The Flaming Lips
Do You Realize??

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Type: Single Release date: 19/08/2002

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The Flaming Lips »

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Warner Bros. »

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by Adam Anonymous [Edit this content] ▾ 10 comments 00:19 August 20th, 2002

How often do you hear “buy this record, it’s life affirming”? ‘Do You Realize??’ is more than that.

It freezes time, suddenly making you painfully aware of the futility of, well, everything. “Do you realize, that everyone you know, someday, will die?” asks The Flaming Lips' iconic leader Wayne Coyne. Stark, dark and crushing – this is a design for life and the meaning of life inside three and a half minutes. And while watershed album ‘The Soft Bulletin’ was heart stopping, this truly is life halting.

So much so that the only words which can really do justice to this single are Coyne’s fragilely eloquent intonations:

_“Do you realize, that you have the most beautiful face?”

“Do you realize, that happiness makes you cry?”

“Do you realize, that everyone you know, someday, will die? And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realize that life goes fast, it’s hard to make the good things last. You realize the sun doesn’t go down, it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.”_

What more could you want? The Flaming Lips are without doubt the finest band in a unique field of one. The only question left to ask is, Wayne Coyne, do you realize you're indisputably a modern day musical genius??

The Flaming Lips 10 / 10

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The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??

It's not as good as everyone's saying, they've done way better singles than this before.

Old_Anonymous_Comments | 20 Aug '02, 07:30 | X | Reply

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??

The Flaming Lips, are they good? Yes. Are they also rather overated? Yes. Are Wayne's drippingly honey sweet vocals just the tensiest bit annoying? Yes they are. Does the slagging off of R.E.M. by NME and others make any sense given that that magazine continues to hype the Lips as some sort of musical Guide To Future Indie, when both bands have equally demonstrated their awareness of the "wibbly sampler button" in their most recent albums? No. I must say "Fight Test" is great, even though it weirdly features the same American intercom intro as Slipknot's "Heretic Anthem". Has anyone else noticed this?

Old_Anonymous_Comments | 20 Aug '02, 17:34 | X | Reply

Re: The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize??

REM? eh?

anyway idiocy aside. The Soft Bulletin was certainly over-rated. However I truely believe they are the best live band in the world by a very long way and Do You Realize and Race For the Prize are works of genius. I think 'moving' is the only word for them really.

Still why must they let them down with less glittery album tracks?

Old_Anonymous_Comments @Old_Anonymous_Comments | 20 Aug '02, 19:09 | X | Reply