The relationship between Warner Bros. Records and The Flaming Lips is a fascinating one. Since being signed to one of the biggest record labels in the world, The Flaming Lips have had a seemingly large amount of free reign over what direction they want to go in and how out there they want to be. (If I'm wrong on that, I'd like to see what the Flaming Lips not holding back looks like.)
Although The Flaming Lips produced some incredible music before hitting a nerve with their 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Yoshimi was an entry point for many fans that were unaware that the Flaming Lips even existed. So why did Warner Bros. stick with the Lips for a decade before they produced a US gold record (The Soft Bulletin went Gold in the UK)? The Flaming Lips go in so many directions, that I feel like at some point Warner Bros. knew that one of those directions was going to have mass appeal.
So today we're watching the video for probably the most widely appealing Flaming Lips song ever released: "Do You Realize??" (2002), directed by Mark Pellington.
The video features only one member of the Flaming Lips - Wayne Coyne - and presents him as the sort of canonical version of Coyne from the Yoshimi era: white suit, white guitar, and lots of smiling. He is in Las Vegas, and the video moves between him in various Vegas locations, and some other elements, including some close ups of faces in bright white light. A group of dancing girls is also featured (tastefully dressed in white), as well as an elephant, and (of course) the ever-present people in bunny costumes.
I think there are some really successful elements here and some not so successful elements. The image of the elephant lying down during the song's emotional high point (the famous "everyone you know some day will die" lyric) is a really beautiful, powerful, and strange image. It's an image that manages to somehow add something to the song. Conversely, I think having an old man's weathered face lit by bright light looking at you feels like too normal to be in a Flaming Lips music video. It feels like something we've seen before, when the Flaming Lips should be things you wouldn't expect.
The dancers do their job during the slow walk, but really shine during their solo shots. The bunnies mostly just stare at us. For a split second there is someone in a frog costume. I wouldn't mind seeing more of the frog and what he's doing there.
The real success of this video, though, is matching the song in terms of its balance of what makes the Flaming Lips unique and what makes "Do You Realize??" a great, accessible song. At its core, this video is also a piece that highlights Wayne Coyne as sort of charismatic leader in a white suit, an image that is a huge part of the Flaming Lips appeal. Pellington manages to hit all the right notes and communicate that in one video.
The Flaming Lips material released in the last few years is very different than something like "Do You Realize??", but as a result of the mainstream exposure they gained a new legion of fans who are willing to follow them down the rabbit hole. Videos like "Do You Realize??" played a big part in spreading the Flaming Lips around.
