Ronald Jones, the brilliant guitarist whose leads and textures had been one of the group’s sonic signatures, left the group Warner Bros., The Flaming Lips’ label, was in turmoil following reorganization and some of the band’s initial champions departed Steven Drozd, the superstar drummer, had a growing drug problem.
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Their next album, Clouds Taste Metallic, didn’t sell nearly as well, and after a lengthy tour supporting it, they hit a patch of trouble. By the mid-1990s, The Flaming Lips had been playing music together for a long time and they lucked into a certain amount of success when “She Don’t Use Jelly,” from their 1993 album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, became a whimsical MTV-fueled novelty hit. One way to understand why The Soft Bulletin has endured is to go back to the anxious period it emerged from. By some measures, 20 years is the length of a generation, enough time to reflect on those around you who were born and grew up and grew old and those who might not be around anymore. Twenty-year anniversaries are the best album anniversaries - long enough to say the album truly comes from another world, but not so long ago that this particular world is entirely unfamiliar. Those who heard it then remember how startling it sounded on that first play but its dazzling sonics became a comfort, and everyone who has connected with The Soft Bulletin since has carried part of it with them. The orchestral production and grand sweep brought comparisons to song cycles from decades earlier, like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, but The Soft Bulletin also felt like the future, the right album to bring the decade to a close. It seemed to look backward and forward simultaneously.
The Flaming Lips’ The Soft Bulletin, released in May or June 1999, depending on which side of the Atlantic you were on, is an album about many things - the passage of time, the meaning of love, the importance of human connection and, ultimately, how the looming presence of death intensifies experience.
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