Wayne Coyne has just about completely shied away from his self-created pied piper image and life-affirming universality this time around. Many of its best songs are short, unconstructed, dissonant, weightless, utterly without hooks, and tinged with sad reality. Perhaps what is most shockingly unique about the album is the overall lack of anything resembling a pop structure. Much of this mood permeates Embryonic, right down to its core compositional philosophy. The result is that 2009 feels decidedly different than the years leading up to it-the public can no longer rationally rally against the lightning rod that was George Bush (something the Lips themselves took part in with 2006's At War With the Mystics, specifically on "Haven't Got a Clue"), yet the mandate for change represented by the election of Obama has left nearly everyone scratching their heads, wondering and even fearing whatever may come next. The landslide election of Barck Obama has all at once reflexively balanced and quite desperately unhinged the ironic, cynical-yet-hopeful validity of dance rock and much of the general mood of this very tumultuous, warring decade. In the age of musical irony (oppressively and enduringly contextualized by the overall dismal political atmosphere of Bush's anti-intellectualism and anti-internationalism), a time when dance had returned as both rebellious and subversive, there was the Lips-a band that was actually, genuinely having a good time.īut things change quickly.
Coupled with the introduction of the mp3 player as the dominant form of music media and the fact that a vast majority of the country's youth were now discovering bands via the internet and blogosphere as opposed to radio and television (that is, proactively discovering music as opposed to passively listening), it makes perfect sense why the Lips came into such commercial acclaim. Most importantly, it was the true starting point of the anti-Bush fever pitch that affected so much about music in the American 2000s. It seems strange to say, but the events of Septemwere crucial for the Lips. For several reasons worth noting, the culture around the band had changed in such a way that allowed for their commercial success to occur, especially considering that they'd been critical darlings since at least Transmissions From the Satellite Heart. By the time the Lips released 2003's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the scene around them had seemingly caught up, and it was becoming more and more obvious just how refreshingly, honestly anachronistic the band had always been. Looking back, though, The Soft Bulletin is not the earth-shattering phenomenon it was hyped to be, but an album that logically expanded on the technological fascination of Zaireeka while incorporating more structured elements of pop and lyrical revelation. The 2000s have been a very transformational and fortuitous time for the Lips, and it says a great deal about the visionary genius of their ambition that the groundwork for their success had been laid in 1999-before anyone had a clearly conceptualized sense of where the culturally ubiquitous technological encroachment of the new millennium would lead us.
Played chronologically, back-to-back, these albums bleed into each other and help make sense of the Lips' fascinating musical trajectory, but not since Zaireeka have they released something as uncharacteristic and truly out of left field as their schizophrenic 2009 double album, Embryonic. In a Priest Driven Ambulance set the stage for Hit to Death in the Future Head, just as Clouds Taste Metallic expanded upon and refined to glowing perfection what had been hinted at with Transmissions From the Satellite Heart. But with regards to that mutating sound, the Lips are more prone to taking incremental steps of refinement as opposed to giant leaps of madness, and their discography is great evidence of this. Half the battle of any Flaming Lips album is putting it into proper context, especially because their sound has been purposefully and carefully mutated with each subsequent release.
Review Summary: For those who have followed the Lips through more than one iteration of their sound, or at least have taken the effort to discover the diversity of their creative palette, Embryonic is faith-rewarding and massively essential.
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