The Soft Bulletin

The Flaming Lips

album cover

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

On "The Spiderbite Song," one of fourteen symphonic pop triumphs on The Soft Bulletin, singer Wayne Coyne speculates about poison traveling through the body after a toxic bite. It's odd and fantastical, and like many earlier Flaming Lips songs, more than a touch preposterous. It's also based on a true story: Lips drummer Steven Drozd suffered from exactly this sort of bite, and was facing amputation when medication finally got the reaction under control.

The reality-bites bent of that song prevails throughout The Soft Bulletin, which is quite possibly the most beautiful pop record of the 1990s. In the past, Coyne was known for his far-flung high-concept tales of space travel. This time, he goes there only once or twice, choosing instead to tackle real-life stuff—the need for love, ordinary folks struggling and triumphing over adversity, the human desire to make some sense of existence. The Lips had been through a rough patch before embarking on this record. Guitarist Ronald Jones went off on a spiritual journey and never came back. And bassist Michael Ivins had been in a bizarre hit-and-run accident that required a long recuperation. (Coyne wrote about that, too, in another verse of "The Spiderbite Song.")

Though rooted to the earth, the songs of The Soft Bulletin are nonetheless lavishly dressed, and meticulous in their details. Most unfold at a methodical, majestic pace, with a sense of grandeur that recalls Pink Floyd circa Wish You Were Here. The basic trio is bolstered by an active orchestra, which frequently serves as a character or another "voice" rather than nondescript back-drop. Unlike most alt-rockers, Coyne and his crew think in sprawling floor-to-ceiling mosaics, and when that bigness surrounds Coyne's yearning voice, as happens on the anthemic "What Is the Light?," the beatifically dazed "Suddenly Everything Has Changed," and the glorious confection "Race for the Prize," it's a sound as magical as any in music.

Genre: Pop, Rock
Released: 1999, Warner Bros.
Key Tracks: "Race for the Prize," "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton," "The Spiderbite Song," "What Is the Light?," "The Observer," "Waitin' for a Superman"
Catalog Choice: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Next Stop: Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here
After That: Frank Zappa and the Mothers: Overnight Sensation
Book Pages: 281–282