Customer Reviews

Fight Test

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a Lips fan, I enjoyed this EP, it's nice to have something to tide you over between major releases. It could have been better though. Here's the song by song breakdown.

Fight Test: This is the album version of this song. Great song, but if you've got Yoshimi you've already got it.

The next three are live covers-

Can't Get You Out of My Head: Don't know the original artist, but yes its THAT song. Amusing at best.

The Golden Age (Beck) - The Lips are in a pretty good position to play this song, given that they both opened for Beck and also played in his backing band on his most recent tour. This is a fairly straightforward version of a pretty good song. Wayne sounds a little funny singing so low.

Knives Out (Radiohead) : Another fairly straightforward cover. Interesting, but not remarkable.

Now we're back to studio tracks:

Do You Realize??(Floating in Space Mix): The original version of this is an awesome song, but probably not the best choice for a 9 minute long quasi techno remix. This remix adds little other than length, a lame dance hall drum beat, and the occasional warbly filter on wayne's voice.

The Strange Design of Conscience: Finally, a new song. This one's pretty good, with a similar vibe to the stuff on Yoshimi. Almost makes up for the butchering of Do You Realize, but not quite.

Thank You Jack White (For the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me):

This is the saving grace of the EP right here. The song has a countryish vibe and tells the presumably true story of Wayne's run in with Jack White of the White Stripes, and the fiber optic Jesus he gave him. Fun song.

Bonus Material - This cd also contains a video for fight test, and a trailer for the upcoming lips movie Christmas on Mars. Haven't yet got to watch either of them, but bonus material is always a good thing.

Bottom line, this looks like a 'For Collectors Only' item, especially since at [money] its almost the price of a full length album. Definately buy Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Soft Bulletin before you think about getting this.

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.

The EP accompanying Fight Test, the third single from the Flaming Lips' unbelievably good Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, is chunked full of treats that will delight the band's core following. The covers of "Golden Age" and "Knives Out," recent songs from Beck and Radiohead, respectively, are both first-rate. But their bizarre take on Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head," is truly astounding. The group's brand of mad genius turns the dance-pop hit into an ominous dirge that reeks of pain and obsession. Next is an enjoyable, floaty remix of "Do You Realize??," followed by two new songs: the gentle "Strange Design of Conscious" and the folksy "Thank You Jack White (For the Fiberobtic Jesus that You Gave Me)," about a backstage encounter with the male half of The White Stripes. All this on an enhanced CD featuring the noticeably low-budget but entertaining video for "Fight Test" and the trailer for the band's upcoming film, Christmas on Mars.

If you really liked 2002's "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" then this is definitely worth getting. It's a novelty EP with a hilarious cover of Kylie Minogue, plus covers of Beck and Radiohead. However, the one thing here that really needs to be heard is "Thank You Jack White (For the Fiberoptic Jesus That You Gave Me)" which is a classic Lips title. Even better, Wayne Coyne expresses the hilarity with a rawness in his voice I've never heard from him. The "Do You Realize" remix is interesting only the first time, while the other new song ("The Strange Design of Conscience") is good also. It's a solid release--and seems to be more interesting than "Yoshimi"--even if it's not likely to be in your CD player for any great length of time.

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 is a short EP centered around the single "Fight Test," but rather than give us 5 remixed versions of that song, the band instead chose to bestow on us a number of unreleased goodies. Granted, most of them are covers, but it's quite exhilirating to see how they mutate and even mangle such songs, and proof that they're a great band still capable of turning heads.

"Fight Test" is exactly as the same as off the album, no worries there (and btw if you don't have "Yoshimi," go back, buy it now, and THEN come back here). Simply melodic, rousing, and encouraging in equal doses, it's a classic.

From there, the weirdness truly begins, and doesn't let up, with a cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head," which the Lips absolutely mangle to shreds in the best way possible, turning it from some light meaningless pop drivel into something truly stunning and yearning, like the song was originally theirs all along (even with the "boy you're love is all i think about" part gently cooed by Coyne). Orchestral crashes absolutely deconstruct the song in pure Lips style.

Next up is Beck's "Golden Age," whom they toured with extensively in 2002-2003. While I can't say how they did with the original song having not heard it, what they've done here seems to suggest it must be great. Gentle acoustic strumming and piano carry the simple melody, letting it fill your ears as deep bass rumblings crackle underneath you. Think I'm going to give the original a gander...

But they save the most spectacular for last. They do an absolutely marvelous job of interpreting Radiohead's "Knives Out," to the point where i think it might be superior. It's slowed in tempo by a few notches and the last verse (same as the first, tho) is excised, but a wonderfully trippy drum beat, doomy piano, and squalling guitar fill in the holes quite nicely. Coyne claims the lyrics as his own, intoning "So knives out/Catch the mouse" with the same conviction as lines like "Oh Yoshimi, you don't believe me" and "I accidentally touched my head/And noticed I'd been bleeding." There's still justification for covers, apparently.

After those three actually compelling moments, there comes somewhat of a letdown. "Do You Realize??" from Yoshimi is remixed to bad effect. There didn't seem to be any effort to make an interpretation of the song (I think a slower, trip-hop version might've worked)- rather, the DJ simply gave it a light frilly electro-beat and repeats the lines of the song about 3 times over the course of 9 minutes, rearranging the sounds in the original. Pretty disappointing.

After that, though, you get TWO Lips originals, which help round out the EP nicely. "Strange Design of Conscience" is a stunner, in the vein of their more electronic work on "Yoshimi," with a light beat and guitar strums over Coyne's aching vocals. The lyrics "And given the circumstances of our lives/you'd have done the same thing" seem especially potent in our current world climate. Strange how such an ecclectic band ends up really on top of current events.

The last original, "Thank You Jack White" is especially silly, but it's warm and cozy and a nice way to end this EP. Considering the Lips have at least two more projects due soon (Christmas on Mars and another soundtrack for a film), we should consider ourselves lucky that they took the time to present us with this wonderful little collection.

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.

This is a fantastic EP. Here is a brief synopsis of the non album tracks:

Track 2 "Can't Get You Out of My Head" - this song is a masterpiece. Take a fluff pop song and turn it into a plea of emotional longing. Wow.

Track 2 "The Golden Age" - More than competent cover of Beck's song.

Track 3 "Knives Out" - Cover of a Radiohead song. Slightly different from Radiohead's, probably the weakest song on the album.

Track 4 "Do you realize" - excellent remix that goes on and on for about 9 minutes.

Track 6 "The Strange Conscience of Design" - Another highlight on this mini album, has the electronic feel of most of the Yoshimi album and boasts some of Waynes most amazing lyrics ever.

Track 7 "Thank you Jack White..." - One of the funniest, heartfelt songs the flaming lips have ever done. Has a folky feel to it and reminds me of "the Southern Oklahoma Cosmic Trigger Contest" off of the "do you realize" european dvd.

Complaints:

The video section [stinks], and I'll have to once again be forced to buy the UK DVD when it comes out. I have all of the requirements and yet the video does not play.

The song selection. I think that "up above the daily hum" and "if i go mad / funeral in my head" far exceed the covers of the Beck and Radiohead songs and deserve a wider audience. My flaming lips Yoshimi b-sides mix now is 12 songs (not including the 4 tracks released on UK DVD's that I can't extract) and this EP could have been a masterpiece, not just a great between albums project. Honestly, the should have released a b-sides full length - here's what my tracklisting would have been:

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Aol sessions, slow version)
Xanthe Terra
If I go mad / funeral in my head
up above the daily hum
can't get you out of my head
the golden age
knives out
do you realize (remix)
the strange conscience of design
thank you jack white...
syrtis major
yoshimi battles the pink robots (japanese version)

Overall, its a 3 out of 5, the lips are making the best music of their career - its just not all on this release.

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.

I have just gotten around to discovering The Flaming Lips which is surprising since they are from my hometown. This EP is on continuous play on my CD player. Enjoy.