In 1992, The Flaming Lips released their major label debut Hit to Death in the Future Head after the recording of which Donahue left The Flaming Lips to concentrate on Mercury Rev. Roberts left The Flaming Lips as well, citing creative differences. They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd respectively.

In 1993, The Flaming Lips released Transmissions from the Satellite Heart. The success of this record led to long stints of touring, opening for bands including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Candlebox.

Clouds Taste Metallic was released to much critical fanfare in late 1995, though it did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The strain of the year-long Clouds tour added to the stress from the three years touring in support of Transmissions was a major factor in the departure of Ronald Jones in late 1996. He was said to be suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, although a documentary states that he left due to growing paranoia.

The departure of Jones and a general dissatisfaction with standard "rock" music led to the three remaining members of the group to redefine the direction of The Flaming Lips with the experimental Zaireeka (1997), a four-CD album which is intended to be heard by playing all four CDs in four separate CD players simultaneously. The music incorporated both traditional musical elements and "found" sounds (as in musique concrete), often heavily manipulated with recording studio electronics.

As part of the development of this project, The Flaming Lips conducted a series of "parking lot experiments" and then later, "boombox experiments". In the parking lot experiments up to 40 volunteers were given cassettes created by The Flaming Lips to be played at a parking lot in their cars' stereo systems simultaneously. In the "boom box experiments" an orchestra comprised of up to 40 volunteers with modified "boombox"-type tape players was "conducted" - directed to vary the volume, speed or tone of the tape they were playing (again composed by The Flaming Lips) - Wayne Coyne.

In the meantime, a series of strange incidents (recounted in the 1999 song "The Spiderbite Song") beset the band. Drozd's arm was almost amputated needlessly due to what he claimed was a spider bite (it turned out to be abscessed as a result of Drozd's heroin use), Ivins was trapped in his car for several hours after the wheel spun off of another vehicle into his windshield, and Coyne's father died after a long battle with cancer.

Though their experimental endeavors received some press, their real breakthrough came with the massively acclaimed 1999 release, The Soft Bulletin. Marrying more traditional catchy melodies with languid synthetic strings, hypnotic, carefully manipulated beats, booming cymbals and oddball but philosophical lyrics, the album quickly became one of the underground hits of the year, even widely considered to be one of the best albums of the entire decade.

Compared by many to The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds due to the addition of harmonies and orchestrated sounds, it also featured greater use of synthesizers, drum machines, sound effects and more studio manipulation. Realizing that an attempt to recreate this complex album live solely with additional musicians would be prohibitively complex and expensive, The Flaming Lips decided to tour as a three-piece and make extensive use of pre-recorded music to fill out the parts not being performed live by the members of The Flaming Lips. Perhaps most notably, this led to the decision to have Drozd play primarily keyboards and guitar live instead of the drums. This, in turn, led to a decision to utilize video recordings and projections of Steven playing the drums for some of their older, more "standard rock" songs.

In a further attempt to enhance the live experience for the audience and to more accurately reproduce the sound of The Soft Bulletin live, The Flaming Lips devised the concept of the "Headphone Concert." This concept was debuted in Dallas, Texas and at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas in March of 1999, and was subsequently used on the International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue tour.

Three years later, in the summer of 2002, The Flaming Lips joined bands Cake and Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine Tour. The Flaming Lips also released the full-length Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to much critical acclaim. Demonstrating more use of electronic instruments and computer manipulation than The Soft Bulletin, and considered much more accessible than any of their previous albums, Yoshimi is widely considered to be The Flaming Lips' first critical and commercial success after nearly twenty years of existing as a band. The final track on The Flaming Lips album, "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" earned a 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and "Yoshimi" was certified Gold on April 10th, 2006.

After Yoshimi, The Flaming Lips released two EPs in the same vein of their previous album's robotic theme and containing remixed songs from Yoshimi, Fight Test and Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell. The Flaming Lips also appeared on the track "Marching the Hate Machines (Into the Sun)" on the Thievery Corporation album The Cosmic Game. In addition to their EPs, The Flaming Lips have been working for several years on a feature film entitled Christmas on Mars. There will possibly be showings of it in the summer of 2006, with a predicted release date of Christmas 2006.

In 2002, The Flaming Lips performed as the opening act, as well as the backup band for singer Beck on his Sea Change tour. In the summer of 2004, it was announced that The Flaming Lips would appear among the headliners on the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, alongside such legendary artists as Sonic Youth and Morrissey; however, the tour was canceled due to lack of revenue. Following the concerts' cancellation, the band entered Tarbox Road Studio with producer Dave Fridmann and began work on their eleventh album, the more organic-sounding At War with the Mystics. Also in 2004, The Flaming Lips recorded the song "SpongeBob & Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" for the soundtrack to The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

In 2005 The Flaming Lips was the subject of a documentary called Fearless Freaks, featuring appearances by other artists and celebrities such as The White Stripes, Beck, Christina Ricci, Liz Phair and Juliette Lewis. In that same year, The Flaming Lips contributed a version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to the album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen. Also in this year, The Flaming Lips released the DVD VOID (Video Overview in Deceleration), which chronicles all of their ventures into Music Video that have been produced since they signed with Warner Bros. in 1991. In October 2005, The Flaming Lips recorded a cover of "If I Only Had a Brain" for the soundtrack of the video game Stubbs the Zombie, which features modern rock bands covering songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, The Flaming Lips released one new song, "Mr. Ambulance Driver", for the soundtrack of the 2005 film Wedding Crashers.

In October of 2005, The Flaming Lips performed a concert with several other acts, including Medeski Martin & Wood, Particle, and G Love & Special Sauce onboard a Carnival cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean in a music festival called Xingolati.

The digital single "The W.A.N.D (The Will Always Negates Defeat)" was released on January 10, 2006. It is the second single from At War with the Mystics, the first being "Mr. Ambulance Driver." "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)" was released in the UK on March 27, 2006.

Following the April 4, 2006 release of At War with the Mystics, The Flaming Lips began a tour to support the album in the United Kingdom, including a finale at the Royal Albert Hall and performances at the 02 Wireless Festival. At the Leeds England date of the festival, The Flaming Lips opened for The Who, whom they are long standing fans of. A tour of the US with Sonic Youth, Ween, and other artists followed. The Flaming Lips also played at the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival in Lawrence, Kansas in June 2006, the Hedgpeth festival in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, Chicago's Lollapalooza festival, Austin City Limits Music Festival in September 2006 and Voodoo Music Fest in New Orleans in late October. In November 2006, The Flaming Lips returned to the UK for a short tour.

The Flaming Lips will continue to tour throughout the fall stopping in Montreal, Atlantic City's House of Blues, The University of Vermont in Burlington, their hometown Oklahoma City, Austin, Texas, and New York City, NY as well as several other cities.

In the September 2006 issue of Spin magazine, The Flaming Lips was ranked #16 in the article "The 25 Greatest Live Bands Now."

An interview with Michael Ivins was also featured in the November 2006 issue of The Green Room.

On December 5, 2006, Oklahoma City honored The Flaming Lips with a downtown alley named after the band. Vince Gill and Charlie Christian were also given street names by the city.

The Flaming Lips will close out 2006 with a California run with Gnarls Barkley. On Dec 30th, The Flaming Lips will play the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Dec 31st finds The Flaming Lips in Los Angeles at the brand new Galen Center on the University of Southern California campus.

The New Year's Eve show 2006 was the greatestr show ever. Cat Power and the Dirty Delta Band opened for Gnarls Barkley and finally the Flamig Lips who kicked ass. The Flaming Lips decided to kick twice as much ass this year because on New Year's 05 it rained the show out and they felt bad. Both Cat Power and Gnarls Barkley came on to sing with Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips a cover of "What a Wonderful World".

The Flaming Lips Current Members
Wayne Coyne - lead vocals, guitars, piano (1983-)
Michael Ivins - bass guitar, piano, occasional backing vocals (1983-)
Steven Drozd - drums, guitars, bass guitar, keyboards/synthesizers, backing vocals, most other instruments (1991-)
Kliph Scurlock - drums (2002-)

The Flaming Lips Former Members
Mark Coyne - vocals (1983-1985)
Dave Kostka - drums (1983-1984)
Richard English - drums, vocals, piano (1984-1988)
Jonathan Donahue - guitars (1988-1991)
Nathan Roberts - drums (1988-1991)
John Mooneyham - guitars (one month in 1991)
Ronald Jones - guitars (1991-1996)

The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Race For the Prize (Remix)
A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
The Spark That Bled (The Softest Bullet Ever Shot)
The Spiderbite Song
Buggin' (Remix)
What Is The Light? (An Untested Hypothesis Suggesting That the Chemical (In Our Brains) by Which We Are Able to Experience the Sensation of Being in Love Is the Same Chemical That Caused the "Big Bang" That Was the Birth of the Accelerating Universe)
The Observer
Waitin' For A Superman (Is It Gettin' Heavy?)
Suddenly Everything Has Changed (Death Anxiety Caused by Moments of Boredom)
The Gash (Battle Hymn for the Wounded Mathematician)
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
Sleeping On the Roof (Excerpt From "Should We Keep the Severed Head Awake?")
Race For the Prize (Sacrifice of the New Scientists)
Waitin' For A Superman (Remix)

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
Fight Test
One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt. 1
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Pt. 2
In The Morning Of The Magicians
Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell
Are You A Hypnotist??
It's Summertime (Throbbing Orange Pallbearers)
Do You Realize??
All We Have Is Now
Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon

At War With the Mystics (2006)
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)
Free Radicals (A Hallucination of the Christmas Skeleton Pleading with a Suicide Bomber)
The Sound Of Failure
It's Dark... Is It Always This Dark?
My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life as a Blazing Shield of Defiance and Optimism as a Celestial Spear of Action)
Vein of Stars
The Wizard Turns On... His Giant Silver Flashlight and Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins
It Overtakes Me
The Stars Are So Big... I Am So Small... Do I Stand a Chance?
Mr. Ambulance Driver
Haven't Got a Clue
The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat)
Pompeii am Götterdämmerung
Goin' On