The Flaming Lips

Released in July 2002, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots remains the commercial high-water mark in The Flaming Lips' wild four-decade journey, giving the Grammy award-winners their first RIAA certified Gold Record. As the eagerly awaited follow-up to 1999's masterwork, The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi proved that singer/guitarist Wayne Coyne and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd had yet another masterpiece in them. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a sci-fi themed quasi-concept album that cast The Flaming Lips' most playful and profound songs to date in a wonderous swirl of ambient electronics, digital beats and psychedelic splendor. The record yielded the band's top-streaming track, "Do You Realize??" (a timeless stargazing anthem that, in 2009, was named the Official Rock Song of the band's native Oklahoma) and also landed the Lips their first-ever Grammy Award win for the cosmic album-closing instrumental "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)."