Imaginary Albums #1: Flaming Lips + Mercury Rev

If you've been obsessing over and immersing yourself in music for a long time, you (okay, I) start looking for ways to make your old favorites feel fresh and vibrant. As noted previously, one of my musical hobbies in recent years has been creating "imaginary" albums; I've posted many of those recreations here before, but I thought I'd gather them together in one spot and maybe fill a few gaps. More to come over the next week or two.

Sometimes it's just some minor tweaks to make a nearly-perfect record something I can enjoy without occasionally hitting the skip button--dropping a few weaker tracks and subbing in some b-sides and outtakes courtesy of deluxe reissues or bootlegs or whatever. Sometimes it's gathering together these leftovers and creating a wholly new album, either one contemplated but abandoned by the artist or something fabricated entirely from scratch. And in a few cases, it's blending together multiple artists to create a super-group of sorts.

My favorite creation to date falls in that last category. I wrote about Flaming Mercury's Deserter's Bulletin previously, but just briefly: Around 1998, the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev both spent considerable time in the same studio, with the same producer (Dave Fridmann), mining similar musical territory. They emerged with (IMHO) each band's finest record, The Soft Bulletin and Deserter's Songs, respectively.

I mashed these into a single album, alternating between bands; the sonic aesthetic is close enough that it really sounds like an integrated work of a single band, with two frontmen taking turns at the mic. I personally find it so cool that I can no longer listen to the original albums without feeling like something is missing.

As with most of the imaginary records I'll be summarizing here, I created this as a personal CDR,  shortening some of the longer tracks and segueing them together. I've recreated it on the Spotify playlist below (though, obviously, without the song edits and cross-fades--which is a shame, because some of these segues felt insanely organic).