The Soft Bulletin

The Flaming Lips

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (1228 ratings)

Sample Album

Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Artist: The Flaming Lips (See All Albums by The Flaming Lips)
Date Released: Jun 22, 1999
Genre: Alternative/Punk, Style: Commercial Alternative, Alternative
Label: Warner Bros.
Copyright: 1999 Warner Bros. Records Inc. for the U.S. and WEA International Inc. for the world outside the U.S.

Total Tracks: 14 Total Length: 58:20

eMusic Review 0

Jim DeRogatis

eMusic Contributor

Jim DeRogatis is the co-host of "Sound Opinions," the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show, heard nationally on public radio and podcast at soundopinions.org. H...more »

01.11.10

A leap forward with universal appeal

1999 | Label: Warner Bros.

Fifteen years into their career, as the alternative-rock movement petered out and the band was reduced to a trio with Steven, its best musician, addicted to heroin, the Flaming Lips were uncertain where to go next. Thus began a two-year period of "biding their time" by lying low (Warner Bros. couldn't drop the band if it couldn't find it) and struggling to find a new path in the studio. Eventually, two projects began to take shape: Zaireeka, the playful sonic experiment comprised of four CDs meant to be played simultaneously on four CD players, and The Soft Bulletin, a radical leap forward that found Steven crafting virtual orchestras out of digital instrumentation and Wayne abandoning the psychedelic surrealism of his old lyrics in favor of non-ironic, heartfelt, emotional confessions. This eventually would combine with the colorful circus of a new multi-media stage show to help the Lips connect with the third and biggest audience of its career — a new generation to follow and join its initial indie and alternative-rock followings. "By the time we hit The Soft Bulletin, there was an actual concerted effort for all of it — music, song structure, and lyrics — to be more cohesive,"… read more »

Write a Review 10 Member Reviews

Please register before you review a release. Register

Great album

dondejuan

You can never go wrong with the Flaming Lips. You never know what to expect.

The Best of the Lips

Calthus

This is the definitive Flaming Lips album. Complex, loud, and beautiful. Do yourself a favor and download it.

amazing pop songs

gonzoknife

These are some of the most accessible and poppy songs by the Lips as opposed to some of their more experimental records. The songs are perfection and go down easy.

One Of Their Best

ZenGentleman

Get this record. Many great songs.

best album of the 1990s

freeimprov

I learned of this album from a friend's recommendation. He described it as "The best album of the past two years, and the next two years". He was right.

A class of its own.

CleveOshman

This album just puts you in a different place, one that's familiar but unsettling. The songs are conventionally structured, but dripping with so much depth and texture that each listen offers more. I lost the CD and came back to pick a few songs off emusic, and was floored when I saw the track list again. I had to get the entire album again. Every song carries huge weight and has its own unique presence. Just like the guy said below, it is the future.

Read the other reviews

DrRoy

Best album of all time. Hands down. Period.

What Is The Light?

jboogalu

I'll keep this simple: your music collection is incomplete if you don't own The Soft Bulletin. This is The Flaming Lips magnum opus, and one of the greatest albums of all time. Download it right now. Listen to it in it's ENTIRETY three times. If it doesn't become a regular part of your rotation for a few months to follow, well... there's something faulty with the connection between your ears, brain and heart, my friend.

my buddy said it best

WhiskyCritic

A few years ago, I found this in a friend's CD collection and asked him, "Is this any good?" He just looked back at me, stunned, and said "I am so jealous that you get to listen to this for the first time!" He was right to be.

Oh, man, where to even begin?

StayHungry

You know, words like "masterpiece" get bandied about a lot these days... When my friend Gonz first played me this album, it blew my mind. I had never NEVER heard anything like it. It felt like reaching into the future. And what's with the lyrics? Songs about scientists, spiderbites, accidentally touching your forehead and noticing that you're bleeding? Superman? Putting the groceries away? What the heck is going on here? Well, after more than ten years and a million listens, it seems like this record has always been around. But one thing remains, and that's the sheer humanity of the lyrics, full of love and honesty. This album is just so...life affirming, like going streaking, on acid, in the future, while falling in love. And I dare anyone to name a better love song involving chemical reactions.

Recommended Albums

eMusic Features

12.21.11 Spotlight 0

2011: I Shall Be Released

By Douglas Wolk, eMusic Contributor

May 23, 2011, was a small landmark for pop music. Lady Gaga had announced on New Year's Eve that her new album Born This Way would be released on that date, and the drumbeats heralding it kept building; it sold more than 1.1 million copies in its first week (partly thanks to massive discounting). It wasn't the biggest release date for any album ever, and it's not the last release date that will ever be… more »

05.10.10 Spotlight 0

What If The Grateful Dead Weren’t

By Sean Fennessey, eMusic Contributor

The Grateful Dead are a peculiar entity, and tough to think about critically because they exist almost entirely as their own subculture. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are similarly successful, massive revenue-generating groups, but they defined culture at large. Everyone can find ways to wrap themselves in the subtext of those bands or, in the least, find songs that they admire. The Dead are a different thing; with fans of the group comes a… more »

03.10.10 Icon 0

Icon: The Flaming Lips

By Jim DeRogatis, eMusic Contributor

Formed in 1983, the Flaming Lips are fast approaching their third decade as one of the most inspired and creative bands in rock, on stage as well as in their distinctive recordings. As noted in the intro to my 2006 biography, Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips, a band that produces an artistic triumph, as well as its most commercially successful release, on its 10th album (Yoshimi Battles the Pink… more »

They Say All Music Guide

So where does a band go after releasing the most defiantly experimental record of its career? If you’re the Flaming Lips, you keep rushing headlong into the unknown — The Soft Bulletin, their follow-up to the four-disc gambit Zaireeka, is in many ways their most daring work yet, a plaintively emotional, lushly symphonic pop masterpiece eons removed from the mind-warping noise of their past efforts. Though more conventional in concept and scope than Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin clearly reflects its predecessor’s expansive sonic palette. Its multidimensional sound is positively celestial, a shape-shifting pastiche of blissful melodies, heavenly harmonies, and orchestral flourishes; but for all its headphone-friendly innovations, the music is still amazingly accessible, never sacrificing popcraft in the name of radical experimentation. (Its aims are so perversely commercial, in fact, that hit R&B remixer Peter Mokran tinkered with the cuts “Race for the Prize” and “Waitin’ for a Superman” in the hopes of earning mainstream radio attention.) But what’s most remarkable about The Soft Bulletin is its humanity — these are Wayne Coyne’s most personal and deeply felt songs, as well as the warmest and most giving. No longer hiding behind surreal vignettes about Jesus, zoo animals, and outer space, Coyne pours his heart and soul into each one of these tracks, poignantly exploring love, loss, and the fate of all mankind; highlights like “The Spiderbite Song” and “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” are so nakedly emotional and transcendentally spiritual that it’s impossible not to be moved by their beauty. There’s no telling where the Lips will go from here, but it’s almost beside the point — not just the best album of 1999, The Soft Bulletin might be the best record of the entire decade. – Jason Ankeny

05.24.12 Wayne and the Flaming Lips are both up for voting for the O Music Awards. Get more info and vote at http://t.co/knCQhAxF

Song Name