A Couple Music Notes...one disheartening, and one...well, not sure...

First, it looks like Jurassic 5 may be about to break up, and after you read these quotes by J5’s Soup, you will probably change “may be” to “are.”

According to Australia's Gold Coast Bulletin, rapper Soup revealed last month that they the group will be calling it quits after a brief tour of the country and several Japan dates.

"After the tour, that's basically it," Soup explained. "I don't want to sit here and fake around with it--we're not seeing eye to eye right now. People see us as a harmonizing, loving group, but that's far from the truth."

...

"Some people may say it's a creative thing, but I'm not buying it. Some might say business, some might say merchandising, whatever, there's some really stupid shit, some really childish things, happening," continued Soup. "[But] when it comes down to it, some people here want their own shine, their own thing. If that's what you want, I say more power to you. I hope it works out for you--just don't come up with lame excuses [for J5's demise]."

While I’m sure any or all of them could make one kickass solo album, and I’m sure I’ll buy them all, it’s still very discouraging when one of the more positive influences in hip hop falls apart, and in a pretty negative way. They released an album, Feedback, last summer, and while it was still good, it was fractured in ways that previous J5 albums weren’t. The togetherness represented on Quality Control and Power In Numbers will be hard to match by any group. Plus, it looks like they will mark the first artists on Good Nonsense’s “Good Music” list to fall apart.

And then there’s some better news. Actually, strike “better” and replace it with your choice of “strange” or “intriguing” or “befuddling.” Your choice. It appears that a) there will be musical based off of the music of the Flaming Lips, and b) Aaron Sorkin will be writing the script.

In an exclusive interview, Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips, told EW.com that the psych-rock band will team up with acclaimed TV writer and show creator Aaron Sorkin to turn the group's 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots into a Broadway musical.

Sorkin's reps confirmed on Tuesday (March 20) that the West Wing creator has officially signed on to write the musical's script. ''Maybe that means they'll need to build a stage with lots of hallways on it,'' joked Coyne of Sorkin's fondness for walking-and-talking characters. ''It will be a giant tube that's always moving!''

...

The musical's debut is likely years off, and details of the plot aren't specific yet.

Coyne compares the proposed concept to Terry Gilliam's dystopian sci-fi movie Brazil. ''There's the real world and then there's this fantastical world,'' explains Coyne. ''This girl, the Yoshimi character, is dying of something. And these two guys are battling to come visit her in the hospital. And as one of the boyfriends envisions trying to save the girl, he enters this other dimension where Yoshimi is this Japanese warrior and the pink robots are an incarnation of her disease. It's almost like the disease has to win in order for her soul to survive. Or something like that.''

Or something like that. Seriously, there’s not a sentence in that article that my brain isn’t struggling to grasp. How strange.

I will say this, though. While there are tons of weird concepts on Yoshimi, there is some serious heart there. “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” may be about a Japanese girl battling (as the title would suggest) pink robots, but it also displays an element of true dedication and friendship. And as I’ve mentioned before, “Do You Realize???” is the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. There’s potential in this, especially if Sorkin can make something cogent out of the dialogue to balance with the weirdness, but...still, what a strange idea.