ARTIST

The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips' album titles speak volumes about the music they contain: Hear It Is, Unconsciously Screamin', Hit To Death In The Future Head, Transmissions From The Satellite Heart. Hailing from Norman, Oklahoma, the Lips are 10 years into an inspired mission to resurrect/reinvent/deconstruct psychedelia, armed with a slew of post-punk devices.

Generating the power that drives the music is a volatile core reaction between art-noise and sweet pop. Even their most sedate, mainstream-y songs (like "She Don't Use Jelly") coast along on a deliciously warped undercurrent that flows from the heart of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The Lips' early works are strange and elusive, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes rambling. For all the art-infused subtexts of their acid-drenched din, they never come off as self-conscious or precious. But it wasn't until 1990's quasi-breakthrough In A Priest Driven Ambulance that they really perfected the balance between inspired noise and cogent songwriting. A great album that hinted at latent obsessions with Lou Reed, Jesus, the Rolling Stones, and possibly numerology, it was still much too weird for general audiences.

1993's Transmissions From The Satellite Heart yielded the Lips' first bonafide hit, "She Don't Use Jelly," a hummable tale of warped domestic bliss. On the strength of that single they made a television appearance on Beverly Hills 90210, playing a set for the beautiful TV people at a fictional club, the Peach Pit After Dark. Nothing from their next album, Clouds Taste Metallic matched the commercial success of "Jelly," but then the Lips have always seemed perfectly at home in the more surreal outer reaches of pop.

Written by Sandy Masuo