#The flaming lips albums ranked full

In a Priest Driven Ambulance also marked the first time the band worked with longtime producer Dave Fridmann, and highlighted the more experimental, expansive side of the Lips' music. While touring in support of the Butthole Surfers, they played Buffalo, New York, where they were befriended by concert promoter Jonathan Donahue after a jam session with Donahue's nascent band Mercury Rev, he and Coyne became close friends, and Donahue eventually signed on as the group's sound technician.Īfter recording 1988's difficult Telepathic Surgery, English exited, reducing the Lips to the core duo of Coyne and Ivins after adding drummer Nathan Roberts, Donahue adopted the name Dingus and became a full-time member in time to cut 1990's stellar In a Priest Driven Ambulance while simultaneously recording the brilliant Mercury Rev debut Yerself Is Steam. Continuing as a trio, the Lips released 1986's Hear It Is, followed a year later by Oh My Gawd!!!.The Flaming Lips.

#The flaming lips albums ranked full

When Mark Coyne departed to get married, Wayne assumed full control of the group, becoming the primary singer and songwriter as well as lead guitarist. After progressing through an endless string of drummers, they recruited percussionist Richard English and recorded their self-titled debut, issued on green vinyl on their own Lovely Sorts of Death label in 1985. Giving themselves the nonsensical name the Flaming Lips (its origin variously attributed to a porn film, an obscure drug reference, or a dream in which a fiery Virgin Mary plants a kiss on Wayne in the back seat of his car), the band made their live debut at a local transvestite club. The Flaming Lips formed in Oklahoma City in 1983, when founder and guitarist Wayne Coyne enlisted his vocalist brother Mark and bassist Michael Ivins to start a band. Whether collaborating with Miley Cyrus, issuing an expression of existential dread with 2013's The Terror, exploring the loss of innocence on 2020's American Head, or backing young singer/songwriter Nell Smith on 2021's Where the Viaduct Looms, their distinctive sound and uncommon emotional depth made them as true originals. Later, they took their experimental and pop impulses in wildly different directions.

After years in the underground, a major-label deal scored during the early-'90s alt rock craze gave them a bigger platform for their mix of psych, noise-rock, and bubblegum melodies, and their 1993 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart spawned the unlikely Top 40 hit 'She Don't Use Jelly.' At the turn of the century, they delivered a pair of lush and heartfelt masterpieces with 1999's The Soft Bulletin and 2003's Grammy-winning Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. From their beginnings as Oklahoma outsiders to their mid-'90s pop-culture breakthrough to their status as one of the most respected groups of the 21st century, the Lips rode one of the more surreal career trajectories in pop music.

Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands are as brave, as frequently brilliant, and as deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips.