The Flaming Dark Lips of the Moon: A Review

(Sorry about the dinky little picture. I really couldn't find a bigger one of the actual album artwork)

Now that I have given the Flaming Lips' cover of "Dark Side of the Moon" a few listens I feel I can now make a judgment call about it.

Before even listening to the album, I had extremely high hopes, but at first listen I was almost offended. "What the hell is this shit?", I thought to myself. I was taken aback, being such a huge fan of the original album and even previous other cover attempts (such as Easy Star All-Stars 'Dub Side of the Moon'). I realized though, that I had approached this album from a wrong angle. This wasn't Pink Floyd, this wasn't even The Flaming Lips during their Soft Bulletin or Yoshi Battles the Pink Robots days. This was The Flaming Lips, right NOW, after releasing Embryonic and reaching back to their Psych-Rock-Acid-Punk freakout days (but not totally forgetting their musical endeavors over the last 10 years).

Taking that into consideration, I retract my distaste of the album. The Lips (with help from Stardeath and White Dwarfs, Peaches, and Henry Rollins) actually did a pretty nice job with it. It's ambitious and it's very Lips-esque, as it should be. A complete freakfest, with some interesting moments (and some not so interesting).

Here's an extremely brief and very lacking in vocabulary description runthrough/commentary of said "interesting moments" and "not so interesting" moments on the album:

1.Speak to Me / Breathe is done pretty well
2. the danceable On The Run jam is one of my favorites
3. Time wasn't too great (Dennis Coyne's voice sounds kind of weak and lame on it but the Breathe Reprise was cool.
4. The Great Gig In the Sky is cool (really nice try with Clare Torry's crazy vocal part.
5. Money starts of with potential but it's overall pretty horrible after the first 50 seconds, no energy really.
6. I miss the echo parts in Us and Them but overall it's pretty good.
7. Any Colour You Like is great (the screaming/scatting in the background is kind of hilarious.)
8. Brain Damage is more of a somber tune and fits Dennis's voice better. So with that in consideration, it's not too bad.
9. Eclipse has a similar feel to the original but for some reason I feel like it's missing something (maybe the background vocals?) nonetheless it's good.

And that's it!

This album is definitely worth a listen. Check it out.