Remaking a classic is never an easy feat, and the Flaming Lips’ shot at Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is no exception. The album was released in October of this year, and featured artists of all varieties (the title track feat. Louisville’s own My Morning Jacket).

The singles from the album, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (feat. Miley Cyrus and Moby) and Fixing a Hole (performed by Steven Drozd’s-the Lips’ guitarist- side project, The Electric Wurms) were the most interesting songs covered by the Lips. At the music festival Bonnaroo this summer, the Flaming Lips encored an epic performance with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, sans Cyrus and Moby, carrying on their engrained tradition of creating a psychedelic experience in liue of a standard concert, spewing a downpour of brilliantly colored confetti and chrome balloons, given to the crowd to be torn apart (a piece of which I personally cherish). Cyrus’ vocals on the track were stellar, but her work on the closing song, A Day in the Life, was mediocre at best. Not her work specifically, but rather the Lips.

Frontman of the experimental alternative band, Wayne Coyne, has said before that while he sings and often plays guitar on the albums, his instrument is truly the studio, developing and creating simply unheard sounds. The band is often hailed for their originality, which in the past is downright inspirational, however with the album, they catered to simply their own fans.

While a few tracks are fantastic, the rest just aren’t, which in its own way almost butchers the feeling that the Beatles had and that their industry changing album created; The Beatles’ major attraction to baby boomers was that their B-sides were just as good as their A-sides, something that other pop artists of the day simply didn’t do, as record companies wanted to glean an artist for every cent they were worth.

With the recording of Sgt. Pepper’s, they changed music history, with every song being experimentally layered and developed into something no one had ever heard, and good. But here, with the Lips’ rerecording of the album, fans of the Beatles who dabble in the freaky funk of the Lips will find that the songs just aren’t right; they don’t resonate correctly with the spirit of the original.

Fans of the Lips, rejoice. Fans of The Beatles, don’t get your hopes up.