Are You A Hypnotist?

November 30, 2010 4:08 AM

I'm a Faming Lips noob, and am passionately in love with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - Where to next? They have about 90 gazillion albums - so which are standouts?
posted by the noob to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

The Soft Bulletin
posted by princelyfox at 4:12 AM on November 30, 2010 [13 favorites]

They've changed their sound a few times over the years - my guess is that if you like Yoshimi, you'd probably like The Soft Bulletin and Transmissions From The Satellite Heart as well. eMusic has a summary of all their albums, in context of their whole career to date rather than judging each one by itself. In the past, I've found their "pick" icons to be a reliable guide when I'm going through a huge back catalogue.
posted by harriet vane at 4:17 AM on November 30, 2010

As has been said, you're more likely to enjoy later-period albums like The Soft Bulletin or At War With The Mystics... TSB was really quite a radical departure for their sound.

That said, I got my start on the Flaming Lips when Yoshimi came out (actually, it was an incredible live performance that sold me) and it turned out that I loved earlier, noisier Flaming Lips even more. For my money, their best album is Hit To Death In The Future Head. I'd say that one along with Clouds Taste Metallic and TSB to be my essential Flaming Lips albums. But I wouldn't willingly give any of them up.

Embryonic last year really surprised me - best thing they've done since TSB I reckon.
posted by Ted Maul at 4:42 AM on November 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah, that reminds me - see them live. It's great.
posted by Ted Maul at 4:43 AM on November 30, 2010 [4 favorites]

Seconding the recommendation to see them live. It's really something.
posted by harriet vane at 4:45 AM on November 30, 2010

Like others have said, TSB is a masterpiece.

Embryonic got back near to this kind of sound and it is brilliant in its own right, but I had to play it twice before listening.
posted by chillmost at 4:58 AM on November 30, 2010

The Soft Bulletin and At War with the Mystics are the closest in style, and between those The Soft Bulletin is much better, at least to me. The simplest way to divide their discography is before and after Zaireeka. Before Zaireeka they did psychedelic rock built mostly on distorted guitars, getting generally more melodic towards the end of that period. After, they are generally more lush, more melodic and the guitars are generally just one element of many in their sound.

Embryonic bucks this general trend by bringing back more of a live, guitar-band sound.
posted by snofoam at 5:25 AM on November 30, 2010

TSB is a friggin' masterpiece. I'm also a huge fan of Transmissions From the Satellite Heart.
posted by futureisunwritten at 6:12 AM on November 30, 2010

Seconding what everyone else has said about TSB and live shows. Unless you become a super-fan, skip Zaireeka.
posted by TurkishGolds at 6:53 AM on November 30, 2010

Unless you become a super-fan, skip Zaireeka.

Nthing The Soft Bulletin as their best album and the next one you should try, but I wouldn't completely dismiss Zaireeka. If you have a few like-minded friends and some CD players, playing Zaireeka can be a good time. It's more of an event than an album that you listen to over and over, so even if you don't love the songs it's still fun to try.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:13 AM on November 30, 2010

If you have a few like-minded friends and some CD players, playing Zaireeka can be a good time. It's more of an event than an album that you listen to over and over, so even if you don't love the songs it's still fun to try.

This is definitely true. It's really something like a recreation of a live show more than anything else.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:08 AM on November 30, 2010

I think there's a lot of songs on the albums I have heard that are all kinds of awesome, but in terms of the whole album TSB and Embryonic are good starting points relative to Yoshimi. Of course this might be simply my own opinion as those are the three albums I have heard the most often; just getting started on their back catalog fairly recently (aside from the bigger college/alt radio singles I was familiar with prior to Yoshimi).

I won't go into details why as I know it's revered my many folks, but I was turned off of the group overnight.

You know that this is only going to make us all ask you what exactly turned you off on the group, right?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:06 AM on November 30, 2010

In this order:

The Soft Bulletin
Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
In a Priest Driven Ambulance
Clouds Taste Metallic
Embryonic

Then all the rest.

I would also recommend reading Staring At Sound, I found that it enhanced my enjoyment of the band.
posted by kpmcguire at 3:47 PM on November 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

As a side note, you could also check out the weird and wonderful music by Yoshimi herself. Yoshimi P-We appears on that Flaming Lips record, is the drummer for the legendary Japanese rock band the Boredoms, and leads an all-female act called OOIOO that might be one of the best bands in the world at this moment.
posted by pinetree at 4:28 PM on November 30, 2010 [2 favorites]