| Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by The Flaming Lips | ||||
| Released | July 16, 2002 | |||
| Recorded | Tarbox Road Studios, Cassadaga, New York, June 2000–April 2002 | |||
| Genre | Neo-psychedelia, psychedelic pop, space rock | |||
| Length | 47:25 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
| Producer | The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann, Scott Booker | |||
| The Flaming Lips chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | ||||
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Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is the tenth album by The Flaming Lips, released on July 16, 2002, in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States. It is characterized by electronic-influenced, psychedelic-tinged alternative rock compositions. It has been certified Gold by the RIAA.[1]
Contents |
The lyrics of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots concern a diverse array of subject matter, mostly deeply melancholy ponderings about love, mortality, artificial emotion, pacifism, and deception, while telling the story of Yoshimi's battle. The title character is believed to be an allusion to Boredoms/OOIOO member Yoshimi P-We, who also performs on the album. Some listeners consider Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to be a concept album; however, the story is debated, as it is only directly apparent in the first four tracks. Despite the story-type title and science fiction themes of the album, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne has made it clear that the album is not intended to be a concept album.[2]
The vocal melody of track one, "Fight Test", echoes Cat Stevens's "Father and Son". Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, is receiving royalties following a relatively uncontentious settlement. The band's frontman, Wayne Coyne, claims that he was unaware of the songs' similarities until producer Dave Fridmann pointed them out.[3] This claim however is contradicted by his statement to Rolling Stone magazine: 'I know "Father and Son" and I knew there would be a little bit of comparison. "Fight Test" is not a reference necessarily to the ideas of "Father and Son", but definitely a reference to the cadence, the melody, and chord progression. I think it's such a great arrangement of chords and melody'.[4] The song was also the theme song for the short-lived MTV cartoon, 3 South. The song is also briefly played in the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday. It plays in the background of the cafeteria scene, at the very beginning of the scene.
The album's lead single, "Do You Realize??", has been used in numerous commercials, including some for VH1 during 2004 and 2005.
The final track, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)", won a 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. The Lips also won the same award for "The Wizard Turns On...", taken from At War with the Mystics, in 2006.
In addition to the single compact disc format, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was also released as a special two-disc release in 2003. This version contains the regular album and a DVD containing various alternate takes, b-sides, music videos, video footage from the album recordings, and the trailer for The Flaming Lips' film, Christmas on Mars. In addition to bonus content on the DVD, there is a 5.1 DVD-Audio version of the entire album included. There was also a limited edition translucent red LP version.
A secret message from the band is included on the original album on the inside of the right spine. It reads "You Have Found The Secret Message, Do You Have too Much Time on Your Hands? ...Let it Go". It also features Japanese script. This script reads "Happiness can make you cry" (a line taken from the song "Do You Realize??").
In recent years, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots has proved itself to have a bigger commercial impact than the band's 1999 breakthrough album, The Soft Bulletin, and became their first gold-certified release in April 2006.[5]
In 2003, British bastard pop DJ Eric Kleptone released a mashup album called Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots which paired instrumentals from the album with rap samples and lyrics.
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [6] |
| Entertainment Weekly | A-[7] |
| The Guardian | [8] |
| Mojo | [9] |
| NME | [10] |
| Pitchfork Media | [11] |
| PopMatters | Favorable)[12] |
| Q Magazine | [13] |
| Rolling Stone | [14] |
| Sputnikmusic | [15] |
| Stylus | A[16] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | [17] |
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots appeared in best albums of the decade lists of many music magazines, such as Rolling Stone (#27) and Uncut (#11). Fortune magazine called the album "a lush and haunting electronic symphony."[18] Calling the album "as strange as it is wonderful," Billboard magazine explained, "Beneath the sunny, computer-generated atmospherics and the campy veneer of talk about gladiator-style clashes between man and machines with emotions, Yoshimi is actually a somber rumination on love and survival in an unfathomable world."[19] Giving the album four-out-of-five stars, Rolling Stone called the production "ambitious".[20] Uncut declared "even by their standards, Yoshimi is astonishing" before declaring it the greatest album released in the magazine's lifetime.
For the television show "Friends", Flaming Lips re-wrote the song "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Rebots" into "Phoebe Battles The Pink Robots" to fit one of the show's main characters. The music video appears on Disc 4 of the 9th Season DVD.
It was announced in March 2007 that the album will be made into a Broadway musical by The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and director Des McAnuff.[21][22] Frontman Wayne Coyne said of the plot:
| “ | There's the real world and then there's this fantastical world. This girl, the Yoshimi character, is dying of cancer. 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. | ” |
It was also announced in Rolling Stone issue 1025/1026 that Coyne plans to include existing songs from The Soft Bulletin and At War with the Mystics in addition to some newly written originals.
According to drummer Kliph Scurlock, the musical was halted by the 2007 WGA Writer's Strike, but is still being developed.
On October 26, 2010, the track "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" was included in the release of the rhythm-based video game Rock Band 3.
All songs written and composed by The Flaming Lips (Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins) except where noted.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Fight Test" (The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann, Cat Stevens) | 4:14 |
| 2. | "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" | 4:59 |
| 3. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1" | 4:45 |
| 4. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2" | 2:57 |
| 5. | "In the Morning of the Magicians" | 6:18 |
| 6. | "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" | 4:34 |
| 7. | "Are You a Hypnotist??" | 4:44 |
| 8. | "It's Summertime" | 4:20 |
| 9. | "Do You Realize??" (The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann) | 3:33 |
| 10. | "All We Have Is Now" | 3:53 |
| 11. | "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" | 3:09 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Fight Test" | 4:12 |
| 2. | "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" | 5:01 |
| 3. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1" | 4:48 |
| 4. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2" | 2:52 |
| 5. | "In the Morning of the Magicians" | 6:25 |
| 6. | "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" | 4:25 |
| 7. | "Are You a Hypnotist??" | 4:50 |
| 8. | "It's Summertime" | 5:45 |
| 9. | "Do You Realize??" | 3:32 |
| 10. | "All We Have Is Now" | 3:53 |
| 11. | "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" | 3:12 |
| Bonus DVD audio tracks | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Up Above the Daily Hum" | ||||||||
| 2. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" (Japanese version) | ||||||||
| 3. | "If I Go Mad (Funeral in My Head)" | ||||||||
| 4. | "Do You Realize?? Floating in Space Remix" (Edit) | ||||||||
| 5. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" (AOL sessions) | ||||||||
| 6. | "Do You Realize??" (CD101 version) | ||||||||
| Bonus DVD video tracks | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Do You Realize??" (Mark Pellington version) | ||||||||
| 2. | "Do You Realize??" (Wayne Coyne * Bradley Beesley * George Salisbury version) | ||||||||
| 3. | "Making of the Do You Realize??" (Video) | ||||||||
| 4. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" | ||||||||
| 5. | "Making of the Yoshimi Video" | ||||||||
| 6. | "Fight Test" | ||||||||
| 7. | "Phoebe Battles the Pink Robots" | ||||||||
| 8. | "Christmas on Mars" (Movie trailer) | ||||||||
| 9. | "Making of the Yoshimi DVD-A" | ||||||||
| 10. | "Are You a Hypnotist??" (George's Photogenic Stimulation Theory #1134) | ||||||||
| DVD-ROM extras | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" (Animated episode) | ||||||||
| 2. | "Fight Test" (Animated episode) | ||||||||