A live version of Flock of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song” from the Flaming Lips, recorded in 1994 at Lollapalooza.
The original is one of my top five or so songs from the early days of MTV; I was always happy when this one came on. In addition to the exceedingly simple melody, the guitar tone is what really drew me to it. With the reverb and delay and repetition it sounds a bit like the Edge or Big Country, but it’s also really airy and effortless. Thinking now, it’s one of the first times I really zoomed in on a texture and felt a heavy emotional response to music based only on the specific quality of a sound.
I like the Flaming Lips’ take on it, off-key vocals and all, because I get the sense that Ronald Jones, their guitarist at the time, had a similar reaction to the song on a sonic level. He takes that guitar sound and blows it up into a much larger and more psychedelic thing but he still, somehow, keeps the emotional essence of the tone, and it has a similar effect on me even though it of course sounds completely different. This was in their setlist because he loved it apparently.
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