Ke$ha-Flaming Lips Collaboration Album Called Off

Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne tweeted today that Lip$ha, his name for a collaboration album between his band and Ke$ha, has been called off. He wrote, “As of now . . . sadly there will be no Lip$ha . . . I can’t say why . . .  It is sad . . .” The Lips’ label, Warner Bros., confirmed the news to Rolling Stone today.

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The Flaming Lips and Ke$ha previously collaborated on “2012 (You Must Be Upgraded),” a track on the Lips collaborations album The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends. “She’s a freak,” commented Coyne when Rolling Stone asked what she had in common with his band in January 2012. In March, he told us he was talking about collaborating with Ke$ha on some tracks for her new record.

“We knew that she was a fan,” he said. “She’s a lot of fun and crazy and open to ideas and she’s creative. She’s all these things that you don’t know.” In September, Coyne and Ke$ha appeared together as unannounced guests at a Ben Folds Five concert.

Coyne announced the Lip$ha project in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session last April. He underscored that they were working on the album when we caught up with him last month. “We’re going to do it,” Coyne said at the time. “I don’t know how exactly and when exactly, but yeah, I know for sure that we are continuing to make music and I know for sure from her end and our side of it, we are going to put it out.” As for whether Lip$ha would be a joint release or come out as a Lips-fronted project, he said, “It’s really just a matter of what we can call it contractually. I just make music with her because I think she’s cool. The rest we’ll have to let [the record label] sort out.” Then he added, “I never think through those sort of things.”