Critical Reception
Critical reaction to the album was polarized. Rolling Stone gave Zaireeka four stars out of five, writing: "Zaireeka's wall-of-surround-sound approach melds droning-rock dissonance with warped, off-kilter pop melodies, producing a totally immersing post-Pet Sounds audio séance." Allmusic mentioned that the album would only really be accessible to hardcore Flaming Lips fans, but that "they're in for the musical experience of a lifetime".
Critics who disliked the album cited what they viewed as a ridiculous concept. Salon remarked in its review that "Musically their 1995 album Clouds Taste Metallic offers the same psychotic results without all the technological hassle. And conceptually? The same thing, just all at once: stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid." Jason Josephs from Pitchfork criticized the album for being inaccessible, asking "Do I want to buy three more CD players with which to enjoy Zeireeka or, say, eat?"
Read more about this topic: Zaireeka
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)