulletin is one of their lamest albums, and that Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pretty much sucks, save for three or four moderately good tunes. I think the spazzy drugged-out shoegaze rock they did in the early years when they were huffing inhalants off eachother's testicles is a thousand times better than this glossed over ipod-era indie pop that they're doing now. In a Priest Driven Ambulance, and the rest of the shit on the compilation The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus Egg is fucking kill, as is pretty much everything they put out prior to 1993. Even Transmissions From the Satellite Heart makes their current work look pretty tepid.

They are certainly making decent pop music now... but it just doesn't really fit my personal image of the Lips. Somewhere along the line Wayne Coyne stopped listening to the Butthole Surfers and decided he wanted to be Brian Wilson. This is all well and good, and Yoshimi and Soft Bulletin definitely meet those aspirations with their dreamy OK Computer-Meets-Sesame-Street pop tunes, but i for one miss the dirge.

probably because it was my introduction but one of my favorite albums ever is the soft bulletin

but yoshimi is not the worst, at war with the mystics is their worst, i still can't get into most of their songs, some are very good, but it's still their worst i've heard so far

and i hate mercury rev, they make me think of crappy bands like urge overkill and marcy's playground. dull and shite. just because the dude played guitar in the lips doesn't make his band worthwhile. how many people give bill wyman's solo albums props? no one and he played bass on the fucking rolling stones!!! so mercury rev=boring crap. come think of it, they are incredibly overrated

by a mile... boces and yerself is steam are amazing... see you on the other side is real good..deserters is boring, all is dream is awful.. the secret migration is quite good tho...

theyre decent now.. i like their stuff from the "in a priest driven ambulance" days much better

Check out The Fearless Freaks dvd Lips fans!

Get the expanded The Soft Bulletin CD with DVD.