The Flaming Lips
"At War With the Mystics" (CD)

The Lips are a band I have never sought out on vinyl.  They are great at building songs that include an extreme spectrum of sounds which are great for testing out stereo equipment.  The clinical precision of chores like this are better left to digital sources, in my opinion.
This album has two songs I like to use for trying out new equipment. The "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" and "W.A.N.D" are both sonic playgrounds.

That being said, this album represents the last Lips album I own to-date. This was their eleventh release, dropped in 2006. It is the end of an era of Lips albums that was more commercially viable.   I suppose I'm fine with letting them slip back into the sea of Weird Obscuritus because a firm half of this album would have been completely fine not being released.

Perhaps its the drug use, but the Lips don't seem to possess a finely-tuned radar for what music should make it into the world and what shouldn't.  Their prolific output could be condensed measurably if certain guidelines were applied.

I'll be the last one to suggest that music needs confinement, but in the case of the Lips, there's a lot I could do without.