Last summer, Wayne Coyne, the de facto leader of The Flaming Lips, made a block print using his own blood as ink. He often gets inside a large plastic ball and runs over the crowd as Santa clones boogie around him. Additionally, he has a bathroom that looks like a white beehive.
Now, add to the list of “Crazy Things Wayne Coyne Has Done” the band’s most recent release, a song called “Two Blobs Fucking.” The song was released in 12 parts in 12 different YouTube videos, which are meant to be played in sync. (For the record, this isn't a completely new idea — Zaireeka was released on four CDs, which were meant to be played simultaneously on four different stereos.)
On a whim, I decided to take Coyne up on his “Two Blobs Fucking” dare. The actual experience of listening is very difficult; ultimately, my listening team couldn’t perfect the synchronization. But that didn’t take away from the experience. In fact, the tracks’ disjointedness may have actually enhanced the listening experience. It forced everyone to look quizzically at each other, wondering if the song was sounding like it was supposed to.
Perhaps Coyne’s intent was to bring a bunch of people together in a room to have a shared listening experience. This sort of thing doesn’t happen very much anymore, so I think “Two Blobs Fucking” succeeds mainly as a piece of immersive performance art — listening to a version of the song that consolidates all 12 tracks ends up being a whole lot less fun.
