Blame the swooning reviews, blame the mainstream love, blame those stupid Zorbs to which Wayne Coyne is so irritatingly attached — whatever the reason, at some point in the past decade or so The Flaming Lips transitioned from fascinating outsiders to inside the tent pranksters: the inescapable official jesters of independent rock.
This has resulted in some lacklustre recent albums — when last did you actively care about a new Flaming Lips release? — a trend that achieves a soul-crushing nadir in this ‘zany’ covering of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,/i>.
Granted, it isn’t the first time the Lips, plus random collaborators, have tackled an iconic LP — previously Wayne Coyne and chums have applied their patented craziness to Pink Floyd and The Stone Roses. But With A Little Help From My Fwends is far more than a misjudgment — it constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the original so magnificent and iconic (hint Wayne: it wasn’t ‘cos it was balls-out wacky).
The problem is that neither Coyne nor his collaborators — most prominently Miley Cyrus — have any sense what they are trying to achieve. Are they shooting for pastiche? The Miley/Moby/Coyne three-way that constitutes ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ suggests this might be the case. Or is it their goal to present heartfelt homage? You have a sense that this may be where things are headed with ‘She’s Leaving Home’, where guest vocalist is the avant-garde artist Julianna Barwick. Alas, such moments of quasi-cogency are aberrations. Generally, the tone is freaky for freaky’s sake. Throughout, Coyne displays a tin ear for the qualities that made Lennon and McCartney special. For me, this is music as spiritual torture. Sorry.
OUT NOW.