The Flaming Lips
Oczy Mlody

I discovered the Flaming Lips in the year two thousand, the year my daughter was born.

I clearly remember that I owe my introduction to them to Badly Drawn Boy and his "Magic in the air," which I adored, and to a webzine that mentioned how the song reminded them a lot of the sound and songs of the latest Flaming Lips album.

That's how it all started, the infatuation, and a whole series of memories followed.

No less "magical" than two magical concerts (one of which I attended with my daughter and my wife, definitely the most memorable), was a return home by car from a short trip in the region, when my daughter was just born.

My daughter in the car seat and "The Soft Bulletin" in the CD player.

My daughter in the rearview mirror, the silent night around, and "A spoonful weighs a ton" in the cabin.

One of the very few times my wife said about an album I insisted we listen to in the car: "I like this record."

Another reason to remember that trip.

Sixteen years have passed, and since then, the Flaming Lips have produced a lot, but the sound seems somewhat the same, now that I listen to the first three tracks of "Gli occhi dei giovani."

It seems like a similar atmosphere, only less fanciful and definitely more decadent than back then.

The synthetic strings in "Sunrise" (with lyrics I find wonderful) remind me so much of those in "Suddenly everything has changed."

I turn around and, in the middle of the return trip, in the dead of night, I remember I've forgotten something at the hotel before leaving.

An unexpected appendix of a trip ended sixteen years ago.

But suddenly, four completely different songs start, slightly alienating, although extremely suggestive, reminding me of their last two albums, particularly the last one, with their peak in "Listening to the Frogs with Demon eyes".

My frightened daughter wakes up and starts crying as only a few-month-old baby can, my wife yells at me.

I turn back, and never mind what I left at the hotel, they can't wait to get home.

They don't even notice the naive sweetness of "The castle", after all, sixteen years have passed.

It's over, not even the track with Miley Cyrus manages to scandalize me (in the end, I don't mind it).

In short, now that I'm finally home, it's a difficult, demanding album, very electronic (this is the biggest novelty), without drums, with three/four tracks used as weapons of mass distraction for nostalgic Flaming Lips fans of the 2000s.

Nothing more, nothing less.