I have already talked about The Flaming Lips’ cover of ‘The Wall’, and you could say it is a band that certainly dares to touch the untouchable, the sacrosanct of the Rock’ n’ roll. Before reinterpreting Pink Floyd, they had covered the beloved Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (it was a bonus track of their 2006 album ‘At War With The Mystics’ and also a contribution to the 2005 album ‘Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen’).
The song was so unusual and nuts to begin with, the Lips did not add much to the weirdness, how could they have? Their cover is pretty close to the original, operatic, just like the Queen’s version, with its rapid unexpected changes of rhythms and styles. It fits to the Lips like a glove, and even though Wayne Coyne has sometimes a hard time to keep it up with Freddie Mercury’s vocal accomplishments, the band was born to embrace this rhythmic fantasy.
You can watch the video of their cover here:
Oh, and I should warn you before watching, there is nudity involved,… and some humor.