THE FLAMING LIPS CELEBRATE 25 YEARS OF GROUNDBREAKING ALBUM THE SOFT BULLETIN
23rd July 2024The Flaming Lips will celebrate 25 years of their seminal 1999 album, The Soft Bulletin, with the brand new The Soft Bulletin 25TH Anniversary Vinyl out September 6. It will be available in limited-edition 2LP Vinyl with stunning Zoetrope designs notably co-created by Drew Tetz and band frontman Wayne Coyne. Plus, it boasts brand-new sleeve artwork in addition to an insert with text penned by Wayne. Click HERE to pre-order.
Recently, Wayne took to Instagram in order to quietly tease this moment and share candid memories of The Soft Bulletin. Specifically, he reminisced about the finale “Sleeping On The Roof.” He revealed, “This little piece of music encapsulates the theme of The Soft Bulletin.. It’s bleak and resigned but also comforting.. it somehow is hopeless and hopeful at the same time..”
The Flaming Lips first unveiled The Soft Bulletin on May 17, 1999. Anchored by staples such as “Race for the Prize,” “Waitin’ for a Superman,” and “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” it earned some of the highest critical praise of the band’s career. Pitchfork placed it at #3 among “The Top 100 Albums of the 1990s,” hailing it as “godlike music” and professing, “Remarkably, the band’s music maintains a general air of feel-goodness while their lyrics concern sobering subjects as bleeding, bites, and mortality.” Moreover, Entertainment Weekly bestowed an “A” rating upon the record, Spin scored it “9-out-of-10,” NME applauded it with a “9-out-of-10,” and Pitchfork delivered a rare perfect “10.0” score.
They will continue to tour throughout 2024. These shows once again see the band deliver a full performance of their 2002 groundbreaking, Gold-certified Warner Records album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety, continuing to honor over two decades of this creative and critical career high watermark.
On August 30 and 31, the band will host their “Summer Freak Out,” playing two nights at Zoo Amphitheatre in their hometown of Oklahoma City. The band will perform Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety on night one, with a full performance of The Soft Bulletin to follow on night two. Check out the full confirmed tour itinerary below and click HERE for ticket information.
The Soft Bulletin TRACKLISTING:
DISC 1:
o Side A:
1. Race for the Prize
2. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
3. The Spark That Bled
4. The Spiderbite Song
o Side B:
1. Buggin’
2. What is the Light?
3. The Observer
DISC 2:
o Side A:
1. Waitin’ for a Superman
2. Suddenly Everything Has Changed
3. The Gash
o Side B:
1. Slow Motion
2. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
3. Sleeping on the Roof
About The Flaming Lips:
Formed in Oklahoma City, OK in 1983, The Flaming Lips have since become one of the most iconic, influential, unpredictable, and vital forces in American alternative rock music. The band has garnered three GRAMMY® Awards, a Tony nomination, and an RIAA Gold-certified Record for Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Q Magazine named them one of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die.” The band has made countless late-night television appearances, appeared in a Super Bowl commercial, contributed to many film soundtracks, and collaborated with artists such as Miley Cyrus, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Kacey Musgraves, Yoko Ono, The Chemical Brothers, and many more. More recently The LIPS have recorded an album of Nick Cave covers featuring vocalist Nell Smith called “Where The Viaduct Blooms.” They have set countless records, broken attendance records, have a hometown street named in their honor, and created spectacular interactive audio/visual events now regarded as legendary. Frontman Wayne Coyne has been recognized for works of art that graced many LIPS album covers along with his traveling art exhibit (and subsequent album) “The King’s Mouth,” an audiovisual art installation that has been featured in many contemporary art museums around the US. Their latest LP, American Head, marks a return to a more melodic and song-oriented body of work and has critically been lauded as their best work in years placing on several “Year End/Best Of lists” around the world. Even after a combination of 23 studio recordings, 16 singles, 11 compilations, 12 EPs, and 11 self-released experimental collaborative oddities released in various forms, quantities, and unique mediums, The Flaming Lips remain in a creative apex that has no bounds. To that end, they have become an American Treasure and created a genre all to themselves.
