The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin (2LP) [WARNER RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads the album over four sides, pressed in Germany. Pitchfork ranked The Soft Bulletin No. 3 on its list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s, and AllMusic suggested it might be the best record of the entire decade.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

The Flaming Lips' previous album came on four CDs designed to be played on four stereos at the same time. The follow-up went the other way entirely, melodic and heartfelt and built for one stereo, recorded between April 1997 and February 1999 in Cassadaga, New York. It reached UK shops in May 1999 and US ones that June.

Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins worked with producer Dave Fridmann to build a huge, symphonic sound, much of it from detuned, layered keyboards rather than a real orchestra. "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" swells like a hymn, "Buggin'" buzzes along happily, "Suddenly Everything Has Changed" finds wonder in the everyday, and "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" glows.

Some critics took to calling it the Pet Sounds of the 1990s, and the band has since played it in full with an orchestra behind them. The cover photo, by Lawrence Schiller, first ran in Life magazine in 1966. Making something this lush with three people and a pile of keyboards is either a triumph of imagination or a very clever way of saving on orchestra catering.

Also at Kops: more The Flaming Lips on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Records, a reissue of the 1999 album.