Sunday, December 29, 2002 11:55 PM - ExistAngst
Nothing captures the essence of my childhood better then Astroboy.
When i was 5, untill i was about 10, i would watch Astroboy religiously. No other show encapsulated more of my childish hopes and aspirations.
Hopes that, contrary to my experience up untill that age, maybe the courageous good of the Astroboys in this world can actually win out against the larger more imposing evil of the giant robots of this world. Aspiring to maybe one day have a little of that Astroboy courage in myself.
So much so I would cry at the end of most episodes. You see I was a small kid that got bullied a fair bit in school, and after watching the mornings episode of Astroboy, that world where good always triumphs over evil, the idea of leaving to go to school, that world where evil seems to go unpunished so easily, was almost unconscionable. So tears would sometimes form in my eyes.
Then there was the deep emotional longing for something not quite tangible. An odd sort of undefined, inexplicable angst. The romantic notions of what it is to be good or bad. To be human or machine. The tragic story of the little robot boy wanting to be accepted as a real little boy, loving and learning as real little boys do.
Everything about this show would leave my little heart aflutter with its aching, unsettling beauty.
And so it is that some 15 years latter i pick up the new album from
the Flaming Lips. Astroboy has long been buried and forgotten, both in my mind and in popular culture, yet...... this album maybe the closest i'll get to reliving the magic of the famous cartoon (unless of course i go out and rent the damn thing).
2002 saw 'The Lips' release their 11th album,
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. "Cutesy Japanesey" would describe it perfectly. Right down to its toes. Yet it's a cutesy japanesey effort informed by much of the same sentimentality and philosophical pining as the famous 80's japanimation cartoon.
Yoshimi is the young lady with the blackbelt in karate and the protagonist that will do battle with the evil pink robots for this concept album. Wayne Coyne, (the head flaming lip) now in his early forties and sporting streaks of grey hair, insists that this is not a concept album. Don't believe a word he says. But for the little girl in the cover art, a few words here and there in the lyrics, this album could just as easily have been
"Astroboy Battles the Pink Robots" and used as the soundtrack to an Astroboy movie. Even the tracks that don't explicitly fit into the whole yoshimi narrative, deal with the same themes and ideas. If this is not a concept album, then no such constuct exists in contemporary music.
In the japanese writing on the front cover, in the use of a cute child protagonist doing battle against giant evil robots, in the repetition of Astroesque philosophical themes (on robots, people and love), in the determined positive attitude in the face of tragedy and sadness, and even in the perfect marriage of natural (live, accoustic, human) sounds with very electronic (robotic) sounds (just like astroboy himself). In all of that, Yoshimi IS Astroboy.
And Yoshimi the album, is every bit as beautiful as Astroboy the cartoon.
ExistAngst is listening to...
The Flaming Lips - Fight Test 210kbps, 6.38mb
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt.1 240kbps, 8.18mb
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize 242kbps, 6.1mb
11 comments
I went to see Augie March at the Amplifier Bar last friday night in North Perth. Augie March are out and about touring the country flogging their new album, "Strange Bird".
Great album but. It's Augies first album since their 2000 effort, "Sunset Studies", and significantly, the first since the death of friend and keyboardist bandmate Bobby Dawson in 2001. Perhaps also significantly, this album was also their first chance to write music about (or inspired by in some indirect way) all the crazyness that happened in 2001, and the selfish hardening of a nervous society.
