Lyrically it provides the first evidence of the band tackling political subject matters – “Without all your bodyguards, how long would you last?” is just one line that seems to refer to a certain president – coming as it does at track two of twelve. Thus, we have a song like ‘Free Radicals’, subtitled (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber), that sounds like Prince receiving an internal tickling from Add N To X’s metal fingers like Curtis Mayfield and Bootsy Collins aboard a star cruiser in the twenty-fifth century dropping cluster bombs of candyfloss onto a city of Robot Wars failures.
They’ve maintained their position as arena-filling artists without compromising their more maverick tendencies. “We’re going on.” And on, and on… be fair, few at the time of The Soft Bulletin’s universal acclaim would have predicted that, two albums later, The Flaming Lips would still be in a position rarely achieved by even the most commercially viable middle-of-the-road rock acts. “How do we keep going on?” asks the grey-haired singer as the last seconds of closer ‘Goin’ On’ fade around him. This is, in a way, the oddest chapter in the Lips’ career to date: it’s not everyday that a trio of sonic freaks find themselves play listed between Heather Small and James Blunt it’s a rarer day still that one of them presents an award to the latter insipid solo ‘artist’, as frontman Wayne Coyne did at the last Brit Awards. Their two-albums-back crossover proper, The Soft Bulletin, won them additional legions of acolytes, no few culled from the former grazing ground of the musically elderly, Radio 2.
…esrever ni tihs siht nur dna yzarc elttil a gnihtemos od s’teLīecause, face it, The Flaming Lips steadfastly refuse to adhere to the straight-and-narrow guidelines that guarantee continued success.
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