Album of the Day

Many of the bands that took cues from 1960s psychedelia could be termed copyists, but Oklahoma's Flaming Lips adopted the era's anything-goes experimentalism without any of its cliches. The group's second Warner Bros. album (and sixth overall), TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE SATELLITE HEART, plants out-there lyrics worthy of Roky Erikson in a soundscape where noisy guitar squawk, dreamy acoustic passages and catchy hooks coexist happily. The album even spun off a couple of singles, "Turn It On" and "She Don't Use Jelly" (which became a radio hit after being featured on MTV's Beavis And Butt-Head). This is Lips leader Wayne Coyne's birthday; we'll wish him a happy one by giving another spin to one of his band's very best.