Flaming Lips, Heartless Bastards

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courtesy Warner Records

The Flaming Lips

$49.50.

media release: Following the overwhelming success and demand for tickets for the first-ever Space Bubble Concerts, The Flaming Lips announce their return to the road for a worldwide tour schedule to begin this summer with dates extending well into 2022.

Equally exciting for Lips fans is the unearthing one of the rarest and most sought-after gems in their legendary catalog. The Flaming Lips will finally release The Soft Bulletin Companion on vinyl for the first time as part of the Record Store Day drop on June 12, 2021. Pressed on double silver vinyl, this exclusive 2 LP edition set is limited to just 16,000 copies worldwide and is expected to sell out quickly. It will be available at independent record stores everywhere. The album will be more widely available later this year – details will follow.

Disseminated among press, radio, family, and friends in limited quantity 22 years ago, Lips’ management assembled The Soft Bulletin Companion by hand as a promo-only CD to accompany the band’s groundbreaking album The Soft Bulletin in 1999. It consisted of unreleased material, outtakes, early mixes, B-sides, international bonus tracks, and stereo versions of tunes from Zaireeka. Expanding the lore of this hidden treasure trove, "The Captain” emerged as a fan favorite rarity, yet never saw a release on vinyl—until now.

The Soft Bulletin represented a watershed moment in the group’s journey. Powered by signature tracks such as “Race for the Prize,” Pitchfork notably rated it a perfect score of 10.0 and pegged it at #3 on the “Top 100 Albums of the 1990s.” Entertainment Weekly awarded the album an “A,” and NME scored it “9-out-of-10.” It closed out the 20th century for the band and paved the way into the 21st century, setting the stage for three subsequent GRAMMY® Awards, sales in the millions, and unprecedented innovation. One of the most important albums of all time and a turning point, it cemented the group as an iconic alternative institution and asserted them as a perennial creative presence in popular culture. Audiences finally get the chance to dive deeper into The Soft Bulletin era with The Soft Bulletin Companion on vinyl.

As previously reported, Wayne Coyne’s new cannabis product line, Love Yer Brain, officially launched on 4/20. Visit loveyerbrain.com for more details.