I recently had this wild epiphany that just left me stunned. It’s one of those things that doesn’t happen often. It just came to me one day while I was laying quietly watching television. It jumped me from behind, gagged me and beat me senseless. After so long, I finally came to the bewildering realization that new music doesn’t suck! I gasped in awe as it just waved over me! It doesn’t suck.

Surely, a lot of it sucks, but definitely not all. Thus, this year, I have purchased more new records than I have for the last three years combined. In years past, I’ve never been able to assemble a list of the best albums of the year - solely because I never bought more than five albums, two of which were total stinkers. But this year, this year is different. I’ve now purchased fourteen records that have been released in the here and now: 2002. And surprisingly, many of these records are by bands that I would have never even considered in the past: Beck, George Harrison, and so on and so on.

Enter The Flaming Lips (God I love doing that ‘enter’ thing). For months now, all I’ve been hearing is high praise for a group that I’ve never heard of. “Album of the year!” fellow Epinioners cried to the high heavens! So, trusting the critical opinions of some of the better members at Epinions, I headed out to the record store determined to get myself a copy of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots at any cost. Little did I know that the ‘any cost’ would end up being over $25 Cdn. Which, in case you aren’t well versed in American dollar to loonie conversion ratio, is a lot. A ridiculously large sum of money for a record - especially considering that I had just purchased the Paul McCartney live double album for half that price.

But, I clenched and reached into my back pocket and shelled out the cash for it, with that little nagging voice in the back of my head just dumbfounded at my reckless spending. This had better live up to the mountains of praise heaped upon it, or I’m not going to be pleased….

The Flaming Lips are a ragtag group of fellows who hail from Oklahoma. Wayne Coyne, the group’s mastermind, brought the Lips together in the early eighties along with his brother and a select group of musicians. At first, the group specialized in what was essentially noise, gaining a cult following among stoned College students the world over. But in the years since their formation, they’ve honed their sound, despite the departure of several members including Wayne’s brother and a revolving door behind the drum kit. But the Flaming Lips trekked on, scoring a major label deal with Warner Brothers and even scored a hit in 1995 with a song titled She Don’t Use Jelly. But despite mainstream success, the band continued their wild experimentation, progressing even further and further into the unexplored realms of rock music. The few fans they had garnered with their hit were soon alienated by the vastly experimental Zaireeka, a collection of four CDs, all with the same track listing, that were intended to be played together simultaneously on four separate record players. Understandably, it was a commercial bust but is still to this day a required experience for every audiophile dork on the planet Earth. The Flaming Lips followed Zaireeka up with a slightly more accessible album, 1999’s The Soft Bulletin. Hailed by critics everywhere as the record of the year, The Soft Bulletin built on Zaireeka’s almost orchestral magnificence, extending the group’s repertoire to include synthesizers, heavily processed drum tracks, and digitally altered vocals.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is The Flaming Lips latest release, an album in which the group took their previous works and both built on them while also going back and delving further into the many avenues of musical exploration. Others have hailed Yoshimi… as the record of the year, claiming it to be an exhilarating and complex masterpiece that just begs to be listened to, enjoyed, experienced, and thoroughly dissected. Message boards everywhere were swamped with threads declaring the same thing. Is it all hype? Well, no, because it’s not hype if it’s warranted. For maybe the first time in a long while, the machine has been singing the praises of an album that actually deserves the acclaim that has been heaped upon it. Without flinching, I can say, right here and right now, that The Flaming Lips - an album from which I’ve never heard a single song from in the past - have produced the greatest rock album of 2002, and perhaps the greatest rock album in the last five years.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is a very complex album, which is perhaps why it will never receive any sort of major mainstream attention. For sure, there will be people who don’t like it; people who are trying to push the door open on the music when it is clearly labelled a ‘pull.’ If you aren’t prepared to give the album a chance, the possibility of garnering any enjoyment from it is, frankly, little to none. Upon first listen, Yoshimi is a very harsh record, cold and sterile in its approach. The guitar parts are few and far between, and there’s definitely not an unaltered, straight drum track on the album. Whirring, clicking, and random blips are frequent, popping up at nearly every juncture. Yet, somehow, it works. It all fits together, almost seamlessly, leaving you breathless and wondering just how it can all piece together and stand as a cohesive unit. The blips, the processed drums and vocals, and the synthesizers combine to create a sort of unorthodox melody that, even though it probably shouldn’t be logistically, is pleasing to the ear. Pieces abruptly shift in tempo mid-song, and the many synth effects are harsh and lifeless on their own; yet it still works. It’s eerie; it’s beautiful. It’s just… It just is. Yoshimi… seems to have an almost otherworldly quality to it; a quality that is indescribable - it sits just on the edge of your mind, but you can’t quite force it into words.

Wayne Coyne’s voice is absolutely breathtaking in it’s pure simplicity and level tone. It has an almost hypnotic quality to it that serves to mesmerize and draw the listener further into what is actually going on. You can almost feel the blips coming from behind you, and Coyne’s breath on the back of your neck as he sings. My mouth had effectively dropped completely after the second listen. Still, there’s another aspect to the album, is it’s simplicity. Not the actual music, but the lyrics. They tell such a childish and silly story that it gives much of the album a dreamlike quality to it that it wouldn’t otherwise have. And the lyrics are so simplistic that it leaves the listener to wonder about some type of higher meaning. Is this really about a little girl fighting evil robots, or is it a lyrical parallel to something more meaningful: a man’s fight for his life, good and innocence prevailing over evil, the little guy versus the large corporations? It seems almost as if Coyne has left enough of a mystery to the lyrics that they can apply to pretty much whatever the listener might think they do.

Despite what the title of the record might lead you to believe, however, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is most definitely not a concept album. While the first four songs draw on the album title for lyrical themes and ideas, the rest of the album stands alone. The album’s real theme seems to be that of the realization and acceptance of one’s own mortality, a sort-of symphony of life and death that is at times both beautiful and saddening. But despite it’s subject matter, Yoshimi… is far from a depressing album. Although it is haunting if you’re in certain moods, there’s a sort of tongue-in-cheek humor and ironic detachment to everything being sung.

The records begins with a single tone that starts out quiet and gets progressively louder until a digital voice enters the mix and tells us that “The Fight Test begins now…” “The Fight Test” is no doubt the best track on Yoshimi, a swirling, pseudo-psychedelic opus, a modern day Baba O’Reilly. The song is a call to arms; whether it be against a bully, a boss, an enemy, or… well, ten-foot tall pink robots. The music is very soft and Wayne Coyne’s voice swirls in and out of the mix beautifully, sending his message to the world.

I thought I was smart, I thought I was right
I thought it better not to fight
I thought there was a virtue in always being cool
So it came time to fight, I thought I’ll just step aside
And that the time would prove you wrong
And that you would be the fool

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1 contains one of the few recognizable guitar parts and is a sort of silly number that is catchy and fun. The drums are heavily altered here, and are pushed to the background so the other members can work their magic. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 2, however, is a far more harsh track, an instrumental that bridges the gap between Pink Floyd and an electronica turntableist. It gets heavier and heavier until reaching a crescendo and then just dropping away suddenly to silence.

Ego Tripping At The Gates of Dawn builds upon a funk-laden, digitized and spacey bassline that propels the entire song. Coyne vocals seem to drift off into their own separate world, appeasing both the ears and the mind. Do You Realize? is a very jazzy number with a beautifully orchestrated chorus and jangly guitar licks all over the place. Despite the pleasant vocal approach and softly strumming guitars, this is one of the darker and thematically involved numbers on the disc.

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

The album closes with the soft ballad All We Have Is Now and a harder song, the goofily titled Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon, another song in the long tradition of Flaming Lips songs with weird titles. This number is an instrumental, and uses what sound like a pure electric guitar throughout most of the number before drifting off into an unreal maze of bips and blips.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots is an album unlike anything I’ve ever heard in my short lifetime. The Flaming Lips take what Pink Floyd created and seem to expand it even further while not ever seeming silly or pretentious. Yoshimi… is an amazing album filled with eleven amazing compositions that are a glimpse into the mind of a musical genius. If you haven’t yet picked up this record or have been waving it off as another example of the hype machine gone bad, buy it. It is easily the best album of the year and is an enjoyable, complex, dreamlike, and thoughtful record.

Recommended: Yes