Pitchfork

Brock Kappers & Ryan Schreiber report:
They were your sun, they were your earth. But you didn't think that it'd come crashing down! Um, what we're trying to say is: Oops! Oklahoma City psych-rockers The Flaming Lips have done it again! Taken the brown acid, that is, 'cause what the hell's going on? According to reports from all corners of the Interweb, frontman Wayne Coyne invited N*Sync mannequin Justin Timberlake to join the Lips during their Friday television appearance on England's quintessential music program, Top of the Pops.

Coyne reportedly met the former (and again current-- sorry, Durst, you been played) Britney Spears flame while recording a London radio session earlier in the week, and asked if Timberlake would be so weird as to join them for their performance and "play" bass on "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1", which just hit the UK as a single in all kinds of crazy formats. Though perhaps expecting a response along the lines of, "Wayne, I refuse, you must have me confused with some other guy," Timberlake graciously, surprisingly, accepted. Timberlake, however, may or may not have been actually playing an instrument, for god's sake, as artists on the show have, on occasion, been known to simply lip*sync and pretend while the album track works the magic for them.

As already reported by everyfuckingbody else (goddamn these weekend breaks), Timberlake twiddled the four-string while dressed in typical Lips gear-- which is to say, a dolphin suit-- only to de-mask himself and reveal his true identity to a presumably stunned and fainting audience. All this isn't, well, completely out of the blue, though, sort of, since the Lips have already shown a devotion to today's hottest hits with their cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" on their promo-only live radio sessions CD, Yoshimi Wins.

Timberlake, of course, is just the latest in a string of head-scratching (Ted Danson, Badly Drawn Boy, Ash's Tim Wheeler, that Blue's Clues goon) and not so head-scratching (Beck, Beth Orton, and Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys) collaborators the Lips have recently hooked up with. Who's next? We don't know, but as they've already proven, these guys could have pretty much anything up their sleeves. A System of a Down "Is It Gettin' Heavy" remix? Nobody says no to Serj. A partnership with Ron Pearlman to form the world's first-ever Man Band? It's not out of the question! A Chili's babyback ribs duet with the Backstreet Boys? Uh, don't press your luck. Drums.