Song · The Flaming Lips
“Race For The Prize” by The Flaming Lips
From the album The Soft Bulletin (1999)
“Race For The Prize” by The Flaming Lips appears on 6 radio countdowns from 6 stations between 1999 and 2024. It was first released in 1999 on the album The Soft Bulletin. Its best result is #8 on the John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1999. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #157 alternative song of 1999.
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"Race for the Prize", subtitled "Sacrifice of the New Scientists", was the first single pulled from The Flaming Lips' 1999 album The Soft Bulletin, and it hits like a victory march, lab coats and all. Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins wrote it, and they produced it with Dave Fridmann and Scott Booker, turning neo-psychedelia into something huge, bright and wide open.
It crept to number 39 in the UK, the best showing for any single from the album, with "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)" and "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" riding along as b-sides. The song's reputation outgrew that chart spot: Pitchfork ranked it 30th among the top tracks of the '90s in 2010, and the band still uses it to kick off a lot of its shows.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 8 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1999 | 50 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 1280 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2021 | 238 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '90s | 908 |
| 2022 | 720 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 900 Songs of the '90s | 900 |
| 2023 | 443 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs of the '90s | 893 |
| 2024 | 156 | KEXP | The Best Opening Tracks of All Time | 738 |
Also listed as: Race for the Prize; Race For The Prize (Sacrifice Of The New Scientists).
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