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American Head is the best and most consistent studio album from The Flaming Lips since the release of their most successful brace of albums The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Similar to those records, the 13 cinematic songs on American Head are classically structured and feature the same sonic and production qualities. Kacey Musgraves (a fan who covers "Do You Realize" in her live set) is a guest on three tracks – "Watching the Lightbugs Glow" as well as the focus tracks "Flowers Of Neptune 6" and "God and the Policeman." "Flowers of Neptune 6" serves as the first new music from The Lips since 2019's internationally acclaimed King's Mouth Music And Songs. Produced by Dave Fridmann and The Flaming Lips, it reflects the gentler side of the band's paisley oeuvre and melodically flows downstream into a welcoming wormhole of wistful summer pop.
"We had become a 7-piece ensemble and were beginning to feel more and more of a kinship with groups that have a lot of members in them," explains frontman Wayne Coyne. "We started to think of classic American bands like The Grateful Dead and Parliament-Funkadelic and how maybe we could embrace this new vibe. The music and songs that make up the American Head album are based in a feeling. A feeling that, I think, can only be expressed through music and songs. We were, while creating it, trying to not hear it as sounds... but to feel it. Mother's sacrifice, Father's intensity, Brother's insanity, Sister's rebellion...I can't quite put it into words. Something switches and others (your brothers and sisters and mother and father...your pets) start to become more important to you...in the beginning there is only you... and your desires are all that you can care about...but... something switches. I think all of these songs are about this little switch."