The latest video release from the Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends album has received mixed reviews and sparked a debate questioning, is it art or filth? Erykah Badu is not happy.
The video clip for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" featuring Erykah Badu who recorded the song with the Flaming Lips for their Record Store Day album "Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends". Not only that Badu and her sister appeared naked in the video. The band asked the gals to sit in a bath of blood, glitter and a creamy substance for the shoot. Badu, did not want to sit in the vile bathtub cocktail so asked her sister Nayrok to act as a body double by sitting in the liquid.
The video in question was posted on Pitchfork.com six days ago and has since disappeared. Badu wrote in a tweet "First: You showed me a concept of beautiful tasteful imagery (by way of vid text messages). I trusted that. I was mistaken. Then u release an unedited, unapproved version within the next few days. That all spells 1 thing, Self Serving. When asked what the concept meant after u explained it, u replied ,"it doesn't mean anything, I just want to make a great video that everyone is going to watch." I understood, because as an artist we all desire that. But we don't all do it at another artist's expense. I attempted to resolve this respectfully by having conversations with u after the release but that too proved to be a poor excuse for art." The Flaming Lips have since released a statement;
"The video link that was erroneously posted on Pitchfork by the Flaming Lips of the Music Video 'The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face', which features Erykah Badu, is unedited and unapproved. Sorry!! We, the Flaming Lips, accept full responsibility for prematurely having Pitchfork post it. It has outraged and upset a segment of fans and we apologize if we offended any viewers!!! This is a Flaming Lips video which features Erykah Badu and her sister Nayrok and is not meant to be considered an Erykah Badu or Nayrok statement, creation, or approved version."
