By: Dave Macindoe
Like many great bands, such as Led Zeppelin, Black Lips have created a new sub-genre to describe their very unique sound. “Flower Punk,” as they put it, sounds like what would happen if the Beach Boys existed in the 21st Century and grew up listening to Judas Priests. Black Lips most recent album, Arabia Mountain, is a quirky mix of short upbeat tunes with a few ballads mixed in for good measure. This album fittingly deals with some subject matter as strange as the band that produced it, including a song about Peter Parker’s troubles with child molestation before he became Spiderman. Another song that showcases the creativity of this group is “Mad Dog”, which is simultaneously about the history of back-tracking (hiding messages in songs that can be heard when they are played backwards) while having the lyrics of Ke$ha’s “We R Who We R” when played in reverse. The band chose one of Ke$ha’s pop songs for reasons so obvious I won’t patronise you by outlining them here.
