The Flaming Lips demonstrate an uncanny ability to work the current media moment, appearing on television and making a variety of digital files available to me and other fans. So they continue to be standout examples of the current media-savvy group, creating not just pop songs, but worlds based on music. And, as we've argued, this "worlding" extends beyond the music itself. There are also artwork and attitude, technology and image, network and audience. And as for that latter, we can display our own affiliation. The Lips have made their branding portable by creating downloadable videos and computer backgrounds, and perhaps more importantly, creating free instant messaging icons. As part of the package deal with obtaining the new album, then, the Lips allow their audience to avail themselves of the accoutrement of the band, to make it part of their lifestyle. To put this in context, consider the '70s when we had the uber- sturm und drang of the Kiss Army organized through newsletters and fanclubs, or the secretive unfoldings of a Led Zeppelin relayed cryptically through magazines and other channels, binding together their fans through mysterioso images, odd travails, and occult rumors. Now we have Lips extending their music throughout the available channels of entertainment, broadly construed, and into advertising and other media/consumer forms.
We might say they've mastered kairos for the current media moment but for the suspicion that they're merely taking part in, inventing out of, a techno-materialist kairos that has shaped them far more than they have advantaged themselves of it. Nevertheless, this Lips musico-world makes enough material available in the right measure, and, significantly, it demands very little from users. I do not have to log on to the website, nor am I asked to provide anything back to the band--I get no newsletter, nor must I provide my email or any other contact information to the website to gain access to the content of the site. I am not part of a Lips Army nor any such notion of a collectivity. And yet I am linked. I go back again and again to the website, gather what I need--actually, finding what I want (and usually find what I desire). There is very little action that needs to be taken on my part. At the same time, the band (and the record label) does not push anything towards me. I get no spam or unwanted offers. When I want more, I seek out more, directing my browser to the website.
The Flaming Lips also include two videos originally produced for World Wide Web distribution. Rather than limit its videos to a single worlding interpretation, the band commissioned a series of Flash!-based videos that were designed to be downloaded from the band's extensive website and played on multimedia computers, computers which often now have Dolby 5.1 capability. The videos are based on images painted by Wayne Coyne, the band's lead singer, images he created as he wrote the music. These videos also present alternative interpretations of the songs, presenting multiple interpretations, multiple worlds, that construe alternative and multiple interpretations of the music. The website, then, is also an interpretation engine for the band, and its fans as viewers consider alternative versions of the songs and their visual representation, and experience the content in a variety of media and contexts: advanced home stereo equipment, home theaters, automobile stereos, multimedia computers, MP3 players.
Wayne Coyne has reimagined the role of the musician, of the author, of the musical expert. Like the authors of A Pattern Language, the author is responsible for underlying or deep structure, becoming a kind of information architect, the role changed to describing the rules of this musical or media universe rather than the expression of a single trajectory through that universe. That is, authors become, in gamespeak, world-builders rather than prescribing a single successful trajectory through the world. As in hypertext, the responsibilities for the author increase. Rather than presenting a door that flits past the eye as the player/user runs down a virtual hallway, the programmer/author has to consider what is behind each and every door, and how deep down each of the thousands of rabbit holes a user can go.
So too with the website, the Flaming Lips invite the audience to become part of the production of the music. In an age of infinitely reproducible recording technology, the Flaming Lips reintroduce a reason to show up for a live performance, redefine what it means to be there, and rearticulate the relationship between the musician and the audience, offering another sense of the source of the signal, of what is noise, of what is out-of-bounds. Something new emerges from the deep structure—the pallet of sound the band presents, the possibilities presented the audience as they are asked to participate. And in offering a place to go with the website, the band also provides a sense of being part of something, or perhaps better stated, The Flaming Lips provide a place, topos, in the virtual world where I know I will find experiences that fit my taste, or at least appeal to the desire that leads me to seek out The Flaming Lips. At the moment I want that kind of experience, I know where to go, and because they have branded a certain kind of musical and worlding experience, I am willing to spend a certain amount of symbolic wealth—cash—in exchange for that promise.
But the Flaming Lips were not the first band to try to create worlds to match their music. They are, arguably, the most successful band in the current media ecology as the Beatles, Yes, and Wagner achieved during their own. Other contemporary models include, Moby, Radiohead (and their network of carefully selected links), They Might Be Giants, Sonic Youth, and Of Montreal.
