THE FLAMING LIPS
If you want a job doing well, do it yourself… Flaming Lips’ hamster-ball dwelling frontman Wayne Coyne spent two days painting the cover for the psychedelic dream-pop band’s 10th album in 2002. he surrealist piece captures the album’s titular character Yoshimi fearlessly facing down a giant robot, and there are multiple visual asides in the piece. Yoshimi’s shadow is that of a bird; the robot has four legs attached to his own; a huge number 25 is daubed on the wall in the background. heories abound among fan groups as to that number’s significance – is it a reference to LSD-25 (another name for the drug)? Coyne has a long-standing interest in art, referring to himself as “mostly a visual artist who is lucky enough to be in a crazy, almost absurdist art-rock band that is endlessly in need of something visual”. His past creations have included a screen print made using his own blood and a huge king’s head installation that played Flaming Lips’ music as visitors reclined on a giant tongue bed. For Coyne, the artwork and the dreamy, otherworldly textures of what went on to be their first gold-certified record are inseparable: “When you see that album cover, you know that the music could sound no other way.”