How the Flaming Lips' 2009 'Dark Side' Cover Gave Henry Rollins the Last Word

The most interesting thing about this 2009 full-album cover isn’t the track-for-track fidelity but the swap of Clare Torry’s wordless wail on “The Great Gig in the Sky” for Henry Rollins’ spoken-word rant. On the original, that track is pure emotional release. Here, Rollins recites a frantic, paranoid monologue about death and control, replacing the vocalise with words that feel more like a panic attack than a eulogy. It’s the loudest, least psychedelic moment on an otherwise fairly faithful, lo-fi interpretation.

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs (Wayne Coyne’s nephew’s band) kept the track sequence and most of the instrumental structure, but swapped the studio polish for blown-out drums, fizzy synths, and a general sense of garage experimentation. “Money” gets a ragged, off-kilter groove, and “Us and Them” leans into Coyne’s keening falsetto. Peaches handles “Breat