Blogging Witlessly: Grandaddy vs. Flaming Lips
While Green LA Girl is blogging wistlessly, I've set my mind on blogging witlessly. (Been saving that one for a while.) Hence this pointless yet deeply important indie music head-to-head online poll.
Which is the better album, Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump (2000) or The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)? Think in terms of originality of vision, technical innnovation, and risk-taking.
With the passage of time comes perspective. Reflect. Vote.
Comments supporting your position always appreciated. One vote per day.
3 comments:
And so the simmering debate in the Duck household emerges into print: Melinda is firmly in the Flaming Lips camp, I'm firmly in the Grandaddy camp.
Why? For me, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots simply doesn't measure up to the huge amount of hipster hype it received when it came out. It's a good album; but not a great album.
For me, its biggest shortcoming is that it indulges its gimmicky concept too much, at the cost of emotional depth; the songs are pretty, but not moving.
Filed also under "failed to live up to the hype": Spiritualized's Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space (some great songs, but ruined by too much self-indulgent discordant jazz noodling); the entire output of the Sex Pistols (socially significant, yes; great musicians, no); I'm tempted to add The Stone Roses' debut to the list just to annoy Melinda (it doesn't do much for me, and the backwards Don't Stop is just annoying); and I'm beginning to wonder if, a few years down the line, we're all going to be embarrassed about how much fuss we made over OK Computer.
So why The Sophtware Slump? Because I connect with it. Its songs of melancholy and optimism capture the mood of that year. The songs are beautiful and moving: as a piece, it has far more emotional resonance than Yoshimi. And on a more mundane note, I prefer Jason Little's voice (particularly when it soars) to Wayne Coyne's (often a little too whiny).
And finally, "originality, innovation, and risk-taking" seems to me a hook that's baited specifically for Yoshimi's quirky themes over Slump's more well-trodden grooves of technological decay. But one man's originality is another man's gimmick; I'll take the long, vague, and haunting He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Copilot over the Japanese schoolgirls of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Part 1.
But in any case, are those really the only criteria for greatness? Plenty of experimental albums fail to achieve greatness; conversely, plenty of albums achieve greatness within the confines of their genre. (See for example Dylan's spectacular run of early-sixties albums: arguably all fairly similar acoustic folk-rock, but none the lesser for it.)
The criteria I set is skewed toward a favorable rating of Yoshimi, which I didn't mean to do. I listened to both albums after posting the online poll and realized that, for emotional depth, Grandaddy hits it out of the ballpark.
But there is one more element that I appreciate on Yoshimi that is lacking on Sophtware Slump: parody. There is more self-conscious humor on the Lips' album: "those evil-natured robots" is sung with more than a little wink to the entire "evil robots" genre of comic books and Sci-Fi movies.
Still, returning to your charge of less emotional depth on Yoshimi: The Flaming Lips do provide moving moments. Witness "In the Morning of the Magicians", "It's Summertime", "Do You Realise?" and "Are You A Hypnotist?" The drumming on the latter, coupled with the lyrics, shoot it into indie masterpiece territory. (The stellar drumming, and its relation to the lyrics, warrants an entirely separate blog post.)
That The Flaming Lips manage to achieve this in addition to the self-parody - the silly, goofy flavor of the album - and its "gimmicky" trope (as you put it) is even more incredible. I agree with you that it was hyped out of the stratosphere, however, you greatly underestimate this album.
(P.S. - Read in incredulous voice: And The Sex Pistols are overhyped?! Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman. Don't set off another blog post...
What a horrible question! But I'm going to Grandaddy for the overall quality of the album, although I think Yoshimi might have some more striking stand out tracks ... "Do you Realise", in particular, packs a huge emotional punch.
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