As an aging, sarcastic man, The Flaming Lips remain my favorite contemporary group because they demolish two short-sighted contemporary rock 'n' roll notions: you have to be young and serious. Wayne's salt-and-pepper beard, pea coat and bullhorn raised the bar for any musician pushing forty. Another debatable myth dispelled by The Soft Bulletin is that heroin destroys. Steven Drozd's addiction to the horse was hard and heavy right through the production of Yoshimi, and his addition to the band clearly took them to their current creative level. Aside from Keith Richards, has anyone produced such godlike music while mired in the junk, that it almost seems like an endorsement for the drug?

Remarkably, the band's music maintains a general air of feel-goodness while their lyrics concern sobering subjects as bleeding, bites, and mortality. Death seeps from within every sweeping disco-ball light bath of a song, deep down to the drummer's gums. A year after The Soft Bulletin's release a spider nailed my calf, corroding the skin. When detailing the infection I was constantly comforted by a poorly (perfectly?) sung refrain of, "When you got that spider bite on your leg!" That's cultural impact. The Flaming Lips: the official soundtrack of near-fatal insect bites. --Brent DiCrescenzo / Pitchfork.com