Ballarobot : David Zed

Born in the USA but seemingly spending much of his working life in Italy, David Traylor's day job is in film & television as an actor, comedian and voice-over artist... and of course a robot known as Mr Zed. But it's his musical output I'm interested in. This will be David Zed's third and final feature on 101 Songs About Robots... unless of course he releases another robot song. From 1983 is Ballarobot, which is a re-recorded version of his 1980 single Balla Robot.



Here's the original (which is from 1980 and not '81 as stated in the video's title)...

Mr. Roboto : Styx

Mr Roboto is included on most top X robot song lists... which is why I've waited so long to post it. From their 1983 concept album, 'Kilroy Was Here', Mr. Roboto reached number 3 in the US charts, number 1 in Canada and suffered a disappointing peak at number 90 here in the UK :( . Admittedly there was a lot of strong competition in '83... but when the likes of Rod (are you dead yet?) Stewart gets to number 1, Mike (boring) Oldfield reaches to number 4 and Tina (bloody) Turner peaks at number 6, I think we should hang our heads in shame that this classic robot song barely broke into the UKs top 100.

Here it is, in all its glory, the shamefully underrated Mr. Roboto by Styx.



In an attempt to make up for our collective failings, I urge all UK residents to throw this song at least a three star vote!

Automatic : Pointer Sisters

Super deep vocals from Ruth Pointer in 1983s Automatic by the Pointer Sisters might have some of you questioning her true gender... but I can assure you she's all robot!  At first I thought Automatic might be a bit too tenuous to include, but a perusal of the lyrics confirmed that the song, just like Ruth, is all robot. It's not the best song the Pointer Sisters have ever recorded or performed, but it's got to be their best robot song.