“It’s the Flaming Lips doing the Beatles, and we’ve got a lot of our really fucking weird friends to help us do this record.”

This is how Wayne Coyne introduces With A Little Help From My Fwends, and it’s a pretty damn accurate way to describe it.

The Flaming Lips constantly straddle the fine line between complete genius and utter insanity.

On this re-imagining of The Beatles’ seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Wayne Coyne and co. too often tread across the line towards the latter.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is one of the best albums of the 2000s, but the band certainly haven’t been as flawless on other occasions. This tribute album has its beginnings in a New Year’s Eve show the band played that featured a set of John Lennon’s Beatles songs. They were most pleased with ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, and decided to take on the rest of the album.

It’s an utterly bizarre, and at times infuriating effort, one that flirts with genius at its best times but mostly tries to do way too much.

With two or three guest musicians on each song, Wayne Coyne amassed an army of sorts to tackle what many think is an impossible album to recreate. And perhaps they were right.

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Here’s what we learnt from the befuddling tribute album of sorts.

Wayne Coyne Has A Lot Of Strange Friends

The Flaming Lips frontman seems to have friends in virtually every musical corner around the world. With A Little Help From My Fwends featuring an illustrious list of “weirdos”, including Miley Cyrus, Moby, Chuck English, and Tegan and Sara.

According to Coyne, some of the friends he recruited weren’t all too familiar with the Beatles’ work, and many needed some convincing to become involved in the project. It’s perhaps one of the most diverse range of musical artists that have ever appeared on a tribute album. There are mainstays of the indie rock scene like My Morning Jacket and Dr Dog, experimental artist Brian Chippendale, aka Black Pus, and the controversial pop star herself, Miley Cyrus.

It’s this incredible range of talent that is sometimes to the detriment of the tribute album. While the concept of album of sorts by the Beatles had an unrivaled flow and coherency, this effort is faltering and shifts from truly bizarre interpretations to loyal recreations in the space of seconds.

It’s The Frankenstein Of Tribute Albums

For each song, Wayne Coyne called on two or three “weirdos” for their interpretation, and then stitched these different versions together to create the cover. It’s an intriguing concept, but one that doesn’t always produce stellar results.

While listening, it becomes sometimes infuriating when one singer is suddenly sidelined for another, and many of the versions would be improved if they’d be left to just one of the artists.

Grace Potter’s vocals fit in quite well on ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ but there’s just way too much going on for them to be properly appreciated

It’s Not At All Serious

Wayne Coyne never takes himself too seriously. There’s a prevailing sense of playfulness and childish joy across most of his band’s music, and that’s present on With A Little Help From My Fwends too.

This is most obvious on the (nearly) title-track, one of the few times that Coyne actually sings on the record. The iconic line of “what would you do if I sang out of tune?” is sung by Coyne with auto-tune, making the question entirely obsolete.

Unfortunately that’s the best moment of that particular cover, with the grating vocals blaring through a megaphone making the song almost unbearable. While it’s good for Coyne to be reinterpreting the songs and making them his own, this seems entirely unnecessary, and it’s a bit of a struggle to make it through the full three and a half minutes.

No Matter What You Think Of Her, Miley Cyrus Can Actually Sing

The much-maligned mega pop star is the biggest shining light across the whole album. Her delicate, intimate vocals on ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ immediately stand-out, and lend a unique touch to the classic song. Behind all the over-production and marketing, she does have a great voice.

But then, just like a just-a-bit-too-old gatecrasher, Moby barges in and takes it all a bit too far. The overly repeated ‘gone’ is jarring and detracts from Cyrus’ efforts, typifying the main problem with the album as a whole.

Because there are usually three artists collaborating on each song, when one artist gets it right, like Cyrus at the start of the song, it’s only a matter of seconds until another offers their own interpretation, which is usually vastly different to the predecessor.

Chuck Inglish Got High And Forgot To Do The Third Verse Of ‘Getting Better’

The American rapper from The Cool Kids collaborates with Dr Dog to cover the song, which is one of the best moments of the album. His spoken word-type style compliments the alt-folk / country stylings of the band, creating a cover that is both adventurous and loyal to the source material.

Unfortunately, Inglish was “definitely stoned” when he recorded his vocals, and forgot to do the entire third verse. The ringleader, Wayne Coyne, saw this potential problem as an opportunity, and called on highly secretive Californian artist Morgan Delt to plug the gap.

The three starkly different musicians actually come together quite well, creating an enjoyable, jaunty version of ‘Getting Better’

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J Mascis Still Does A Mean Guitar Solo

For ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club’, My Morning Jacket decided to do a cover of a cover, taking on Jimi Hendrix’s version of the song. It’s virtually unrecognisable for the first 30 seconds or so, before Jim James’ unmistakable soaring voice comes into the mix.

It’s a confounding but altogether decent effort. And then, with 30 seconds left and the song seemingly fading to its conclusion, a J Mascis solo comes out of nowhere. The Dinosaur Jnr guitarist squeals his way through the quick solo. Just as you’ve got your head around what’s actually happening, it’s over.

It’s All A Bit Of A Clusterfuck

While listening to the at times intriguing, at others downright sacrilegious tribute album, it’s hard to find just the right word to describe it. Clusterfuck seems rather accurate though. There’s just so much going on. Twenty-seven artists working separately to attempt to recreate what is widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time. The Flaming Lips are partial to cover albums, they’ve done three before, and this one will be just as divisive as the others.

It’s just as experimental and boundary-pushing as most Flaming Lips albums, but doesn’t get close to reaching the same lofty heights that the likes of Yoshimi… did.

Certain artists, like Dr Dog and Miley Cyrus, are rather impressive on their songs, but for the most part, each artist is rarely given the time or opportunity to properly display their talents.

It’s All For A Good Cause At Least

Wayne Coyne and his rag-tag band of collaborators will be donating all proceeds from With A Little Help From My Fwends to the Bella Foundation, an Oklahoma City organisation that “helps low income, elderly, or terminally ill pet owners with the cost of veterinary care”

It’s not really meant to be taken seriously, and Coyne and co. obviously have had fun making the rough tribute album. Although most of the cover album often treads too far towards complete and utter insanity and pandaemonium, it’s good to know that it’s all for a good cause.

With A Little Help From My Fwends is out now via Warner

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