RIYL: Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel

Recommended tracks: Track 3: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Track 13: “A Day in the Life.”

The Flaming Lips basically set themselves up for failure when they took on one of the most perfect albums ever created. It’s been attempted before, and it will probably be attempted again, but I guarantee that no one will ever top the first try of the Beatles and their perfect, influential Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

With that being said, the Flaming Lips’ attempt at it, With a Little Help From My Fwends, is an interesting take on the Beatles’ work of art. The Flaming Lips invite 27 different groups to appear on the album. Grace Potter, Dr. Dog, Tegan and Sara and, surprisingly, the most grounding element of this album— Miley Cyrus. The cornucopia of artists turns into a muddled mess of which group can sound the weirdest. To say that the Flaming Lips produced an experimental album would be both redundant and an understatement.

The tracks where Miley Cyrus is featured on are surprisingly the tamest of the bunch. This album is a romp-a-round of artists on acid—there has to be some sort of drug involved. It’s fun to listen to once, but I don’t think I could find a single person who would choose With a Little Help From My Fwends over Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—not even Wayne Coyne.