The Soft Bulletin

The Soft Bulletin followed Zaireeka and marked a change of course, with more traditional melodies, more thoughtful lyrics and a fusion of ordinary rock instruments, electronic beats and synthesizers. Its large, layered sound was achieved in part by detuning and layering multiple MIDI keyboards rather than recording a live orchestra. A few critics gave it a reputation as the Pet Sounds of the 1990s. The sleeve is a modified version of Lawrence Schiller's photograph The Acid Test: Neal Cassady, which shows Cassady dancing with his shadow. Coyne told the Guardian he had found it in a Life hardback at a thrift store about ten years earlier and always thought it would make a good album cover.

The record company wanted commercial-sounding music, so the US CD includes remixes of several songs, and the US and UK CDs each carry one track the other lacks. The singles were Race for the Prize and Waitin' for a Superman. Pitchfork gave the album 10.0, and AllMusic's Jason Ankeny wrote that it might be the best record of the entire decade. It reached 39 on the UK albums chart, sold 100,000 copies in the US by 2002 and was certified Gold in the UK in 2006. A two-disc reissue, The Soft Bulletin 5.1, followed on 31 January 2006 with a DVD-Audio disc of the album in 5.1 surround sound. The band has played the album in full on several occasions since late 2010, including at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in June 2011, and with an orchestra on 26 May 2016.