day 21, The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs - Dark Side of The Moon

Stars: 3
Favorite Track: Breathe, On the Run
Show: 25$, but that’s just because I’ve seen them before.

I love The Flaming Lips, and I love most of what they have done to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. They have taken one of the best rock and roll albums of all time and made it Lips-like: funky, weird, flooded with effects and electronics, and driven by bass riffs. If this album was an original, no doubt it would be a hit and earn a Selby 5 star (or 4.5, because I don’t really ever give 5s), but since this is a remake, it is held to a higher standard.

The ultimate question is: Does it enhance, recreate, and revitalize the album? A big “yes” to only one: recreate. A “maybe” and an “eh” to the other two. Other than vital melodies and chord changes and the album’s general structure, The Lips have completely given Pink Floyd’s 1973 release a makeover. Tracks like “Breathe” and “Money” balance on a completely different groove, and showcase different features. For one, there isn’t a guitar solo on the entire album. For Pink Floyd devotees, this is blasphemy. I myself missed the epic moments in “Money” or “Time” where David Gilmore soloed his way into rock and roll history, but in truth, the fact that The Lips didn’t attempt to match this keeps them from turning into a bad cover band you might catch at a community lobster bake in Bumblefuk, Maine, or at a wedding in a Milwaukee tavern.

The most interesting thing for me was that my favorite moments from the Floyd version are my least favorites on the Lips version, and visa-versa. Take “On the Run.” On the original, it is simply a noise and effect, spaced-out, album-filler that was probably put in place when the acid kicked in, also right around the time they decided to synch it up with The Wizard of Oz, I'm sure. It is not really a song and I usually skip it. The Lips took this as an opportunity to do what they do best: be The Flaming Lips. So they just jammed something completely unrelated to Pink Floyd's version, except making sure to maintain the flight attendant nonsense in the background. Also unlike the 1973 version, the jam has a lot of bite. It sits on a heavy bass groove that is pieced together by a high energy dance beat. All in all, it may be the most rockin’ track on the album.

The way Roger Waters sings “Time” is no doubt one of the most awesome performances on the album, but The Lips somehow manage to completely subdue the vocals, smothering it under a layer of reverb and sleepy instrumentation. I ask myself “why?” And why did they decide to dull down the explosive chorus of “Us and Them” to a high pitched croon? Why no climactic jam on "Money?" Did The Flaming Lips purposefully restrain themselves from over-indulging in the epic moments that Pink Floyd had already created in order to make their own by focusing on Floyd’s low points? I can see the hesitation to simply copy an album note for note and work hard to make something fresh, but this self-awareness may be going slightly overboard.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the new twist they put on the songs like “Great Gig in the Sky,” but perhaps I would have liked it more if they just used these tools to do their own album. The style they conquer here in this remake is unmistakably groundbreaking, but it may have a greater impact if it was done with original material.