Synopsis

Wayne Coyne travels through a surreal, apocalyptic landscape enclosed in a transparent inflatable bubble. He moves across open fields and a burning prairie, at times wrapped in an American flag, while the band performs amid stark, dreamlike imagery. The bubble turns the song's race toward scientific discovery into a strange endurance test, suggesting both protection and isolation. Its handmade, psychedelic presentation matches the hopeful but existential mood of "Race for the Prize" and the expansive sound of The Soft Bulletin.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released in 1999 to promote "Race for the Prize," the first single from The Flaming Lips' album The Soft Bulletin.

• The song carries the subtitle "Sacrifice of the New Scientists," framing its story around two scientists who devote themselves to a potentially world-saving breakthrough.

• "Race for the Prize" became the band's highest-charting single in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 39.

• The song itself came from an accidental recording experiment. Steven Drozd's drums and riff were captured on a single microphone, producing a distorted sound the band could not successfully recreate when they tried to repeat it.

• The transparent inflatable bubble became one of Wayne Coyne's signature live-show props. The video helped establish the visual association, although later concerts turned the idea into a full audience-participation spectacle.

• In 2020, the band revisited the bubble concept for a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, placing the musicians and audience members inside separate inflatable bubbles during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The video is part of the visual world surrounding The Soft Bulletin, an album that balances themes of death, sacrifice, and existential uncertainty with bright orchestration and deliberately uplifting presentation.