The Flaming Lips have never been a band to follow the basic blueprint for popular rock bands. Whether it was releasing an album like Zaireeka, which requires the listener to play four CDs simultaneously, or the 24-hour song “7 Skies H3” that has its own website playing a continuous audio stream, the band likes to push the boundaries of what would be considered normal.
So when the Lips released a companion album Monday to Pink Floyd’s classic Dark Side of the Moon, the average music fan should not have been shocked at all. What might be more shocking is that the release of Flaming Side of the Moon was a collaboration with the website Funny or Die in honor of April Fool’s Day. The website posted four videos Tuesday, including a studio session of the Lips performing Flaming Side, under the guise that the band had “sold out.”
The videos starring Fred Armisen and Jon Daly (the comedian, not the golfer) are funny, a bit with Armisen referencing Coldplay was a favorite, but the centerpiece here is Flaming Side. The Pink Floyd album is familiar territory for the Lips — they have been performing it live for years — and in 2010, they released a track-for-track cover album with help from Henry Rollins and Peaches.
According to the press release issued by the band, “listeners are encouraged to listen to the new Lips album while listening to Dark Side at the same time. Flaming Side of the Moon was also carefully crafted to sync up perfectly with the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz .” The mythical synching of The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side, a.k.a. The Dark Side of the Rainbow, has been a rumor for almost 20 years, dating back to an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette from 1995. The members of Pink Floyd, and the album’s engineer Alan Parsons, have all dismissed it as merely a coincidence.
Coincidences and companion pieces litter the career of Pink Floyd including the exceptional pairing of “Echoes,” the 25-minute closing track from Floyd’s previous album Meddle, and the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” segment from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rumors are that Kubrick wanted the band to work on the score for the film, but decided to use classical music instead.
To enjoy the Lips companion album for Dark Side though, a listener does not need to synch it with the Judy Garland film. But the band does suggest fans find “Alan Parsons’ quadrophonic LP mix of Dark Side.” Once that particular recording has been discovered, all a listener needs to do is synch up both tracks, sit back and listen for the next 45 minutes.
Flaming Side seems at first to be an assortment of random noises meant to lay underneath the original recording. At one point, it sounds like a phone vibrating, which is somewhat distracting in the era of cell phones. The first half of Flaming Side is a largely ambient soundscape overshadowed by its companion. It sounds like a band tinkering with its equipment in the studio, and the accompanying video backs this up.
The second half is very different with the noises accelerating and increasing in volume. Cymbals begin crashing, synthesizers start wailing and backing guitars amplify the sound. The remaining time is a wall of sound from both Pink Floyd and the Lips before ending with the sound of clapping reminiscent of the song “Fearless” from Meddle. The clapping is coming from those on hand while the Lips were recording, and not supporters of the Liverpool football club, but it is another eerie coincidence nonetheless.
Of course, whole thing is a joke — a really big April Fool’s joke. The Lips are so familiar with the material and accomplished enough as musicians that creating a companion album to Dark Side would require little to no work on their part. Throw in a couple riffs from “Money” and “Us and Them,” make the whole thing the same length, and you have yourself a companion album as an April Fool’s joke. At several points during the studio session video, members of the band crack smiles as almost a tip that the whole thing is a charade.
Weirdly enough, it kind of works. It’s not going to work for the average music fan, or even the casual Pink Floyd or Flaming Lips fan, but for those who consider themselves serious fans of both artists it will be an interesting experience. Even fans of psychedelic or ambient music may get some pleasure from listening to both albums together. Flaming Side alone is a fascinating mix of sounds from a band in all likelihood fiddling with random chords and keys for 45 minutes.
Flaming Side of the Moon will most likely be dismissed as a joke, and become a footnote in the long, weird life of Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd and The Flaming Lips. But dismissing the album would be a mistake, unfair to the band and Funny or Die. The Lips had everyone believing, even if it was just for 24 hours, that they created a companion album to one of the greatest albums of all-time. What’s wrong with enjoying the joke?
