How great is that picture? That must have been so fun.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Flaming Lips have already recorded a new album hot on the heels of Embryonic, which was released on Tuesday of this week. For whatever reason, they’ve decided to recreate Pink Flyod’s 1973 classic Dark Side of the Moon.
The band will release a track-by-track interpretation of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” in the near future, which it recorded with Stardeath and the White Dwarfs, a band that features Coyne’s nephew Dennis.
Henry Rollins and Peaches make guest appearances on the album, Coyne told the crowd during a pre-concert question-and-answer session. A Flaming Lips spokesman says the album will likely be an iTunes-only release, at least initially.
It will certainly be a more comfortable — at least familiar release — than the sonic experimentations of “Embryonic.” But the Flaming Lips’ fan base is one that’s always ready for a challenge, at least that’s what Coyne is betting on.
“I think our audience would forgive us for going out in the further regions of whatever we could think of,” Coyne says. “But I don’t think we’d be worthy of being forgiven if we didn’t do that. They’re giving us the freedom, the encouragement, the money and the time to say, ‘Go somewhere where no other band could go, and come back and tell us what it was like.’”
We’re all familiar with tribute albums and one-off covers, but I don’t think a popular band has ever recorded and released a legendary band’s masterpiece. When Beck and his buddies get together and do something similar, the results are more silly than anything. If the Flaming Lips were just goofing around, they shouldn’t charge for the thing. Maybe this is some sort of artistic conquest, I don’t know. But why this album and not one with less merit? Dark Side of the Moon doesn’t need an updated version.
