Today marks the 10th anniversary of one of the 21st century’s most uplifting and important albums, The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Brimming with life, colour, and utter weirdness, Yoshimi… stands as one of the liveliest, most memorable and engaging listens of the past decade, and arguably the Oklahoma outfit’s most career-defining release, in retrospect though, it was the work that the Lips were already working towards a couple years prior.
Coming off the back of their critical breakthrough, 1999’s The Soft Bulletin, after almost twenty years of commercial abstinence and lukewarm press coverage, Wayne Coyne and co. had released what many deemed album of the year.
Inspired by the death of Coyne’s father, The Soft Bulletin was bursting with emotional candour and lush orchestration, abounding with themes of mortality, fear and hope . Tracks like ‘Race For The Prize’ combined a larger-than-life euphoria with a wholly uplifting story about two scientists racing for a cure to save humanity, at the expense of their own lives. ‘Waitin’ For A Superman’ too combined lush arrangements with a greif-striken, but sincerely optimistic story.
Despite its universal acclaim, winning the hearts and minds of the critical community – the album didn’t manage to secure the commercial success their major label would have hoped for. You can’t fault the ambition of a track like ‘A Spoonful Weighs a Ton’; but commercial viability? Probably not.
Cut to three years later, and instead of touring the world on the back of their ‘masterpiece’, The Flaming Lips were doing what they always did, muddling about in their own weirdness.
Namely, Coyne had every member of the Lips’ entourage involved in filming Christmas on Mars, a lo-fi, low-budget, full-length science fiction movie about a suicidal Santa Claus living on Mars. At the same time, the band were casually in the process of recording sessions for what would eventually become arguably their most important record, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.
Question marks hung over both projects however, as multi-instrumentalist (and Christmas on Mars’ lead actor) Steven Drozd slipped deeper into an already crippling heroin addiction. Having been a daily user throughout the recording of The Soft Bulletin, the band were soft on Drozd, as he was seemingly able to keep his addiction under control; at least enough to contribute to the band.
However, things were looking dangerous during the Yoshimi… sessions. As captured in the documentary, The Fearless Freaks (filmed by long-time friend Bradley Beesley), Drozd was looking scarily gaunt, had sold all of his belongings, was without a car; everyone feared for his life.
Frustrated, Coyne confronted him during one recording session, which erupted into Coyne hitting his bandmate repeatedly in the head. It marked a turning point, and eventually Drozd moved out of Oklahoma City, and got clean after clearing rehab.
The newly sober Drozd rejoined the recording of the new album, galvanising the band into finishing their ambitious new psych-pop record, upon its release, it quickly found favour with critics keen to further validate the act they fell in love with on The Soft Bulletin. Released ten years ago today, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was released to unanimous applause.
Combining their previously lush orchestration with all manner of electronic textures, Yoshimi was a neo-psychedelic pop album which was quickly labelled a modern classic. The album ranked #4 on Spin‘s ‘Best of 2002’ list, Rolling Stone, Fortune and Billboard all sang its praises. While Pitchfork named it amongst the ‘Top 200 Albums of the 2000s’ and Uncut magazine would name it #11 on their own ‘Best Albums of 00’s’ list.
It’s no surprise given the way the album married its kaleidoscopic musical invention and experimentation with a heartfelt lyrical core.
Thematically, Coyne grappled with all manner of life’s great questions, “what is love and what is hate?/and why does it matter?” he questions on ‘In The Morning of the Magicians’. While the album’s call-to-arms opener, ‘Fight Test’ asks “If it’s not now then tell me/ when will be the time that you’ll stand up and be a man?”. And who can possibly name a song about death which is as gleefully life-affirming as ‘Do You Realize??’
While their playfulness had long been one of the band’s most endearing qualities, never had they embraced it so fervently. Steve Drozd’s drums had never lifted so heavily from hip hop; such as the precision boom-bap beat on ‘Are You A Hypnotist?’.
The production on the album’s titular track sounds like a child having a bubble bath with all their favourite toys. While ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2’ does indeed sound like a young Japanese woman fighting an army of pink robots, (with the black belt in karate and determination that ‘Pt. 1’ describes) complete with screaming from the titular Yoshimi P-We – drummer for J-rock act, Boredoms.
Despite the obvious strangeness of The Flaming Lips and their newest set of musical eccentricities, Yoshimi, much like The Soft Bulletin before it, revealed the underlying sincerity within their psychelicious sounds. More than ever before, the group were keen to explore the connections between us all, with a affable disregard for pretence or earnestness.
All this under the guise of a concept album involving a Japanese woman with enviable martial arts skills battling a race of robots, who happen to be pink, in a landscape of time-travelling magicians and reaching rainbow-hewed cities called ‘Pavonis Mons’.
Whatever the reason, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots managed to do what no album had done for The Flaming Lips beforehand; match their critical praise with commercial success. The album remains their highest selling, having sold over 500 000 copies in the US. Following the album’s release the band went on to tour with Beck, both as support act and as his backing band. The gruelling set of dates helped the band launch what would ultimately go on to be one of the band’s greatest strengths: their live show.
Not that memorable performances were new to The Flaming Lips. The show which saw them signed to Warner Brothers involved the band nearly burning their entire stage to the ground, after a flaming cymbal got too excited. Similarly, their 4-CD box-set Zaireeka was inspired by the band’s set of ‘Parking Lot Experiment’ concerts, in which audience members were given tape decks and conducted like an orchestra by the band.
However, it wasn’t until Yoshimi that Wayne Coyne was walking over crowds in a giant bubble; singing songs with his hand inside a puppet-nun; showering his audience in balloons of all sizes, confetti, blood; you name it. The very same stage antics that have defined their extravagant, celebratory live show for a decade since Yoshimi‘s release.
Some people have levelled criticism at the band for putting on the same show for ten years, and considering its doubtful ‘Do You Realize??’ has been absent from a Lips setlist since its inception, this thought isn’t without merit. That being said, there have been changes here and there; the shows were filled with furry animals in 2004, whereas in 2007 you’d find aliens and Santas adorning the stage.
Aside from that, when you’ve got perhaps the most uplifting and memorable live show on the planet, why would you change it? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And finally, thanks to Yoshimi, The Flaming Lips capitalised on a show that ain’t broke. Its unlikely you’ll hear anyone complaining during their headline slot to bring in the new year at this year’s Falls Festival.
Not only that, but their growing popularity thanks to the album’s breakthrough success saw the Lips educating their growing fanbase on their long and woolly history. In 2002, the same year Yoshimi was released, The Flaming Lips released two compilations to point fans towards the band’s massive discography. Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid catalogued the group’s first three albums and self-titled EP, while The Day They Shot A Hole In the Jesus Egg‘s subtitle (The Priest Driven Ambulance Album, Demos and Outtakes: 1989-1991) compiled the band’s era with label, Restless Records.
By propping up the album that catapulted them from beloved underground act to one of international notoriety, the Lips offered a sense of context and history with their zeitgeist capturing record. What happened next simply confirmed the singular effectiveness of Yoshimi.
The band’s following studio album, At War With the Mystics was similarly pop-leaning, however emphasized politics over philosophical themes, and guitars over electronic textures.
2009’s Embryonic actively shied right away from the pop sensibilities of its predecessors and recturned to the Lips at their most ‘far out’. Leaning harder on the psychedelic with long proggy wig-outs indebted to Miles Davis jams more than Beach Boys-inspired cosmic revelry.
It didn’t slow their bizarre love for the ‘out there’ though. Recent years have seen The Flaming Lips release a 24-hour-long song, break the world record for most gigs in a day, release music in gummy skulls (or vaginas); and even teaming up with an A-list roster including the likes of Tame Impala, Ke$ha and Nick Cave for the collaboration album Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends. With its Records Store Day launch in April being a vinyl only release containing samples of the artists’ actual blood.
Ten years on from its release, no album since feels as ambitious, profound or just plain joyful as Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, and despite the core lineup of Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins now breaching fifty; no band still seems as restlessly fun or inspired as The Flaming Lips.
