The Flaming Lips Discography
The Soft Bulletin
Warner Bros./PIAS Records - 0555-10109-1 - May 1999


Cover
Music reviewers' love of hyperbole means that the term 'masterpiece' tends to be donned on any album passing mediocre these days, but in the middle of 1999 The Flaming Lips put out an album that is well deserving of the description. It is quite superb from start to finish. If I had to make any criticism of the album it would be the superfluous repetition of the singles at the end of the CD version; and here the vinyl version wins out.

Not only does the LP tracklist include both The Spiderbite Song (from US CD version) and Slow motion (from UK CD version), but the separating of the album over four side of vinyl works beautifully, with each grouping holding together in its own right, like a collection of EPs; this is to my mind the definitive tracklist.

See also:
The Soft Bulletin (US CD)
The Soft Bulletin (UK CD)

Tracklist:

  1. Race for the Prize (sacrifice of the new scientists)
  2. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
  3. The Spark that Bled (The Softest Bullet Ever Shot)
  4. The Spiderbite Song

  5. Buggin' (The buzz of love is buggin' you)
  6. What is the Light? (An untested hypothesis suggesting that the chemical [in our brains] by which we are able to experience the sensation of being in love is the same chemical that caused the 'Big Bang' that was the birth of the accelerating universe)
  7. The Observer

  8. Waitin' for a Superman (Is it gettin' heavy?)
  9. Suddenly Everything Has Changed (Death anxiety caused by moments of boredom)
  10. The Gash (Battle hymn for the wounded mathematician)

  11. Slow Motion
  12. Feeling Yourself Disintigrate
  13. Sleeping on the Roof (excerpt from "Should We Keep The Severed Head Awake??")

The Flaming Lips Discography


Back

Inside gatefold spread

Green vinyl, A-side | Detail

B-side lable detail | B-side

C-Side | D-Side