This is an incredible collection of Lips early stuff. The other companion collection, "Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid", discs 1-3, are the first recordings by the Flaming Lips, and it is very good. If you are a huge fan of the Flaming Lips like I am, both of these are good to have for historical purposes. The Flaming Lips have a rich history of inventive music and if you just start at The Soft Bulletin, arguably where they are roughly at stylistically, and have the three most recent recordings, that one and Yoshimi, and At War With The Mystics, then wouldn't you be a bit curious as to how they arrived at this point?
I was curious, and I live in the area where they grew up in central Oklahoma, and pretty much ignored them up until about a year ago. Now I have all of their Cd's except for one of them.
You should be curious if you consider yourself to be an explorer of artistically viable music. The Flaming lips have obvious influences from the classic/acid-rock era including Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and many others. But this collection reveals how they developed their ideas from a Punk Rock Acid Rock perspective, and, depending on your frame of mind, and how receptive you are to noise/Acid/punk and their newer musical ideas, you should find The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg rewarding--I did.
Disc one includes the "Priest Driven Ambulance" album, which was their last pre-Warner Bros. album, and also their last album without Steven Drozd on the drums. It is looser, and much more guitar driven than their recent recordings, although all the recordings prior to Soft Bulletin are more guitar/noise driven. There are plenty of mind-blowing ideas and many beautiful songs. The bass is more prominent in the mix. The rawness is there but the punk-influenced Acid sound is there and it plays very well. Some of the stand-out songs from disc one are played again as out-takes, different versions and they are on Disc Two, the Mushroom Tapes. This disc took me a few plays to enjoy but I now listen to it more than the others. There are some songs that are beautiful, such as the Stones-influenced Five Stop Mother Superior Rain, with its slide guitar work, harking back to Stones Wild Horses, or Pink Floyd.
Anyway, I won't go into the details. Listen and experience this collection on your own. With an open mind, you'll be richly rewarded. Earsby
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