| Flaming Lips, The / Embryonic |
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| Album: | Embryonic | Collection: | General | |
| Artist: | Flaming Lips, The | Added: | Oct 2009 | |
| Label: | Warner Bros. Records | |||
| A-File Activity |
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| Add Date: | 2009-11-01 | Pull Date: | 2010-01-03 |
| Week Ending: | Dec 27 | Dec 20 | Dec 13 | Dec 6 | Nov 29 | Nov 22 | Nov 15 | Nov 8 |
| Airplays: | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
Recent Airplay
| 1. | Apr 25, 2018: | Music for Misfits Worm Mountain | 4. | May 31, 2013: | the mystery hour Powerless | |
| 2. | Dec 25, 2016: | I Like to Dance: Shake Off Your Sweatpants! Silver Trembling Hands | 5. | Jul 11, 2012: | Summer Session Watching The Planets | |
| 3. | Oct 31, 2014: | A Visit From Drum (Spooky Scary Time) Sagittarius Silver Announcement | 6. | Jan 26, 2012: | American Beauty Watching The Planets |
| Album Review |
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| Adam Pearson Reviewed 2009-10-23 | ||
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Psych rock. After their abortion of a record, At War With The Mystics, and their never-ending stadium-sized, elaborate confetti-hamster bubble-yeti-spectacle of a tour, it was easy to write off the Lips as a feel-good novelty act or something. When Wayne Coyne started talking “double album” and “Miles Davis Bitches Brew period” and “freaking out in the woods,” I figured he was talking out of his ass again. But fuck. Embryonic is not predictable, hooky anthemic pop rock. Embryonic is sprawling, messy, bizarre, volatile; inspired even. The Lips have finally returned to their fucking weirdo, playfully experimental, structure-less, dense wall of sound, garage-acid-psych-kraut side after all these years. I know you won’t want to play this because it’s major label and all, and I still feel weird about it, but this is as good as they’ve ever been. What an unexpected treat. No FCCs. *1. Messy, sprawling Krautrock rhythm, compressed, acid-drenched guitars, organs, glitchy, ringing, skittery guitar noodling, monotone, detached vocals. Great track. (3:57) *2. Driving rhythm, more kraut-inspired bass and propulsive drums, guitar squeals and psychedelic organ line, shouty burts of energy, wah-guitar and lyrics about machines. (4:11) *3. Ultraslow, pretty, introspective, melodic organ ballad with subtle backing vocals. Like something off Yoshimi. (5:38) 4. Loud, out-there explosion of harps, noise, angular guitars, and intense drumming then halfway through slows way down and is ambient. (2:10) *5. More kraut-rock acid, droning organs, trippy, ripping guitars, awesome awesome. (4:24) 6. Very slow, mellow, warm high-pitched vocals, sparse. (2:05) 7. Instrumental. Bobbing bass, twinkling weird synths and organs, slow, interesting, weird samples, underwater space station? (3:41) 8. Spaced out, acid, slow-mo-kraut, strong chord progression, evolves into a great pop moment and slowly fades into 9. (2:35) *9. Guitar noodling, slow, repetitive tribal rhythm and numbing bass, ringing guitars play around with rhythm, crunch, atmospheric, spaced out. (6:58) *10. Second half (or 2nd LP) begins with bass-driven, spoken-sung glitch psych, cascading keyboards, explodes into another rampaging drum cycle and oddball psych pop. Just weird and interesting and great. (5:40) 11. This track is basically Karen O (heavily filtered) doing animal noises and Wayne riffing off of it. Music is a delicate circular melody. Weird, childish, lighthearted, and silly. (2:14) 12. Carries over from previous track; the bass, distant vocals, and spaced-out dramatic pop and backing vocals reminds me of Yoshimi. (2:59) 13. Unfortunately features the abominable hipsters, MGMT. Anyway, other than that, the song is pretty good driving space psych pop; horns, tambourine, guitar squeals. (5:22) *14. Instrumental. Drifting, wandering acid-guitar psych noise, auto harp, start-stop messy drums, muddle of noise collides with warm orchestral strings. (2:02) 15. Another slow, warm, synthy, contemplative Yoshimi outtake with Peter Frampton talk box guitar. Take it or leave it. (3:30) *16. Freak out! Driving, tribal snare and screaming, strange organs, dense howling and noodling in the background. Then it settles on a more normal pop refrain. Rinse, repeat. (3:59) 17. Another bizarre instrumental, carrying over from 16 with the rhythmic dagger guitars. (3:44) *18. Knockout closer that features one of the best, twisted melodies Wayne has ever composed in front of a krautrock-acid-gaze blissful blend of swirling psych pop. (5:17) | ||
| Track Listing |
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