- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- Transmissions from the Satellite Heart · 1993
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- At War with the Mystics (Deluxe Version) · 2006
- VOID - The Album (The Songs From the Music Videos) · 1995
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) · 1975
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- The Soft Bulletin · 1999
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots · 2002
Essential Albums
- There aren’t a lot of distractions in Oklahoma City—which helps explain how the area’s most prominent weirdos, The Flaming Lips, managed to release ten album between 1986’s Hear It Is and 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. But that statistic fails to fully measure the band’s proficiency. According to lead singer Wayne Coyne, the group was working on no fewer than three distinct projects while creating Yoshimi, including the country-leaning soundtrack to Okie Noodling—a documentary about men who catch giant catfish with their bare hands—and the synthesizer score to Coyne’s own self-directed full-length homage to 1950s sci-fi B movies, Christmas on Mars. Those disparate efforts all played a role in the creation of Yoshimi, which Coyne once described as a “candy-coated potato chip” of an album. On Yoshimi, the western twang and martian bleeps meld with the maximalist space-rock the band had perfected on its previous album, The Soft Bulletin. That record secured the group’s place in the pantheon of consequential album artists, freeing the Lips from the one-hit-wonder tag that had clung to the group since 1993’s “She Don’t Use Jelly.” Yoshimi found Coyne comfortably settling into middle age, complete with gray streaks in his signature long wavy hair. The outsider-artist posture he’d displayed in the 1980s was gone; he was now a seasoned seer, albeit one who still possessed the gift of childlike wonder. How did Yoshimi’s “Do You Realize??”—which reminds listeners that “happiness makes you cry” and “everyone you know someday will die”—end up in three national ad campaigns? Answer: Because while the lyrics are heavy, the brand managers felt safe, knowing Coyne was holding our hand as we embrace the existential crisis. If that’s not enough, the album’s first four songs tell the story of a young Japanese girl, Yoshimi, who’s staring down an army of robots—one of which is having an existential crisis of its own. When the fog of war clears, and Yoshimi comes to an end, the questions linger: Who was right, and who was wrong? Does free will exist? And, to quote Coyne, “Do you realize we're floating in space?”
- 2017
- 2014
Artist Playlists
- Keeping indie rock guessing since 1983.
- Howling noise and classic rock, side by side.
- The psychedelic kingpins' most experimental freak-outs.
- Melancholic baroque pop that floats well above the clouds.
Live Albums
Compilations
Appears On
More To Hear
- Road-tested songs feat. The Rolling Stones, Ryan Adams and Beck.
- Myths about metal fans, Ke$ha goes country, and more.
About The Flaming Lips
Formed by brothers Wayne and Mark Coyne in 1983, The Flaming Lips have been one of psychedelic rock’s most successful and consistently inventive acts. ∙ The Oklahoma City band broke through in 1993 with “She Don’t Use Jelly,” which became their highest-charting single after it was featured on the MTV series Beavis & Butt-head. ∙ Certified Gold in the UK, The Soft Bulletin won 2000’s NME Album of the Year, while Pitchfork gave it a rare perfect score, ranking it No. 3 on its Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list. ∙ The Flaming Lips’ 2002 LP, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, was their first album to go Gold in the US and inspired a musical production in 2012. ∙ Their 2002 single “Do You Realize??” was included among Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs of the 2000s and was declared the Official State Rock Song of Oklahoma in 2009. ∙ Embryonic, their 12th studio album, marked the band’s debut appearance in the Top 10 on the Billboard 200. ∙ During the COVID-19 pandemic, the band—known for using giant plastic bubbles onstage—encased themselves and audience members in bubbles for socially distanced concerts.
- ORIGIN
- Oklahoma City, OK, United States
- FORMED
- 1983
- GENRE
- Alternative