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The test begins — now! To wit: Oklahoma’s favorite weird sons The Flaming Lips have announced a massive 180g 5LP box set to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their landmark July 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The deluxe LP box features 40 tracks never before available on vinyl, and it will arrive like a rocket ship on April 14, 2023. As one might expect, a comparable 6CD box set precedes the vinyl box by almost six months on November 25 due to the (you guessed it) the typical supply chain issues, to better align with the actual 20th anniversary year.

Yoshimi deluxe box set, which is being released by Warner Records, includes B-sides, demos, remixes, radio sessions, two concerts, and other assorted of-era rarities. As noted, the LP box set has 40 tracks never released on vinyl and more than 30 previously unreleased tracks overall, all told.

Additionally, during the course of 2023, the two live albums included in the box set, along with the 25-minute demo “Psychedelic Hypnotist Daydream,” will be available as separate vinyl releases. Beyond that, the Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell and Fight Test EPs will be released on vinyl for the first time in Spring 2023. (The complete Yoshimi box set track listing follows at the end of this story.)

The label has confirmed with me directly that longtime Lips production stalwart David Fridmann has done the remastering, while Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering has done the lacquer-cutting. The LPs will be pressed at Precision in Ontario.

Additionally, Fridmann also confirms with me directly that the “original recordings were on analog 24-track and Otari RADAR, mixed to DAT.” Finally, The Flaming Lips’ management adds the following: “The demos are from 4-track cassettes, and the live recordings and miscellaneous stuff are from CDs.”

You can pre-order the Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots: 20th Anniversary Edition baby pink 5LP box set exclusively on the band’s official site here. SRP is $99.98. Other retail and online outlets will be offering the black vinyl version of this box set for a similar pricetag.

The facts are these. Released in July 2002, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots remains the commercial high-water mark in The Flaming Lips’ four-decades-deep catalog, giving the finely eclectic Oklahomans their first RIAA-certified Gold record. As the eagerly awaited follow-up to May 1999’s acclaimed The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi amply showed singer/guitarist Wayne Coyne and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd were still clearly in the zone.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a sci-fi-themed quasi-concept album that cast some of The Flaming Lips’ most playful and profound songs to date in a wondrous swirl of ambient electronics, digital beats, and psychedelic splendor. The record yielded the band’s top-streamed track, “Do You Realize??” — a timeless stargazing anthem that, in 2009, was named the Official Rock Song of the band’s native Oklahoma, and it also landed The Lips their first-ever Grammy win for the cosmic, album-closing instrumental, “Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia).”

In addition to providing several unheard demos, the Yoshimi box set also collects scores of B-sides and outtakes from epic fan favorites like “Assassination of the Sun” to fun, folky serenades like “Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus You Gave Me).” There’s also a treasure trove of radio sessions, including idiosyncratic overhauls of Pink Floyd’s “Lucifer Sam” and “Breathe,” Radiohead’s “Knives Out,” and Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” The box also includes a lush instrumental version of “Do You Realize??” that has been requested by fans to play at both weddings and funerals.

Of special note are the two concert discs, each of which showcase the two sides of The Flaming Lips’ ever-enlarging brain — a) the endearing, intimate storytellers (captured in a banter-heavy 2002 private show for a small crowd of radio-contest winners in Boston), and b) the masters of thundering, confetti-strewn stage spectacle (as heard in an electrifying 2003 performance at The Forum in London).

Taken as a whole, The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is well worth the wait in the first quarter of 2023, imo. I have my original, signed-by-Wayne Coyne Yoshimi LP currently in offsite storage, so I might just pony up for the baby pink vinyl as a collectible, but also get the black vinyl edition for actual playback purposes. What sayeth you? Do you realize, or do you fight? Chime in via the Comments section below.

THE FLAMING LIPS
YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS
20TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION
180 5LP (Warner Records)

LP 1 – ORIGINAL ALBUM
Side 1
1. Fight Test
2. One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
3. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1
4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 2
5. In The Morning Of The Magicians

Side 2
1. Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell
2. Are You A Hypnotist
3. It’s Summertime
4. Do You Realize??
5. All We Have Is Now
6. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon

LP 2 – DEMOS+
Side 3
1. All My Life - Morning Of The Magicians (Demo)
2. Ego Tripping Part 2 or 3 (Demo)
3. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Demo)
4. Hypnotist: Early Version (Demo)
5. Epic Systems Delirium (Demo)
6. In The Morning Of The Magicians (Demo)

Side 4
1. Do You Realize?? 1st Chords Wayne (Demo)
2. Do You Realize?? Steven New Part (Demo)
3. Fight Test: Primitive Demo With Helium Voice
4. If I Go Mad/Funeral In My Head (B-Side of Do You Realize?? UK CD 1)
5. Syrtis Major (B-Side of Do You Realize?? UK CD 1)

LP 3 – NON-LP+
Side 5
1. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Japanese Version)
2. SpongeBob & Patrick Confront The Psychic Wall Of Energy (From The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie)
3. Seven Nation Army (From LateNightTales: The Flaming Lips)
4. Go (Sparklehorse with The Flaming Lips) (Alternate Version From the Flaming Lips Archives)
5. The Deterioration Of The Fight Or Flight Response (B-Side of Fight Test UK CD 1)
6. Fight Test (Live on WXRT)

Side 6
1. Do You Realize?? (Live on CD 101)
2. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (AOL Session)
3. Waitin' For A Superman (Live on WXPN)
4. In The Morning Of The Magicians (Live on KCRW)
5. White Christmas (Live on WXPN)
6. The Golden Path (The Chemical Brothers, feat. The Flaming Lips)

LP 4 – RADIO SESSIONS
Side 7
1. Suspicious Minds (Live on Cover-ed)
2. Assassination Of The Sun (Live on BBC Radio 1) Maida Vale Session July 2002
3. Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Live on BBC Radio 1) Maida Vale Session July 2002
4. Do You Realize?? (Live on BBC Radio 1) Maida Vale Session July 2002
5. One More Robot (Live on BBC Radio 1) Maida Vale Session July 2002

Side 8
1. Do You Realize?? (Live on KEXP) Aug 5, 2002
2. One More Robot (Live on KEXP) Aug 5, 2002
3. Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Live on KEXP) Aug 5, 2002
4. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Live on KEXP) Aug 5, 2002
5. Breathe (Live on XFM) June 26 2003
6. Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell (Live on XFM) Nov 11, 2003
7. Sunship Balloons (Live on XFM) Nov 11, 2003

LP 5 – RADIO SESSIONS+
Side 9
1. Fight Test (Live on XFM) June 26 2003
2. Thank You Jack White (Live on XFM) June 26 2003
3. Do You Realize?? (Live on XFM) July 11, 2002
4. One More Robot (Live on XFM) July 11, 2002
5. Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Live on XFM) July 11, 200

Side 10
1. Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell (Live on BBC Radio 1) Oct 31, 2003 BBC Janice Long Show
1. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (Live on BBC Radio 1) Oct 31, 2003 BBC Janice Long Show
2. Sunship Balloons (Live on BBC Radio 1) Oct 31, 2003 BBC Janice Long Show
3. Up Above The Daily Hum (B-Side of Do You Realize?? UK CD 2)
4. Xanthe Terra (B-Side of Do You Realize?? UK CD 2)