With a Little Help From My Fwends

October 20, 2014 9:35 AM

One week from today, The Flaming Lips will release their full album cover of The Beatles' iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. NPR is now streaming the entire record for preview.

The Lips' version features contributions from My Morning Jacket, J Mascis, Maynard James Keenan, Tegan & Sara, Foxygen, Dr. Dog and others.

Moby and Miley Cyrus joined the band for their take on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," even shooting a [NSFW] video for the track that they eventually opted to release as a separate short film titled, Blond SuperFreak Steals the Magic Brain[still NSFW].

This project, of course, is not the first time that a group of apparently drug-addled celeb friends decided to remake Sgt. Pepper.

posted by DirtyOldTown (47 comments total)

Sometimes I can't tell if the flaming lips actually don't know how to mic instruments or if its a creative choice.
posted by empath at 9:42 AM on October 20, 2014 [14 favorites]

FYI The Moby and Miley Cyrus links are NSFW, for real, unless you work in a much cooler place than I do.
posted by Poppa Bear at 9:44 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oops, sorry. Mods can we add NSFW warnings?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:46 AM on October 20, 2014

The Cheap Trick live version of Sgt. Pepper was pretty good.
posted by Billiken at 9:47 AM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I saw the Lips at Riot Fest Chicago this year. While it was a good time, there was a weird, bitter undercurrent to all of the frivolity and showmanship. It was like seeing an aging star in Vegas giving the pukes what they wanted and sometimes they were connected and the old light shone through and sometimes they seemed a bit checked out. And Coyne's stage patter was in the approximate tone of a parent in a seriously shitty mood trying to put a nice face on for the kids. It was fun, and they acquitted themselves well. But I wonder if their thing is wearing on them, or at the very least, picking up some darker edges.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:47 AM on October 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Y'know I watched the Bee Gees/Frampton Sgt Pepper film again recently, and yeah, it's a breathtaking example of how a mountain of cocaine can make anything look like a good idea. On the other hand Robin Gibb's cover of "Oh Darling" is really solid.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:52 AM on October 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

I preordered it from Amazon weeks ago, because I am the guy who every full album cover of Sgt. Pepper is made for. Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father is excellent, with Frank Sidebottom's Punch-and-Judy-influenced "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" a standout. Cheap Trick's Sgt. Pepper Live is a too-timid bore, although I'm sure it was fun for the band. The ne plus ultra of this sub-sub-subgrenre is, of course, Big Daddy's Sgt. Pepper's, on which every track is recast in the form of a popular song from the 1950s or early '60s, including "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" as Freddy Cannon's "Palisades Park" and "A Day in the Life" as Buddy Holly's "Every Day."

(On preview: Apparently Billiken and I have to fight now, darn it.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:52 AM on October 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

And Coyne's stage patter was in the approximate tone of a parent in a seriously shitty mood trying to put a nice face on for the kids.

Coyne has been... erratic for a while.
posted by kmz at 9:53 AM on October 20, 2014

Man... I respected the Flaming Lips so much more before they became, essentially, a band putting out endless gimmicks to get attention. Gummy skulls! 24 hour recordings! A full cover of Sgt. Pepper! ...why does any of this need to happen? I don't get it.

(OK, so Zaireeka was a gimmick too, but a really fantastic one!)
posted by naju at 9:57 AM on October 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

Seconding DirtyOldTown... their live shows used to be nothing short of magic communal celebrations... for various reasons of Coyne being a kinda shitty dude and the band becoming gimmicky and not aging gracefully, it all turned REALLY sour. I had to leave their set when I saw them at a festival because I was expecting magic, and got something with a tinge of desperation, like the moment had long since passed and they're still trying to live it.
posted by naju at 10:00 AM on October 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

OMG yes. Starting sometime after Yoshimi everything the Flaming Lips does now has to have a weird, bitter, unsavory, NSFW and/or disgusting element. There were hints of this in previous years in a lot of their old songs but now it's just undeniable. Now finding out that there's a Moby (who I used to have a giant crush on back in 2002) and Miley Cirus NSFW piece of this makes me instantly want to erase all knowledge of it.
posted by bleep at 10:02 AM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Neil's A Day in the Life
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:03 AM on October 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm interested - their full album cover (with a bunch of other musicians) of Dark Side Of The Moon was fantastic.
posted by newton at 10:04 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

However much they decline or get pointlessly weird, The Flaming Lips will always hold a special place in my heart, because "Bad Days" is my five year old kid's favorite song ever and has been since he was three. I still remember him turning to me in the car while I had it playing and asking, "Dad, can we listen to more stuff like this?" Yes, son. Yes, we can.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:06 AM on October 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

Three tracks in. Seems more interested in being peculiar than in being listenable, but, eh.
posted by jscalzi at 10:16 AM on October 20, 2014

Coyne has been... erratic for a while.

He and Thurston Moore are among the wave of recently-divorced, midlife-crisis, formerly solid 90s rock dudes now given to frequently embarrassing themselves.
posted by anazgnos at 10:18 AM on October 20, 2014 [14 favorites]

I was going to refrain from commenting since I've been living up to my name lately, but yeah, I'm not into this at all. What I used to love about the sonic adventurism of the Lips has turned into noisy wank for noisy wank's sake.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:19 AM on October 20, 2014

There were at least three Mefites present at the conception, in the wee hours of 1/1/12 at the Flaming Lips / Plastic Ono Band New Years Eve Freakout. They dropped the balloons, sang "War Is Over"... And then Wayne Coyne said if a band was ever in their career going to do a Beatles cover, they might as well do it while actually on stage with Yoko Ono. And they did "Strawberry Fields", and here we are.
posted by ormondsacker at 10:20 AM on October 20, 2014

But I wonder if their thing is wearing on them, or at the very least, picking up some darker edges.

I remember seeing the 'Lips at Treasure Island, and I felt that Wayne wasn't impressed by the enthusiasm of the Sunday evening crowd. They headlined the second day of the two-day festival, and I wasn't alone in putting the commute and next day's activities ahead of my tepid desire to see Wanye roll around in a giant plastic hamster ball, so I could see how the departing crowd would wear on your enthusiasm. Still, reviews of their show were good enough, and didn't capture any of the disappointment I recall from Wayne.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:23 AM on October 20, 2014

(And I'm not going to say anything about this album, but as a longtime Lips/Beatles/sappy-Christmas-song fan, the memory of "War is Over" there, live, with Yoko and Sean Lennon and the Lips, is still going to be making me mist up when I'm 83.)
posted by ormondsacker at 10:30 AM on October 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't like it.
posted by jimmythefish at 10:37 AM on October 20, 2014

I think sometime between At War With The Mystics and the filming of Christmas on Mars, the Lips came to the conclusion that they really wanted to be The Residents.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:56 AM on October 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

He and Thurston Moore are among the wave of recently-divorced, midlife-crisis, formerly solid 90s rock dudes now given to frequently embarrassing themselves.

as always, it's tough growing up in public.

By the way, the word on Thurston Moore's recent Vancouver concdert is that it was very strong. Embarrassing didn't come up at all.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 AM on October 20, 2014

Three tracks in. Seems more interested in being peculiar than in being listenable, but, eh.

That's about as far as I got. Seemed like a bit of a trainwreck to me.
posted by entropone at 11:15 AM on October 20, 2014

Are we far enough down in the page where I can plug my friends' band Home, who are sort of part of the extended Lips musical family? Dave Fridmann produced two of their records and if you don't know them, you should listen to this one on Spotify right away.

[/plug for friend] Carry on.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:16 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd like to hear a version of "Lucy" with just Moby and Miley. She is a great singer who had sounded for a while like she wants more adventurous material. He is ten years past his heyday but I think he's just out there enough to create something with hey that they'd both be proud of. This isn't quite it, though Cyrus is the high point of the song.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:18 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

For... six months, I think, on the outside of his downtown art gallery, Coyne had hung a papier-mâché nose with white christmas lights hanging out the nostrils. At night, the lights would make it look like the nose was inhaling an endless torrent of blow. "The Nose Snows", he called it.

That's Wayne Coyne now. He's OKC's own Dr. Rockso. That nose was his way of whispering "I do cocaine" in our collective ears. It's really depressing.
posted by suckerpunch at 11:29 AM on October 20, 2014 [10 favorites]

I can't believe I forgot to mention Easy Star All-Star's Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band! It's a bit timid, but good on the whole, with a couple of small but apropos lyrical modifications that made me smile. "Woke up, fell out of bed, ran my fingers through my dreads..."
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:29 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Was that the New Voyages bridge set?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:31 AM on October 20, 2014

I saw FL in SF on Halloween last year, and I thought it was great. Aside from two beers, I was completely sober. There are those who claim it was even more amazing with the proper mind altering drugs having been properly ingested. I could see that.

Anyway, I'm about four songs in and I don't see this having a lot of relistenability, for me at least. And I do consider myself an above-average FL fan. But I like the more tragically beautiful bits of their work, not the more psychedelic noise bits.
posted by jeffamaphone at 11:31 AM on October 20, 2014

I absolutely hate The Beatles Sergeant Pepper, but absolutely love Yoshimi, and the Lip's earlier albums. The rest are just painful. I also like The Residents. Where will I be on the like/dislike continuum?
posted by SPUTNIK at 11:33 AM on October 20, 2014

and now, okay, I'll bite.

That version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is fucking great (way better than anything I heard from the Dark Side thing). It takes all the weirdness and grandiosity of the original and expands on it deliciously.

I do like the Residents.
posted by philip-random at 11:41 AM on October 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Had a quick listen. "Within You Without You" was painful. "Day in a Life" was... interesting... As to The Residents, it was my thought exactly given the cover for this album with the eyeball head people in the Peter Maxish tarot card art.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:44 AM on October 20, 2014

I'm positive the Flaming Lips are weird, out-there, experimental, all that. What I'm not positive of: That they actually have a sense of humor. It would really help.
posted by argybarg at 11:50 AM on October 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Liking the version Lucy, didn't think much of Sgt. Pepper or Friends.
posted by octothorpe at 11:55 AM on October 20, 2014

That version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is fucking great

but a quick listen to the other Pepper's tracks that I can still really bear to hear (Fixing A Hole, Within You Within Out You, Mr Kite, Day in the Life) reveals not much to get excited about. Not awful, just not really ... anything.

The Flaming Lips Beatles album I want hear is the twenty-four hour long interpretation of Revolution 9.
posted by philip-random at 11:56 AM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I do love the Lips' version of "I want you (She's so heavy)" with Nels Cline., all 17 minutes of it.
posted by octothorpe at 12:00 PM on October 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

That version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is fucking great

But that video is more than NSFW... It's friggin' nightmare fuel. And really the last thing you'd ever want to see while actually on LSD.
posted by el io at 12:13 PM on October 20, 2014

"I want you (She's so heavy)" with Nels Cline. yt , all 17 minutes of it.

"So how long are we going to play it for? That ending is pretty open-ended."
"Until the drugs tell us to stop."
posted by philip-random at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2014

Only the best is worthy of continual updates. Warning: Paul McCartney sighting.
posted by breadbox at 12:28 PM on October 20, 2014

I think 'Lucy' works really well as the soundtrack to the video.
posted by carter at 1:04 PM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

So, do you open the show with the 17 minute "She's So Heavy," or close with it, or use it as an encore, or use it when the drugs get so strong you can't read your playlist anymore since it gives you some chill out time?
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:26 PM on October 20, 2014

Reminds me of a funny story....

Back in 1978 or so when the movie came out, my friends and I were all about 16. We all liked the Beatles music, so two of my friends decided to go see it. I guess they didn't hear the news or read the fine print as to who was actually going to be in this thing... They just thought "A movie about Sgt Pepper and the Beatles. Cool!"

They also decided to ingest some mind-altering substances before they went in.

After about 10 minutes they realized they were watching something entirely different than what they expected.
posted by freakazoid at 1:36 PM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's a great cover of She's So Heavy.
posted by carter at 2:41 PM on October 20, 2014

I was a huge Lips fan for several years, but yeah they kinda lost me sometime after Yoshimi. I bought Mystics because I knew there had to something to latch onto after repeat listenings but it just wasn't there. But in terms of their live show, it hasn't changed since the early 2000s. I know if I go there will be dancing characters, Wayne might be in a bubble, probably a close up singing nun on Yoshimi, some blood somewhere. But after you've seen it you don't really need to go back. The Lips were great because each album was trying something new and even if it wasn't a success it was still interesting. Now it seems they've locked into "what works" and I just don't care anymore.
posted by downtohisturtles at 2:58 PM on October 20, 2014

The Lips played Riot Fest in Toronto this year, and Coyne stopped "Yoshimi Pt. 1" because the kids in the front row didn't know the stupid crowd-participation move. That set the tone for the rest of the show: Dude wanted us to perform for him.

So I went to the food truck. Great brisket.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 3:41 PM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm a huge, huge, huge Flaming Lips fan, have met various members of the band, have been to 6 shows, some great and some very weak, and I am genuinely concerned about Wayne's mental state. I feel like the last ten years' material has been heavily influenced by struggles with mortality and The Terror, while a great album and the best I've seen them on tour, sounded scarily bitter and resigned in places.
posted by Metafilter Username at 4:00 PM on October 20, 2014