Flaming Lips' Double Album "Embryonic" Due in the Fall

Contrary to popular belief, churning out a double album isn't easy, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne tells the BBC's 6 Music blog. Nailing down a track list has been hard, he says, "Because we want to go in so many strange directions and sometimes we're unfocused and sometimes we're just so wishy-washy." The two-disc set is due in September, and though song names and a track order have yet to be determined, Coyne is ready to wrap up the follow-up to 2006's At War With The Mystics: "I think it must be like being a cook in the kitchen you're preparing this great thing but by the time it's ready you're sick of it because you've been smelling it, you've got it in your hair and in your fingers and all that." Of course, a two-disc set isn't the most ambitious project the Lips have tackled: in 1997 they released Zaireeka, four albums meant to be played simultaneously. The Lips most recently recorded a cover of Madonna's "Borderline" and had "Do You Realize???" named Oklahoma's official rock song.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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