Telepathic Surgery
by The Flaming Lips
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The Flaming Lips bestography
Telepathic Surgery is ranked 12th best out of 47 albums by The Flaming Lips on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by The Flaming Lips is Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots which is ranked number 117 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 10,657.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Telepathic Surgery on YouTube
Telepathic Surgery track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 74 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Telepathic Surgery rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 3 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Exist-en-ciel | Top 100 Music Albums of 1989 | 100/100 | 0 |
| 2026 | bonnequestion | Top 17 Music Albums of 1989 | 13/17 | 1 |
| 2026 |  ExTeaSea | Top 69 Music Albums of 1989 | 35/69 | 3 |
| 2026 |  flamingyesdept | The Flaming Lips' Albums Ranked | 17/19 | - |
| 2026 | xhitmanx | Top 18 Music Albums of 1989 | 18/18 | 0 |
| 2026 |  Hayden | Top 50 Music Albums of 1989 | 45/50 | 1 |
| 2026 |  MadhattanJack | Cover Art Gallery: Rear-View Mirrors | 24/28 | - |
| 2026 |  AAL2014 | The Flaming Lips: So Far.. | 14/14 | - |
| 2026 |  DommeDamian | Scaruffi Best Albums of 1989 | 3/100 | - |
| 2026 | Juneof44 | Top 50 Music Albums of 1989 | 29/50 | 2 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 67 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 232 | |||
Telepathic Surgery collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 31 members
Telepathic Surgery ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 99 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 08/15/2026 13:47 | TitoVampir | 197 | 76/100 |
| ! | 07/30/2026 00:11 | xhitmanx | 1,573 | 75/100 |
| ! | 07/27/2026 09:14 | Exist-en-ciel | 15,524 | 70/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album has a Bayesian average rating of 70.8/100, a mean average of 70.7/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 70.7/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.1.
Telepathic Surgery favourites
Showing all 6 members who have added this album as a favourite
Forum mentions
NoisyBeast 05/06/2017 15:55 in What album are you listening to right now?Telepathic Surgery comments
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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I'm with the consensus. This is the worst Lip's record. Their first album wasn't good either but they were showing signs of improvement on their second album. This is regressing back to the poor quality first album
Quite garage punky whilst still using a bit of psychedelia from their previous record. It's a good outing, creepy in places, but nowhere near their best work.
JulianR 07/20/2018 23:06 | #218576
I’m sad to learn just now that the 23 minute “Hells Angels Cracker Factory” is a bonus track only on the 2005 CD release. I thought it was the coolest song on here!
75/100 (Above Average)
Propulsive noise rock that isn't as disastrous as many others claim it is (I've heard "worst flaming lips album" thrown around quite a lot on music sites). In fact, it's pretty much on par with their first two records although it feels murkier. The only issue here, as with their first two, is that most of these songs feel a bit one-dimensional (which they resolve on subsequent releases).
Antonio-Pedro 05/06/2017 16:46 | #190398
UFO Story is fantastic and deserves more attention on the flaming lips discography
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