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The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
A series of thin white lines on a black background, with a rainbow effect at the far right
Studio album by The Flaming Lips
Released April 21, 2012 (2012-04-21)
Recorded 2011–2012
Genre Experimental rock, psychedelic rock
Length 69:17
Label Warner Bros., Lovely Sorts of Death, Bella Union
Producer The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann
The Flaming Lips chronology
The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon
(2009)		 The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
(2012)		 The Terror
(2013)
CD/Digital cover
A black-and-white photo of Kesha holding her foot to the camera with a smiley face drawn on her toe, standing in front of Wayne Coyne who is giving a peace sign with his fingers and smiling. The title of the album and the collaborators are written in red to the right.
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 72/100
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 4/5 stars
Entertainment Weekly A
Pitchfork Media 8.2/10
Spin 6/10
Clash 8/10

The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends is the first album in the "Fwends" series by the American rock band The Flaming Lips in collaboration with a variety of guests.

Recorded throughout 2011 and 2012, the album was released as a limited edition on vinyl for Record Store Day on April 21, 2012 and on CD and digitally on June 26, 2012. Four songs from the album were previously released on collaborative EPs in 2011.

Following their last full-length album, 2009's Embryonic, the band produced several EPs with other artists including Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, Prefuse 73, and Yoko Ono. Four tracks from these sessions appear on the album. The remaining seven songs were recorded at different times and locations, and are exclusive to the LP. The CD and digital releases of the album omit the track "I Don't Want You to Die" featuring Chris Martin, but feature an exclusive track with Aaron Behrens of Ghostland Observatory, "Tasered and Maced".

The Erykah Badu version of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", was a result of Lips frontman Wayne Coyne's unsolicited calls to the singer. Badu was initially opposed to covering the well-known 1957 song, but Coyne was able to convince her.

Other pairings resulted from the initiative of other artists, such as the Kesha track. Kesha had expressed interest in working with the Flaming Lips while visiting the band's hometown, Oklahoma City. She contacted Coyne by text message on his birthday. Her track, "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)", was recorded in Kesha's home studio in Nashville.

Pitchfork Media commented on the wide variety of collaborators; mainstream artists such as Kesha and Coldplay's Chris Martin share space with more experimental artists such as Lightning Bolt and Prefuse 73. Despite the disparate artists involved, Pitchfork stated "[t]his piecemeal patchwork of tracks hangs together amazingly well as a front-to-back album." The website rated the album 8.2 out of 10.Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A rating.Spin was less positive; giving a 6 out of 10 rating, they quipped that the other artists were "globetrotters on Gilligan's Acid Island".Clash commented that the numerous guests tempered the band's usual outlandish workouts but did note that "Whilst that suppressed weirdness may be a detraction to the diehard fans, it makes for the band's most accessible work since Yoshimi...."


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