Late Night Tales

The Flaming Lips | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 14, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Late Night Tales
• ASIN: B0006TL9JQ
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,778 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Bjork – Unravel

2. Miles Davis – My Ship

3. Chris Bell – Speed Of Sound

4. Faust – It's A Bit of A Pain

5. Roxy Music – 2HB

6. Alfie – People

7. Aphex Twin – Film

8. Mice Parade – Galileo

9. The Chameleons – Up The Down Escalator

10. The Flaming Lips – Seven Nation Army (Harry Potter’s and George W. Bush’s Severed Head Arm Mix)

11. The Chemical Brothers – Playground For A Wedgeless Firm

12. Love & Rockets – Saudade

13. Lush – Monochrome

14. Psychedelic Furs – Sleep Comes Down

15. Nick Drake – River Man

16. Sebadoh – On Fire

17. Radiohead – Pyramid Song

18. 10cc – I’m Not In Love

19. Brian Eno – Another Green World

20. David Shrigley – The Jist

Editorial Reviews

The Flaming Lips, bona-fide platinum status artists, are the latest in a long line of acclaimed talents to share their music collection with fans on Azuli’s celebrated CD series LateNightTales. Compiled by the trio, LateNightTales is the perfect representation of what The Lips listen to, kicking back at home in Oklahoma City.

The Flaming Lips’ infamous version of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" (which has been eagerly sought after across the worldwide web since the group performed it live at the Hammersmith Apollo late last year) is featured as an exclusive on this compilation. Playfully dubbed, "Harry Potter’s and George W. Bush’s Severed Head Arm Mix," the wacky rendition takes sideswipes at anyone in range with febrile Lips-ian logic!

Also featuring songs by Bjork, Miles Davis, Radiohead, 10cc, Nick Drake, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers, and many more – The Flaming Lips puts their spin on LateNightTales.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soundtrack for a midnight drive on a straight country road, June 12, 2005

By 

Clare Quilty (a little pad in hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Late Night Tales (Audio CD)

This is one of the most worthwhile CD's I've purchased all year. Initially, I was skeptical (it seemed to me that a sampler of this kind should run about a penny under ten bucks) but a month and a half after I picked it up, I'm still listening to it on a daily basis. It's *almost* a textbook example of how you make a mix CD.

The theme is all in the vibe, which is mellow, world weary and yet hopeful. Almost every song locks neatly into the one that follows like trains cars being linked together. When you achieve that kind of music mix synchronization, the great songs bring out the ones that are only good and improve upon them.

Highlights? Miles Davis, "My Ship," from the Miles Ahead album he made with Gil Evans. It shouldn't fit between Bjork and Chris Bell, but somehow it does.

Speaking of Chris Bell, this disc serves up his "Speed of Sound," which -- with its sublime synthesizer solo (yeah, I actually wrote "sublime synthesizer solo" and I mean it) -- I liked so much I eventually had to dig out my long neglected copy of "I Am The Cosmos." Bell leads into Faust (sounding for all the world like Gordon Lightfoot) and Faust leads into a Roxy Music tune I'd never heard but now love.

The mix also gets huge points from me for including both my favorite Radiohead ("Pyramid Song") and my favorite Nick Drake song ("River Man"). It also gets away with copping a little 10CC, somehow, and the mood doesn't break or miss a beat at all.

But the best thing a mix can do is gradually, gracefully introduce the listener to songs they don't know, and in this case it's Alfie's "People," which includes an *incredible* harmony about halfway through, and Lush's "Monochrome."

Oddly enough, the one song that I can't recommend is a Lips song. Don't get me wrong (don't hit that "no" button just yet if you haven't already) it's a perfectly solid, raucous cover but, sequenced right into the middle of the disc, it just doesn't fit into this mix and it sticks out like a sore thumb, completely breaks the mood. Which, knowing Wayne Coyne (and given that the song opens with a blaring siren) might be the whole point, who knows?

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stay up "Late", April 7, 2005

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Late Night Tales (Audio CD)

Many people listen to the gloriously offbeat psychedelic rock created by the Flaming Lips. But what do the Lips themselves listen to? This edition of "Late Night Tales" gives listeners an idea, with a wild, weird collection of everything from folk to jazz to indierock.

Given the wonderfully bizarre nature of the Flaming Lips' musical style, some of these songs are sort of what you would expect: they include varying artists like Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Radiohead, and Bjork, as well as the Psychedelic Furs and the Chemical Brothers.

Less predictable are other selections, such as Love & Rockets, jazz great Miles Davis, and folk martyr Nick Drake. While these artists/bands aren't such obvious choices, they are remarkable to listen to. And finally we have the lesser-known bands: the strummy Chris Bell, sparkly shoegazer Lush, Sebadoh's midtempo indierock, the eerie Chameleons, the languid 10cc, the heady electrorock of Faust, and the rippling guitar pop of Mice Parade.

They also include their cover of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army." Okay, it's not really suitable for a mix CD, but "Seven Nation Army ("Harry Potter's and George W. Bush's Severed Head Arm Mix)" is a wildly charming cover, and one that had to be put somewhere.

To some degree, "Late Night Tales" is exactly what you would expect the Flaming Lips to have on their CD players. All it needs is some orchestral music, and the image of what shaped the Lips appears to be complete. As it is, this mix CD shows off the sort of music that shaped their quirky style: Very rich and complex tunes, mixed in with classic, complicated music.

The Flaming Lips evidently listen to a wide range of music, from shoegazer to avant-pop to indierock to jazz and folk. There's no real rhyme or reason to this collection, and the best way to listen to it is simply to sit back and enjoy the music. A few fall short -- Chris Bell sits like a gravel pebble amongst semiprecious stones -- but overall it's an almost magical experience.

Listening to it may not give you the acid-kitsch talents of the Flaming Lips, but their volume of "Late Night Tales" is still a solid, very fun listen.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Key, December 21, 2005

By 

James D. Rickard "JD" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Late Night Tales (Audio CD)

The real beauty of this compilation is the liner notes. Don't get me wrong, the compilation is brilliant and the music is wonderful, but the key to the whole thing is the notes Wayne scribbled about why he chose each song.

Listening to this without reading the notes is a bit like wandering lost around an art museum, enjoying the paintings. It is a great way to spend your time. On the other hand, you could be led by an expert who can explain the finer points, the history, the reason the art is in this collection to begin with. You get all the aesthetic pleasure, plus enlightenment.

Wayne is your personal docent.

He points out reasons for collecting these songs; a beautiful innovation here, a pathetically heart wrenching lyric there, a sublime use of an odd time signature, this band had to be in the collection and this is a good representation of why, on and on.