20. Jim Derogatis "Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips"
This is how a rock and roll biography should read. Equal parts band history, song writing process, touring anecdotes and album criticism. The only thing better than reading about The Flaming Lips is listening to them or seeing them live or watching the 2005 documentary "The Fearless Freaks." The Flaming Lips sure are great.
Similar to Greg Kot's book about Wilco, "Staring at Sound" was written for slightly obsessed music fans. If you don't care about Wayne Coyne's philosophical beliefs based on his tenure at Long John Silver's or the band's Midwestern work ethic, there isn't much to keep the casual reader interested. This isn't a bad thing per se, but Dero doesn't go as deep as this slightly obsessed would have preferred. To be fair, I'm not sure if I would want to read any more on the Lips. At 272 pages the book left me wanting more, just like "Yoshimi." Any more might have felt like listening to "At War with the Mystics."
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