Dotoar

The Lips are definitely one of the best bands during the last 20 years, and do you know why? Well, great songs of course but what's more important: They are constantly evolving, you know, like those freakin' Beatles used to do. A rare thing these days, even in the alternative sphere. They have never settled with a sound on any record, however successful, and that vision of constant change and breaking (relatively) new ground in the process makes even the lesser songs enjoyable, at least since the mid-90's.

So my choice for best albums would be "Soft bulletin" with "Embryonic" as a close second (although they are incomparable to each other). And funny how they both sort of bookended a decade each, as if to wait it out and then conclude it at the highest note possible.

"Bulletin" is just absolutely gorgeous and yet bittersweet but all in all a modern day celebration of all the beauty in the world around us as well as the capability of mankind. They even laud scientists for chrissake! The very ones who alters the world for the better. How rock'n roll is that? Not at all, and that's what's so great about it! This is visionary pop-art at its finest! "A spoonful weighs a ton" reeking of all the optimism, simply floored me the very first time I listened to it, and to follow it up with the anthemic "The spark that bled"! And we've only just begun, this album is nothing short of a masterpiece, desperately trying to stir up some optimism on the eve of the next decade (century, millenium, whatever).

"Embryonic" however, is sort of an antithesis of "Bulletin" in almost every respect. Dark, dreary, noisy, chaotic, confused, totally self-indulgent and - yes, I'm gonna say it - absolutely marvellous! Seems the 00's has been hard on mankind, the one Wayne had such faith in only ten years ago. It sure took a few listens to click but boy did it ever! It's almost impossible to appreciate on a song-for-song level (well, tracks like "Silver trembling hands", "See the leaves",The impulse" and "Watching the planets" somewhat stands out but don't you dare slice up the listening experience!) and that's the whole point. This is a journey through landscapes I'm sincerely afraid of putting into words (ever seen the video for "The sparrow looks up..."?) and has to be taken as a whole. Once again, I cannot think of a better and more unpredictable way to wind up the past decade.

With that off my mind I gladly state "Yoshimi" and "Mystics" to be favourites as well, although both of them suffer from patchiness, especially the latter. I've never been a fan of the quirky "Yeah yeah yeah song", "The WAND", "Free radicals" "It overtakes me" and "Haven't got a clue" for which I have to dock off a couple of points. Although it also contains some of the best songs they ever did, like "My cosmic autumn rebellion", "The sound of failure" and "Pompeii am götterdämmerung". Too bad they had to mix them up with childish nonsense.

"Yoshimi" is sort of the same kind of album although the childishness on this one seems more sincere and adequate regarding the concept. Once again though, some of the tracks are just plain dull, like the title track and the opening "Fight test" and it takes some time to pick up steam, which it does with the ensuing tracks. Alas, some of them are quite slow and lethargic and sort of get lost amongst themselves but true highlights are "Do you realize??", "In the morning of the magicians", "One more robot" and the closing "Approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon".

In a parallell universe I'd like to slice them both in half and stuff all the goodies onto one album that seriously would threat the place of "Bulletin" and "Embryonic" as the greatest Lips album ever.

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