The Flaming Lips

Even within the eclectic world of alternative rock, few bands are as brave, as frequently brilliant, and as deliciously weird as the Flaming Lips – riding one of the more surreal career trajectories in pop music. After years in the underground, a major-label deal scored during the early-’90s alt rock craze gave them a bigger platform for their mix of psych, noise-rock, and bubblegum melodies, spawning the unlikely Top 40 hit “She Don’t Use Jelly.” At the turn of the century, they delivered a pair of lush and heartfelt masterpieces with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2003’s Grammy-winning Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Later, they took their experimental and pop impulses in wildly different directions. – notably collaborating with Miley Cyrus.