The Flaming Lips can at first glance easily be dismissed into the world of silly, experimental musical weirdness filed next to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and T-model Ford, however after 19 years, 11 albums, an appearance on “Beverly Hills 90210”, parking garage symphonies and only one song that ever got any radio play, the Flaming Lips deserve that ever so important second glance.
With their new release “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” The Flaming Lips have once again proven that they don’t understand the concept of limits and simply want to make music that goes along with that theory.
The album is every bit as wonderful as it’s predecessor, 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin” while containing it’s own style full of very different sounds and themes. “Fight Test” the first track starts out with a robotic voice commanding ‘The test begins…NOW” with cheering crowds in the background watching “the show” along with the listener. Our cheering companions return throughout the album, bleeding tracks together as if a Greek chorus reminding us that we are at a play.
The next track “One More Robot/Sympathy 2000-21” sounds like a single off Radiohead’s “OK Computer” recorded the day the whole band took Prozac. This is not an insult and it is indeed one of the strongest tracks on the album. The title track itself has lyrics that sound like the plot of a video game, and the collection of whimsical sound effects, computerized guitar noises and pleasant melodies that make up the score let us know that this is indeed a game for your ears (where everybody wins).
Later tracks like “Do You Realize??” bring the same playful sense to more intense topics of death and living your life to the fullest. It manages not to be campy, and actually starts to stir you up in that “All You Need is Love” kind of way. Wayne Coyne sings, “Do you realize, that everyone you know someday will die”, and suddenly you want to call up your best friend from kinder-garden to tell them you never forgot the time you went to the zoo and dropped your ice cream cone onto that old lady.
While perhaps not all can get past giant pink bunny costume aspect of the band, they are amazingly versatile, and have grown into one of the most mature groups around. With amazing creativity and some primal understanding of what makes music enjoyable, it’s no wonder during their infamous 20 seconds on 90210, Ian Zeering walks by the band performing “She Don’t Use Jelly” and says to his date “You know, I don’t really like alternative music, but these guys rock!” |