The Flaming Lips

Few bands in history can lay claim to a career as wily and wholly improbable as that of Oklahoma's Flaming Lips. After spending the better part of a decade toiling away in noisy obscurity, the Lips managed to snag a major-label record deal during the first wave of the alternative nation boom of the early 90's. Though the band was already a formidable and theatrical live act, it was the left-field success of "She Don't Use Jelly" that finally brought them to national attention (and a cameo on Beverly Hills 90210). At a time when many people (and their record label) had mostly written them off, the Lips returned in 1999 with The Soft Bulletin, an album that wowed critics and essentially reinvented the band. By the release of 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, The Flaming Lips had achieved bonafide rock star status around the globe and became known as much for the gleeful excess of the live shows (costumed dancers, lasers, endless amounts of confetti) as the earnest, feel-good psych pop that they now so effortlessly seem to produce.