Flaming Lips

The Dark Side of the MoonWarner Bros *

You really have to ask what is the point of anyone attempting to re-tool one of the most well known, most loved and best-selling albums in the rock music canon. Whoever makes such an attempt is either a genius or daft, and if there’s a band that mixes those two states of mind, it is most assuredly Flaming Lips.

So, you know, good try, chaps, but there remains a central flaw, and it’s got nothing to do with the (over) familiarity of the source album; it’s more connected with the fact that Wayne Coyne and friends (including Peaches and Henry Rollins) totally misplace the cultural references Pink Floyd’s original (and still resonant) album touched upon: work, madness, time, death, and “hanging on in quiet desperation”.

Coyne and co also displace the work of an utterly English concept album, transforming it from an elegant, succinct and often simplistic work into a series of shrill, self-conscious footnotes.

See flaminglips.com