May 20, 2002

 
Mat Honan is building up a massive collection of Attack of the Clones reviews written on personal blogs to illustrate a point.

Thanks to Black Ops on WFMU, I've discovered The Polyphonic Spree's The Beginning Stages Of..., which is currently making me very happy. They sound a lot like how I was imaging the next Flaming Lips LP would sound like, and since I've yet to hear any of Yoshimi vs. the Pink Robots yet, I might still be correct. It's a lot like The Soft Bulletin in its lush over-the-top arrangements, its similar melodies, and its blend of cheery optimism and melancholy. To be more specific, it's like an album long version of "The Gash" from that LP. It's a very lovely record from start to finish, though the final track which is 30+ minutes of chopped up bits of the previous tracks is a bit too "Revolution #9" for me. I especially recommend "Section 7", "Section 8", and "Section 9" for those who want to get a little taste of the record. As implied by the titles (Sections 1-10), the record is meant to be one long piece of music with each song as a movement of the overall album composition. This is certainly one of my favorite records thus far in 2002, I'm looking foward to seeing them when they come to New York on tour.

NEWSFLASH I spoke too soon about the new Flaming Lips LP - I downloaded the record not long after writing the above post, and though it is much too early for me to formulate an opinion about it just yet, I can safely say that it's BIZARRE. Most of it sounds like a soundtrack to a Japanese animated film, and it is very much a concept record about someone called Yoshimi fighting "those evil natured robots", it rarely strays from the lyrical themes. It's not as orchestral as The Soft Bulletin, but it's lush in its own way. There is all manner of synthesizers, drum machines, and electro sound effects all over this record, but also a great deal of acoustic guitar strumming. A few of the songs have a breezy summertime feeling to them, but others are extremely melodramatic and bombastic. This is a very interesting record, to say the least. I was wrong to sell the Lips so short, anticipating a sequel to The Soft Bulletin instead of something else altogether.