This album is deservingly critically acclaimed. The end.

Oh, you expect more from me? Well, all right. This is the Flaming Lips' eleventh album (and, unfortunately, the only one I've heard thus far, so I'm going to stay away from their history for now). Despite its silly title, (best title of 2002, in my opinion) it is a serious, loose concept album that manages to be introspective, unique and beautifully melodic throughout. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a pop masterpiece.

The main story (which stops being explicitly told after the fourth track) is basically the following: Yoshimi (who is a blackbelt in karate) must battle the robots who have gained a mind of their own in order to save the world. Silly? Yes. Funny? Yes. Yet the album manages to reach deeply into dark territory, pulling out depressing realities such as "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?" and "all we ever have is now."

The songs here use simple, "conventional" rock arrangements (drums, vocals, bass, guitars) at their base and add in a touch of electronica to "spice things up" a bit. While the title is about a human battling a machine, the humans in the band and the machines they worked with managed to create a harmonious sound with each other, from the opening strums and vocal harmonies of "Fight Test" to the electronic, almost chaotic "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2," to the mellow "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Panitia)" at the end of the album.

And in between, there are space-rock masterpieces to lead the listener there. "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" is a melancholy song about robots learning emotions (and beats the hell out of The Who's "905," for all you classic rockers). "In the Morning of Magicians" is lyrically gloomier, asking such questions as "Is to love just a waste, and why does it matter? The aforementioned "Do You Realize?" is probably the most immediately lyrically sad (emotionally) song on the album, but it also works as hopeful, almost passive advice.

All throughout the album, there are memorable moments after memorable moment. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (sorry, but the title is just so cool I feel like using it as often as possible), despite its relative dependency on electronic effects and samples, manages to be an album about human emotions. Sadness, confusion, hope, happiness and everything in between are present here in these 11 songs, and that's quite a feat.