Zaireeka

During 1996 and 1997, The Flaming Lips ran a series of events known as "The Parking Lot Experiments". The concept was inspired by an incident in Coyne's youth, where he noticed that car radios in the parking lot at a concert were playing the same songs at the same time,[6] Wayne Coyne created 40 cassette tapes to be played in synchronization. The band invited people to bring their cars to parking lots, where they would be given one of the tapes and then instructed when to start them. The music was "a strange, fluid 20 minute sound composition".[7]

Production of the album was preceded by two unfortunate events, which were recounted in "The Spiderbite Song" from The Soft Bulletin. Michael Ivins was involved in a car crash, and Steven Drozd's hand became severely infected. Drozd initially claimed that his hand had been bitten by a spider,[8] although later he admitted the infected abscess was caused by injection of heroin.[9]

The Flaming Lips began work on Zaireeka in April 1997 in the then-new Tarbox Road Studios. Initially, the band was frustrated while making the album. Even after diverting half of the budget for the next album into Zaireeka, there were no tangible results. The band experienced difficulty writing songs for the album. Finally, Coyne exclaimed, "Look, we don't have to be friends... but we have to make this record!" While this philosophy aided progress, the band only began to complete songs when they learned to write for the medium as opposed to trying to split normal songs across four CDs.[10]

The group wrote several songs that were unsuccessful in the four-CD format. These songs, including "Race for the Prize", were reserved for the next album, which would eventually become The Soft Bulletin.[10]

Warner Bros. Records was initially apprehensive about releasing Zaireeka, so manager Scott Booker carefully researched the costs of releasing a box set. Booker discovered that Zaireeka could be released so that once 12,000 copies had been sold, the label would break even. (Advance orders for the album came to 14,000 copies.) Booker pitched the album to Warner Bros. Records president Steven Baker.

Eventually, the two factions reached an agreement in which the album would be released, although Zaireeka would not count towards the seven albums the band was contracted to deliver to Warner Bros. For an advance of $200,000, the band would make both Zaireeka and The Soft Bulletin. In addition, Booker mentioned that by allowing the media to proclaim how "weird" the band was with Zaireeka, they would be more prepared to treat The Soft Bulletin as a serious album.[11] Zaireeka was released in October, 1997. As of 2006, 28,000 copies have been sold.[3]

The speakers being used may be physically positioned in many different configurations (e.g. at different heights or even in entirely different rooms). Some listeners may even choose to disable the left or right speaker of one or more systems. Synchronization errors between the audio systems may cause effects such as reverb or echo being heard on one disc before the original sound is produced from another. Further, the type and quality of each audio system affect the relationship between the four CDs.[12]

After completion of Zaireeka, The Flaming Lips tried an unconventional method to tour the album. "The Boom Box Experiments", like "The Parking Lot Experiments", involved tapes being played at the same time. However, these shows were held in conventional rock venues, and the band supplied their own boom boxes. Coyne and Drozd conducted two "choirs" of people controlling the boom boxes, giving them instructions for actions like turning the volume up or down, while Ivins controlled the mixer.[13]

Songs played in The Boom Box Experiments include:

• "The Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now"
• "A Winter's Day Car Accident Melody"
• "Altruism, or That's the Crotch Calling the Devil Black"
• "Heralding in a Better Ego"
• "Realizing the Speed of Life"
• "Schizophrenic Sunrise, or The Loudest Blade of Grass"
• "Should We Keep the Severed Head Awake??" (used in both the Parking Lot and Boom Box experiments. Part of it was included on "Sleeping on the Roof" on The Soft Bulletin.)[14]

With Zaireeka, The Flaming Lips had overcome the loss of Ronald Jones and proved they could still work as a band. The situation at Warner Bros. Records was still dire, including a risk of being dropped from the label. However, songs had already been written for the next album, The Soft Bulletin, which would be both a critical hit for the band and their breakthrough into mainstream success.[15][16] Following the release of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in 2002, The Flaming Lips would return to the concept of surround sound with a DVD-Audio special-edition of that album in 2003.[4]

Zaireeka is viewed by the band as nothing more than an experimental release. "It was, and still is, intended to be listened to by other artists, musicians and producers," Coyne would later state in the liner notes for The Soft Bulletin 5.1, adding that they "never expected the less involved members of our audience to care about it."[17] As noted above, there was no conventional concert tour to promote Zaireeka. However, three of its eight songs have been played live. “Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)” and "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair" were played on the tour supporting The Soft Bulletin and also on the Lips’ 2007 and 2013 tours, the latter not being part of the later tours[18] and “How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos)” was played albeit less often during 2000 and 2002.[19]