A Brief History of The Flaming Lips' Weirdness

The Flaming Lips' recording of a companion album to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon may seem like a strange idea, but this should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Oklahoma band's tendencies. This is just the latest in a long string of unusual activity for them. Here's a brief history of the strangest things the Flaming Lips have done.

1993 - The band appears in an episode of Beverly Hills: 90210 and perform their hit song "She Don't Use Jelly." Its performance is well received by the characters on the show, even if they are an alternative rock band.

1996 - The band conducts "Parking Lot Experiments" in which fans gather with their cars and simultaneously play 40 unique cassette tapes created by Wayne Coyne over their stereos to create a single composition. They conduct similar experiments in music venues with boom boxes instead of car stereos.

1997 - The band releases their album Zaireeka, inspired by the "Parking Lot Experiments." The album is released on four separate CDs, which are to be played simultaneously. Pitchfork gives the album a score of 0.0, while NME gives it a perfect 10.

2001 - The band begin production on Christmas On Mars, a surreal sci-fi Christmas movie written and directed by Wayne Coyne and starring multi-instrumentalist Steve Drozd, bassist Michael Ivins, Fred Armisen, Adam Goldberg, Steve from Blue's Clues, and Coyne himself as a green alien. The film is finally released in 2008.

2009 - The band releases an album-length reimagining of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon featuring Henry Rollins, Peaches, and Wayne Coyne's nephew's band, Stardeath and White Dwarfs.

2010 - On the Google Maps street view of Gatewood Avenue in Oklahoma City, Coyne is photographed bathing outdoors, for some reason.

2011 - The band releases "Two Blobs F---ing", which is a song released in 12 separate parts on YouTube. Each part is, of course, to be played simultaneously.

2011 - The band releases an EP called Gummy Song Skull, which is contained inside of a flash drive, which itself is inside of a gummy skull. Later in the year, the band similarly releases The Soft Bulletin: Live la Fantastique de Institution 2011 inside of a marijuana-flavored gummy skull, and then yet another EP titled Gummy Song Fetus, which should be self-explanatory.

2011 - The band releases a 6-hour song titled "I Found a Star in the Ground" featuring Sean Lennon, and then later in the year, a 24-hour song titled "7 Skies H3."

2012 - The band releases an album of collaborations, one of which is Ke$ha.

2012 - The band beats Jay-Z's record for most concerts performed in 24 hours, with eight.

2014 - The band announces a companion piece to Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which is to be played simultaneously with the original album, as should be expected at this point.