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When it comes to the human race's technological advances, the subject of robotics and artificial intelligence rarely fails to create riveting fiction, whether the humanoid machines are helping maintain society or blowing it up.
A forthcoming addition to the popular canon of films that pit mankind versus machine, Luke Scott's Morganfollows a team's as they make the decision whether or not to end the life of an artificial human created in a laboratory — one that is growing increasingly violent.
Like filmmakers, musicians have long been inspired by the advent and uncertain future of artificial intelligence for decades; from Black Sabbath's crushing 'Iron Man' to Styx's dystopic 'Mr. Roboto' to Dan Mangan's tuneful 'Robots.' Before Morgan arrives in theatres on September 2, plug yourself in to our list of eight musical odes to machines, below.
Rush – 'The Body Electric'
No strangers to exploring the world of science fiction in song, Rush's 'The Body Electric' tells the story of 'an android on the run' in search of freedom from its electronic existence. In linking the world of robotics to the human race with the song's protagonist's individualist aspirations, the song's chorus features bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee singing the binary code '1001001,' which translates to a capital I.
And here's some irony: 'The Body Electric' comes from the band's 1984 record Grace Under Pressure, on which machines — namely, Lee's synthesizers and Neil Peart's electric drums — played a prominent role in their songwriting.
Janelle Monáe – 'Electric Lady'
Boasting a body of work set in a world of androids and Afro-futurist themes, one could fill a wealth of lists with all of the human/machine references across Janelle Monáe's Metropolis series. For its bombastic blend of pop, rock and soul, we picked the title track from her 2013 solo LP The Electric Lady.
The song cleverly plays up the several meanings of 'electricity,' referencing both robotics and having a thrilling and captivating persona. As far as androids go, Monáe and Solange Knowles team up to create an image of a robotic woman that will 'have you raising up your antenna' when she walks in the room. 'I'll reprogram your mind, my spaceship leaves at 10,' Monáe warns.
El-P – 'Stepfather Factory'
'Little man, little lady, cute little baby / Reach your hand out to the future of automated robotics,' El-P proclaims in the opening verse of 'Stepfather Factory.' Drawing from the horrific experiences with his own stepfather in childhood, the songs finds the MC looking to build 'tomorrow's fathers today' to save other families from what he went through.
In describing the 'paternal unit, class A, type one,' El-P promises all units are 'true to human emotion and trained to be domestic' and come with a 90-day warranty, but it isn't long before he admits that the cheapest way to keep the robotic stepfather fuelled is with booze, running the risk of 'physical aggression towards you and your loved ones.'
The Flaming Lips – 'One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21'
The Flaming Lips' 'One More Robot…' concerns itself with mechanical beings beginning to experience feelings outside of their own programming. Fitting within the story of the band's celebrated Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the robot in question is designed to battle protagonist Yoshimi to the death, yet becomes 'something more than a machine' and relents.
From Coyne's liner notes: 'This robot's circuitry (3000-21 model unit) has the capacity to react to changes with synthetic emotions. And even though it's programmed to kill her, it falls in love with Yoshimi, and by the end of the song (the sad reprise) the robot has decided to kill himself.'
Kraftwerk – 'The Robots'
As electronic music pioneers, the influence of technology and robotics on Kraftwerk is impossible to ignore. It's apparent both in their recorded work and their imagery as performers, and never clearer than on 'The Robots' ('Die Roboter' in German), taken from their seventh studio LP, all-too-fitting titled The Man-Machine.
Alongside the song's mechanical melody, the lyrics describe a number of robotic functions: charging batteries, functioning automatically and serving their creators. For added effect, the lyrics are sung through a vocoder, while a modulated voice that marks the bridge sections says, 'I'm your servant, I'm your worker' in Russian.
Neil Young – 'Sample and Hold'
Sounding like it could have been plucked straight from a Kraftwerk record, Neil Young's 'Sample and Hold' comes from the electronics-indebted Trans, Young's confounding 1982 disc that prompted a lawsuit from label boss David Geffen alleging the songwriter had made work that was both misrepresentative and unsellable.
Like much of the record it comes from, the song features heavy use of a vocoder and octave effects to mask Young's recognizable croon. On a surface level, the lyrics allude to a mail-order robot companionship service, for which Young can be heard listing preferred features such as weight, hair and eye colour to open the song. 'We know you'll be satisfied / When you energize / And see your unit come to life,' robotic harmonies croon, in search of a deeper connection between man and machine.
Daft Punk – 'Robot Rock'
As music's most notable pair of robots, Daft Punk are primarily recognized for their influence on electronic music. But before they donned their futuristic helmets, both Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had their roots planted in rock music with their short-lived group Darlin'.
With that in mind, it's only natural that the pair would create 'Robot Rock,' a loop-driven song reminiscent of guitar power chords that sounds like what one might expect should they hand traditional rock instruments over to musically inclined machines. As Bangalter told Q in 2007: 'In a way I think we were exploring if you can take the essence of rock — that power — and mix it with dance.'
TV on the Radio – 'Robots'
Two years prior to releasing their debut LP, Brooklyn's TV on the Radio released a collection of demos titled OK Calculator. One of the strange yet humorous inclusions on the disc was 'Robots,' a pop culture critique voiced by an Apple text-to-speech program over lush production driven by percussion and wind instruments.
The humour of this examination remains lewd in its approach. 'I could not help but noticing, all these robots fucking in the middle of the mini mall,' the voice reads aloud, before seeing them in the car wash, the White House, the subway, a Jay Z video and 'in the middle of a telecast with Tom Brokaw announcing his love for puppies.'
Catch 20th Century Fox's Morgan in theatres September 2.
A forthcoming addition to the popular canon of films that pit mankind versus machine, Luke Scott's Morganfollows a team's as they make the decision whether or not to end the life of an artificial human created in a laboratory — one that is growing increasingly violent.
Like filmmakers, musicians have long been inspired by the advent and uncertain future of artificial intelligence for decades; from Black Sabbath's crushing 'Iron Man' to Styx's dystopic 'Mr. Roboto' to Dan Mangan's tuneful 'Robots.' Before Morgan arrives in theatres on September 2, plug yourself in to our list of eight musical odes to machines, below.
Rush – 'The Body Electric'
No strangers to exploring the world of science fiction in song, Rush's 'The Body Electric' tells the story of 'an android on the run' in search of freedom from its electronic existence. In linking the world of robotics to the human race with the song's protagonist's individualist aspirations, the song's chorus features bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee singing the binary code '1001001,' which translates to a capital I.
And here's some irony: 'The Body Electric' comes from the band's 1984 record Grace Under Pressure, on which machines — namely, Lee's synthesizers and Neil Peart's electric drums — played a prominent role in their songwriting.
Janelle Monáe – 'Electric Lady'
Boasting a body of work set in a world of androids and Afro-futurist themes, one could fill a wealth of lists with all of the human/machine references across Janelle Monáe's Metropolis series. For its bombastic blend of pop, rock and soul, we picked the title track from her 2013 solo LP The Electric Lady.
The song cleverly plays up the several meanings of 'electricity,' referencing both robotics and having a thrilling and captivating persona. As far as androids go, Monáe and Solange Knowles team up to create an image of a robotic woman that will 'have you raising up your antenna' when she walks in the room. 'I'll reprogram your mind, my spaceship leaves at 10,' Monáe warns.
El-P – 'Stepfather Factory'
'Little man, little lady, cute little baby / Reach your hand out to the future of automated robotics,' El-P proclaims in the opening verse of 'Stepfather Factory.' Drawing from the horrific experiences with his own stepfather in childhood, the songs finds the MC looking to build 'tomorrow's fathers today' to save other families from what he went through.
In describing the 'paternal unit, class A, type one,' El-P promises all units are 'true to human emotion and trained to be domestic' and come with a 90-day warranty, but it isn't long before he admits that the cheapest way to keep the robotic stepfather fuelled is with booze, running the risk of 'physical aggression towards you and your loved ones.'
The Flaming Lips – 'One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21'
The Flaming Lips' 'One More Robot…' concerns itself with mechanical beings beginning to experience feelings outside of their own programming. Fitting within the story of the band's celebrated Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the robot in question is designed to battle protagonist Yoshimi to the death, yet becomes 'something more than a machine' and relents.
From Coyne's liner notes: 'This robot's circuitry (3000-21 model unit) has the capacity to react to changes with synthetic emotions. And even though it's programmed to kill her, it falls in love with Yoshimi, and by the end of the song (the sad reprise) the robot has decided to kill himself.'
Kraftwerk – 'The Robots'
As electronic music pioneers, the influence of technology and robotics on Kraftwerk is impossible to ignore. It's apparent both in their recorded work and their imagery as performers, and never clearer than on 'The Robots' ('Die Roboter' in German), taken from their seventh studio LP, all-too-fitting titled The Man-Machine.
Alongside the song's mechanical melody, the lyrics describe a number of robotic functions: charging batteries, functioning automatically and serving their creators. For added effect, the lyrics are sung through a vocoder, while a modulated voice that marks the bridge sections says, 'I'm your servant, I'm your worker' in Russian.
![101 songs about robots 101 songs about robots](/uploads/1/2/5/0/125050830/533317039.jpg)
Neil Young – 'Sample and Hold'
Sounding like it could have been plucked straight from a Kraftwerk record, Neil Young's 'Sample and Hold' comes from the electronics-indebted Trans, Young's confounding 1982 disc that prompted a lawsuit from label boss David Geffen alleging the songwriter had made work that was both misrepresentative and unsellable.
Like much of the record it comes from, the song features heavy use of a vocoder and octave effects to mask Young's recognizable croon. On a surface level, the lyrics allude to a mail-order robot companionship service, for which Young can be heard listing preferred features such as weight, hair and eye colour to open the song. 'We know you'll be satisfied / When you energize / And see your unit come to life,' robotic harmonies croon, in search of a deeper connection between man and machine.
Daft Punk – 'Robot Rock'
As music's most notable pair of robots, Daft Punk are primarily recognized for their influence on electronic music. But before they donned their futuristic helmets, both Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo had their roots planted in rock music with their short-lived group Darlin'.
With that in mind, it's only natural that the pair would create 'Robot Rock,' a loop-driven song reminiscent of guitar power chords that sounds like what one might expect should they hand traditional rock instruments over to musically inclined machines. As Bangalter told Q in 2007: 'In a way I think we were exploring if you can take the essence of rock — that power — and mix it with dance.'
TV on the Radio – 'Robots'
Two years prior to releasing their debut LP, Brooklyn's TV on the Radio released a collection of demos titled OK Calculator. One of the strange yet humorous inclusions on the disc was 'Robots,' a pop culture critique voiced by an Apple text-to-speech program over lush production driven by percussion and wind instruments.
The humour of this examination remains lewd in its approach. 'I could not help but noticing, all these robots fucking in the middle of the mini mall,' the voice reads aloud, before seeing them in the car wash, the White House, the subway, a Jay Z video and 'in the middle of a telecast with Tom Brokaw announcing his love for puppies.'
Catch 20th Century Fox's Morgan in theatres September 2.
(Redirected from Mr Roboto)
'Mr. Roboto' | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Styx | ||||
from the album Kilroy Was Here | ||||
B-side | 'Snowblind' | |||
Released | February 11, 1983 | |||
Recorded | 1982 | |||
Genre | Synthpop[1] | |||
Length | 5:30 (album) 4:44 (single) |
|||
Label | A&M | |||
Songwriter(s) | Dennis DeYoung | |||
Producer(s) | Styx | |||
Styx singles chronology | ||||
|
||||
Audio sample | ||||
'Mr Roboto'
|
'Mr. Roboto' is a song written by Dennis DeYoung of the band Styx, and recorded on the Styx album Kilroy Was Here. It was also released as a 45 RPM single in a 4:44 radio edit, which has the synthesizer intro removed (available on Greatest Hits released by PolyTel in Canada in 1992), with the song 'Snowblind' (from their previous album Paradise Theatre) as the B-side. In Canada, it went to #1 on the RPM national singles chart,[2] becoming their third single to top the charts in that country (following 'Babe' in 1979–80 and 'The Best of Times' in 1981).[citation needed] In the U.S., it reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.[3]
- 5Uses in media
Description and background[edit]
The Japanese lyrics at the beginning of the song are as follows:
どうもありがとうミスターロボット (Dōmo arigatō misutā robotto)
また会う日まで (Mata au hi made)
どうもありがとうミスターロボット (Dōmo arigatō misutā robotto)
秘密を知りたい (Himitsu o shiritai)
また会う日まで (Mata au hi made)
どうもありがとうミスターロボット (Dōmo arigatō misutā robotto)
秘密を知りたい (Himitsu o shiritai)
The lyrics translate into English as follows:
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
Until the day we meet again
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
I want to know your secret
Until the day we meet again
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
I want to know your secret
The lyric 'Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto' has entered popular culture as a catchphrase[4], appearing in media such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Archer, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Arrested Development, Eight Crazy Nights, Austin Powers in Goldmember, DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, Man With A Plan and The Perfect Man.
The song tells part of the story of Robert Orin Charles Kilroy (ROCK), in the rock operaKilroy Was Here. The song is performed by Kilroy (as played by keyboardist Dennis DeYoung), a rock and roll performer who was placed in a futuristic prison for 'rock and roll misfits' by the anti-rock-and-roll group the Majority for Musical Morality (MMM) and its founder Dr. Everett Righteous (played by guitarist James Young). The Roboto is a model of robot which does menial jobs in the prison. Kilroy escapes the prison by overpowering a Roboto prison guard and hiding inside its emptied-out metal shell. When Jonathan Chance (played by guitarist Tommy Shaw) finally meets Kilroy, at the very end of the song, Kilroy unmasks and says 'I'm Kilroy! Kilroy!', ending the song.
The robot-like catchphrase was created with a vocoder. The song heavily features the Oberheim OB-Xa and PPG Wave synthesizers.
Stan Winston, who would become well-known through his work on Jurassic Park, designed the Roboto costume and mask, which is displayed prominently on the cover of the album Kilroy Was Here.[5] The song's writer Dennis DeYoung did not think of the song as a single until his wife Suzanne and Dennis' friend Dave and the staff at A&M suggested it had hit single written all over it so the track was released as the first single from the album at the last minute instead of 'Don't Let It End' and turned out to be the band's last Top 5 US hit for eight years. As a result of this song, the Japanese phrase 'domou arigatou' entered popular American vernacular.[6] In addition, many have cited this song and the album as potentially having alienated older fans, some calling it 'jumping the shark' for the band.[7] Though the song and album may not have resonated with older fans at the time, it remained relevant for younger generations and James Young has said that due to the song, 'we're a part of pop culture.'[8]
'Mr. Roboto' has been described as synthpop.[1]
Composition[edit]
The song is not in any one key and is instead in a related set of modes. The intro begins in A-flat Mixolydian mode, ending in an F (dominant to B-flat). The singing begins, the chords alternating between a second-inversion B-flat (4–3 suspension resolution) and G-flat Lydian mode. Out of the 'Domo' part, the song bursts into G-flat Lydian. It changes to E-flat minor Aeolian mode at 'I am the Modren [sic] Man', and this is the dominant key for the remainder of the song. Some portions of the song transition to E-flat major (similar to a Picardy third) as a transition point (to the 'secret, secret' part as a pivot chord (see modulation) and to A-flat Mixolydian, a modal change from the G-flat Lydian that the same part took in the beginning of the song). It transitions back to the familiar G-flat Lydian and then E-flat minor as the singer introduces himself as Kilroy.
Personnel[edit]
- Dennis DeYoung - lead vocals, keyboards, synthesizer
- Tommy Shaw - guitar, backing vocals, vocoder
- James Young - guitar, backing vocals, vocoder
- Chuck Panozzo - bass guitar
- John Panozzo - drums
Music video[edit]
![Songs About Robots Songs About Robots](http://www.bookpunks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/robot-with-text.jpg)
The song's video, directed by Brian Gibson, depicts Jonathan Chance (played by guitarist Tommy Shaw) walking in Rock Museum to meet Kilroy and a robot approaches. After this, it morphs into five robots moving and dancing (choreographed by Kenny Ortega). Shortly thereafter, the robots transform into the members of Styx and including a clean-shaven Dennis DeYoung (he shaved his trademark moustache off at the conclusion of the Paradise Theater tour in 1982). The video then alternates between the band playing the song on a stage and scenes from the Kilroy Was Here backdrop film. Then, the members of Styx morph back into the robots and DeYoung confronts the robots, screaming in the ear of one of the robots before collapsing. DeYoung awakens to see he is being experimented on and runs off. The video cuts back to the ending of the first scene and Jonathan Chance climbs on to the stage. Before the robot removes his mask to reveal Kilroy, another shot of the robot with lights on is used to end the clip.
Uses in media[edit]
- The song was used as the opening song on the pilot episode of the Japanese drama series Densha Otoko televised in 2005 on Fuji TV, Japan. The story featured an otaku as the main character who was a fan of robots and figures but fell in-love with a regular office-lady.
- It was briefly heard in the How I Met Your Mother season 1 episode 'Belly Full of Turkey'.
- It was also heard in the Two and a Half Men season 12 episode 'Alan Shot a Little Girl'.
- In the Futurama episode 'The 30% Iron Chef', the Japanese host of the show in which Bender competes says to him the line 'Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto'.
Covers[edit]
- The Japanese new wave band Polysics covered the song in 2002.
- The American rock band The Protomen covered this song on their 2015 album The Cover Up. The band's frontman, K.I.L.R.O.Y., takes his name and on-stage persona from the song.
- The German progressive metal band Annon Vin covered the song on their 1996 album A New Gate.
- The French progressive metal band Bender covered the song on their 1995 album Futura.
- Skylar Astin, as Jean Baptiste and with the cast of Throat Explosion, performed this song as a mash-up with 'Counting Stars' on Glee's Season 5 episode 'City of Angels'.
- SugaryLine covered the song in the 2017 album PMVX: From Skyland to Axel F.
- In the Chuck episode 'Chuck vs Mr Roboto', the fictional band Jeffster! covered the song.
References[edit]
- ^ abhttp://ultimateclassicrock.com/styx-kilroy-was-here/
- ^'Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada'. Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
- ^'The Hot 100 : Apr 30, 1983 | Billboard Chart Archive'. billboard.com. Retrieved March 16, 2014.
- ^Kuhlmey, Matthias Paul (February 12, 2014). 'Mr. Roboto'. Huffington Post. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ^Wood, P. (April 2, 2014). '5 things to know about Styx.' Gazette, p. B4.
- ^Perusse, B. (March 26, 2007). 'With all these fans, who needs critics?' The Gazette.
- ^Penhollow, S. (June 1, 2007). 'For Styx, still best of times supergroup embedded in 'fabric of pop culture'.' Gazette, p. W3.
- ^Ho, R. (January 17, 2008). 'Sound Check: Rock of ages rolls with fans.' The Atlanta Journal–Constitution, p. P9.
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mr._Roboto&oldid=900034184'