The Flaming Lips Album: “Fight Test [EP]”

The Flaming Lips produced the fantastic album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" in 2002, and the first of those was the fantastic "Fight Test." Now it's on its own single with covers of other bands' songs -- and a few new ones by the Lips.

First off is "Fight Test," unaltered from the original album, a hilariously stately cover of Kylie Minogue's dance-pop "Can't Get You Out Of My Head," a musically complex cover of Beck's "Golden Age," a harder-edged electronic cover of Radiohead's "Knives Out," a dance remix of "Do You Realize," and the likably perky "The Strange Design Of Conscience." The crowning glory is "Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)," in which the male half of the White Stripes drops off a unique gift. (Guess what it is)

"Fight Test" is a pretty decent collection of covers, remixes and new songs. The more ominous, dignified version of Kylie's dance hit is hysterical; "Thank You" is cheerfully countryish. "Do You Realize" is interesting once, but not after that; it's the same as the original, except more technoish. And as always, the songs are best when they're the Lips' own ("and I said 'thank you Jack White, for the fiberoptic Jesus that you gave me'/it shined so bright I couldn't help believin' it would save me").

Fans of the Lips and of "Yoshimi" should check this out. Consider it a slightly twisted extension of that much-loved album.

i immensely enjoyed 'yoshimi', and like a lot of lips listeners now, that was really my introduction. the track that got me hooked was indeed 'fight test', which lead me into a far cooler, far more vast landscape of the lips. that said, this collection is an interesting thing.

obviously, 'fight test' is marvelous. the other tracks hit and miss- the hardkiss version of 'do you realize??' is just a clubbed up mix of the song- which i wouldnt really see as a club song. the cover of kylie minogue's "cant get you outta my head" is plodding, a bit long, but an amazingly hillarious concept if you think about it.

There are some wonderfly good spots, however. The cover of beck's "the golden age" is a very, very good one.

The best track of the bunch, has to be their cover of radiohead's 'knives out'- i've often designated the lips to be the 'american radiohead'... and this proves it, right here. they somehow take the song and make it their own, make it original- yet you can still completely identify it with the radiohead version. it's quite a masterpiece.

and finally, if you ever saw an album with 'thank you jack white for the fiberoptic jesus that you gave me' as one of the titles, how could you pass that up?

a pretty decent EP, but probably best for diehard fans.

This doesn't look like much, 3 of the 7 songs are covers (Well 4 if you count the title track as a Cat Stevens cover I guess, but I'm not getting into that...), and one is a techno remix of previous single "Do You Realize???", leaving a grand total of 2 previously unreleased Lips originals. But in truth, it's a pretty decent listen, and would be a good purchase for diehard fans, or people who just really liked their album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and want a little more. The covers are decent to great. The best being "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", where they take Kylie Minogue's overplayed dance pop hit and turn it into a meloncholy ballad that's somewhere between The Soft Bulletin and Ennion Morricone spaghetti western music, the worst being their take on Beck's "Golden Age", which while pleasantly rootsy and Neil Young-ish, doesn't really add anything to the song and carries a piano line that sort of makes it sound like a more boring version of old Lips classic "Five Stop Mother Superior Rain". The originals are pretty good, "Fight Test", despite similarities to a certain Cat Stevens song, is still a good song, but you already know that, "Strange Design Of Conscience" is a great, if overly wordy, piece of dream-pop that would have fit in perfectly on Yoshimi, and the amusingly titled "Thank You Jack White..." is sort of a throwaway, but it's got funny lyrics and a pretty entertaining downhome country feel to it. The remix, however, is the one major misstep. Although interesting in parts, it just doesn't justify it's 9 minute length, and sections of the track bring things dangerously close to "Believe" by Cher. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the time could have been better spent on two or three more original songs, or even more covers.

Although the quality of this single is a little mixed overall, it still has some quality moments that make it a must for diehard fans or even more recent converts who caught on with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots.

Naturally, the EP starts off with "Fight Test", much like the Yoshimi album itself. Despite controversy over similarities to Cat Stevens' "Father To Son", the song is catchy and emotionally resonant, and it's mixture of folky harmonic pop and modern electronic effects sum up the sound of the album as a whole nicely.

Next comes what is considered by most to be the highlight of the EP, a cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head". While there's sort of been a recent trend of rock bands doing ironic covers of contemporary top 40 songs either live or as b-sides, it's pretty clear the Lips are being sincere here. They convert the mechanical europop of the original into a meloncholy dirge of yearning, even adding sorrow to the simplistic "la la la" chorus.

This is followed up by the band's rendition of Beck's "The Golden Age". While very faithful to the original, presumably due to the band serving as Beck's backup band in a recent tour, the flaming lips still manage to add a bit of something different. The intro to their rendition recalls their own classic "five stop mother superior rain", and due to Wayne Coyne's most Neil Young-like vocal performance in recent memory, the song gains a decidedly more rootsy feel.

The third and final cover tune here is Radiohead's "Knives Out". The guitars are substituted with piano, the tempo is slowed down, and the overall result is a funeral jazz sort of vibe. Even when uttering such dark lines as "knives out, catch the mouse, squash his head, shove him in the pot", Coyne exudes a glimmer of "light at the end of the tunnel" hope missing in the original. The rendition is marred somewhat by odd squawking keyboard effects that start to annoy after a while and Wayne seemingly forgetting the words midway through the second verse, but it's otherwise a pretty intriguing take on the song.

Then, there's the remix, which was honestly the moment I was dreading most the moment I put the cd into my stereo. Although not something I'll probably want to listen to too often, the Scott Hardkiss mix of Do You Realize???" was surprisingly a pleasant listen and definitely not the 9 minute trainwreck I was somehow fearing. While the remix does suffer from being overlong (I could definitely stand to have at least a couple minutes of it shaved off) and a certain something is lost without the lush synth orchestration, Hardkiss makes the song more danceable while still keeping the original spirit intact, using some nicely trippy effects on Wayne's vocal line in the process.

Finally we have the two originals. "Strange Design Of Conscience" has some very deep (though perhaps overly wordy) and well written lyrics and a nicely hypnotic groove, but is a bit short on memorable melody. The cd closes with the hillariously titled "Thank You Jack White (For The Fiberoptic Jesus That You Gave Me)", a breezy almost country-like song, which as the title implies, tells the tale of Jack White of The White Stripes stopping by backstage at one of their shows and giving Wayne a glow in the dark Jesus statue purchased at a pawn shop. The band do play the concept for humor, particularly in the second verse, which satirizes the common perception of the relationship between Jack and Meg White (containing the memorable couplet "I bet that van started to stink/ then I wonder what Christ would think"), but there's also an oddly moving aspect of it, as Coyne seems to find consolation in the unusual gift, which "shined so bright I couldn't help believing it would save me". A wonderfully lighthearted way to close the disk, and also an effective counterpoint to the previous, much more serious song.

While nothing here is as strong as the best work on the album, most of it is suprisingly well done for an ep of material put together while a band is still frantically touring. Those who enjoyed the last album should be pleased.

Fight Test is a great EP. I love all songs but Modern Age is fantastic.