The Flaming Lips

Watch New Music Video For Flaming Lips Song "Powerless"
Link Time

Link Time! Watch the Flaming Lips's Puzzling New Video

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New Music Releases For December 22, Including Mary J. Blige and The Flaming Lips
Music

What to Download: New Music Today

I already shared some great new DVD offerings, and while it's slimmer pickings for music (no doubt due to the holidays), there are two releases that I'm particularly psyched about.
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I already shared some great new DVD offerings, and while it's slimmer pickings for music (no doubt due to the holidays), there are two releases that I'm particularly psyched about. Check them out! (Plus, don't forget that if you're loving a new album, you can sound off about it in the Music Review Group. I may even feature your writeup on the site!)

All Hail, Queen Mary: Mary J. Blige may have experienced a few Growing Pains, but with her ninth release, she shows us a woman who has come out on the other side of heartbreak and is even more powerful for it. Stronger With Each Tear has a breezy confidence to it that speaks to Blige's own feelings about herself at this stage in her life. Chances are you've heard "The One" featuring Drake in those AT&T ads, but I love it for its sort of cocky swagger, a persona which also pops up on the track "I Feel Good." For a more pensive, peaceful Blige, listen to the stripped down "Color" from the movie Precious. It's a beautiful, bluesy track.

Pink Floyd Redo: The Flaming Lips take on an ambitious project (and a similarly ambitious title) in The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing Dark Side of the Moon, where the band tackles the infamous Pink Floyd album through a series of covers (exclusively available only on iTunes this week). The Lips add their own modern psychedelic flavor to the old-school tracks with lots of experimental sounds, e.g. on "Money," they distort their own voices to give the song a robotic feel. Diehard Floyd followers will probably scoff at such tinkering with the classics, but the result feels like a fresh update — even though, like most remakes, it's difficult to do a one better than the original.

Silver Fetus Ornament from The Flaming Lips
Holiday

Silver Fetus Ornament: Ga Ga or Gag?

Many families commemorate their Christmas with a new ornament for each passing year.
by babysugar

Many families commemorate their Christmas with a new ornament for each passing year. A glass-blown taxi to mark a trip to NYC or a plastered handprint to mark an age. This year, expectant parents can adorn their holiday tree with a silver fetus ornament ($30). A tad different from most decorations, what may be most odd is that these shiny babies are being produced and sold by the hipster band The Flaming Lips. Groupies are sure to jump on the baby bandwagon, but will you?

Love It or Hate It? Flaming Lips Silver Trembling Fetus Ornament
Holiday

Love It or Hate It? Flaming Lips Silver Trembling Fetus Ornament

Just in time for the holidays, the Flaming Lips have debuted a new Silver Trembling Fetus Ornament ($30) in their webshop — to tie in with their latest album, Embryonic.
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Just in time for the holidays, the Flaming Lips have debuted a new Silver Trembling Fetus Ornament ($30) in their webshop — to tie in with their latest album, Embryonic. I have a huge crush on Wayne Coyne and I love everything he does, so my opinion on this product would no doubt be biased. That said, I'll keep my mouth shut. Watch this promotional video for the ornament and tell me what you think of it. Love it or hate it? Would you hang it? Tell me by commenting below!

New Music Releases For Oct. 13, Including The Flaming Lips, Bob Dylan, and the 90210 Soundtrack
Music

What to Download: New Music Today

It's Tuesday! I've already given you some picks to beef up your Netflix queue, but now it's time for your iPod.
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It's Tuesday! I've already given you some picks to beef up your Netflix queue, but now it's time for your iPod. Check out today's new music releases for what you should download.

The birth of new sound: The latest from The Flaming Lips, Embryonic, is the musical equivalent of an acid trip. The band reportedly improvised a lot in the studio, so the entire album feels raw and pretty much all over the place. MGMT joins in on the track Worm Mountain, Karen O lends silly animal noises (yes, really) to I Can Be a Frog, and a mathematician spouts out equation, x=y type stuff on Gemini Syringes. Weird? You bet. Every track is experimental, which means you'll either embrace it for its free-spirited creativity, or write it off as too strange. Either way, it's worth checking out.

Pop culture candy: Hell has frozen over — Jack White is on the 90210 soundtrack. Hey, I'm not knocking TV music — I've already professed my love for it — but I was surprised to see The Raconteurs associated with a CW show. The band lends a wicked guitar riff to the first track Many Shades of Black (featuring soulful singer Adele) to start the album off. The rest of the playlist includes a mix of new offerings from indie artists and more mainstream pop, but my favorites are the sleepy Valium by MuteMath and the Postal Service-ish Sunburn by Owl City.

See one more release when you read more

Buzz News Roundup, 4/27
news roundup

Buzz News Roundup, 4/27

Chuck, Privileged, Life, Dollhouse, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are the five finalists in E!'s Save One Show competition.
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Source

NBC's Even Remaking Its Chimes
The Flaming Lips

NBC's Even Remaking Its Chimes

From Knight Rider to The Partridge Family, NBC under entertainment president Ben Silverman has been a remake-happy network.
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From Knight Rider to The Partridge Family, NBC under entertainment president Ben Silverman has been a remake-happy network. So is it any wonder that NBC's signature chime sound (you know, the "boooo-beeeee-boooooh" that plays alongside the peacock logo) is also getting a reinvention?

The B-52s, The Flaming Lips, and B.B. King are among the musicians redoing the signature tones (apparently it's the notes G-E-C) as part of a new ad campaign. The eight-second spots will air at the top and bottom of every hour.

This music player has some snippets of what the new tones will sound like, plus a mini-interview with the B-52s talking about how funny it was to receive a call about doing the campaign. Even better is this Entertainment Weekly video from the promo shoot that has Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne saying there was no way he could turn down an opportunity to do something this bizarre.

The promos should start airing around Thanksgiving, and while they might be doomed like so many other NBC remakes these days, I still can't help but think it's sort of clever. What's your take?

Official State Songs
The Flaming Lips

Buzz In: What Should Be Your State's Rock Song?

In charming civic-type news, The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??"
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In charming civic-type news, The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize??" has been nominated for official Oklahoma rock song, apparently the token indie rock entry in a list that includes the likes of Elvis Presley and, well, Oklahoma. As Pitchfork writes:

"Oklahoma already has an official state song ("Oklahoma," from the musical, natch), a state folk song, and a state country-and-western tune. What they don't have just yet is an official state rock'n'roll song. And that is where you come in."

The state legislature has ordered Oklahomans to vote here before Nov. 15 — though as far as I can tell, anyone can vote, 'cause the computer has no way of knowing whether or not you're an Oklahoman — for whichever rock song you like.

This is a pretty fun idea, so I think we should start thinking of the official rock songs for the rest of the 49 states! For example, it seems to me Washington should probably at least nominate "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana as one of theirs (it seems the Evergreen State only has a state folk song). Maybe something from my 50 Songs for 50 States challenge could get you started.

What do you think? What other songs would you nominate for which states?

Source and Source

Buzz News Roundup, 7/7
Entourage

Buzz News Roundup, 7/7

The Wire's David Simon has told Broadcasting & Cable that he wants to make a movie about Donnie Andrews, the real-life Omar who robbed drug dealers.
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Source

Bad Bad Leroy Brown Movie
Music

Turning Songs Into Film: "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

The inspiration for a movie premise can come from anywhere and in the case of one news item today, it's in the Jim Croce song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."
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The inspiration for a movie premise can come from anywhere and in the case of one news item today, it's in the Jim Croce song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." According to the Hollywood Reporter, producer Warren Zide (co-executive producer of American Pie) picked up the rights to the song with the intention of turning it into an "action-comedy franchise."

Zide said when he reached out to the Croce family for the rights to develop this project, they struck up a partnership and the family gave Zide their blessing. Jim Croce died tragically in a plane crash in 1973 , the same year "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" was No. 1 on US music charts, and his career was just beginning to really take off. The movie would not be a biopic but instead would tell the story of the guy in the song, Leroy Brown, "the baddest man in the whole damn town/ badder than old King Kong/ and meaner than a junkyard dog."

What do you think of developing an entire movie out of a character from a song? I would love to watch the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi battle the pink robots (although that might actually go to stage instead of a movie). Are there any song characters you think would make a good movie?

To see a clip of Croce describing the real Leroy Brown and performing the song live, read more