Ongoing History of New Music

Ongoing History Daily: The weirdness of the Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips are certainly unconventional and experimental. One of their weird projects was a to release a very, very long song called “7 skies H3” which, in its original form, ran for 24 hours. It consisted of a several separate pieces, each running anywhere from 25 minutes to seven hours.

If that wasn’t enough, just 13 copies were released on flash drives that were encased in actual human skulls. They went on the market (appropriately) on Halloween 2011 and cost $5,000. And yes, they sold them all.

If you can’t find your own copy—imagine that—they also set up a website with the song on a continuous loop. And if you would rather have a physical copy, there is a edited version that runs 50 minutes that was released for Record Store Day 2014.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39372 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “Ongoing History Daily: The weirdness of the Flaming Lips

  • Damn! I’ve got a riddle. Sure hope you can figure it out. It goes like this:

    I downloaded a song once but have since lost it to Pandora. I could swear it was the Flaming Lips but that’s only a guess now. It was a dark-ish song, somewhat heavier in bass. Most of the lyrics were simply in spoken word (kinda). And it tells the story of an unrequited desire for a person in the window of a street café. Perhaps they were on the patio as the narrator recants from across the street. That song struck me deeply and I hope you can name it.

    What song, album & artist am I?

    Reply

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