All Star
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Once upon a time,a long long time ago (actually less than 10 years
ago, but who's counting?), a California pop-rock band released a
song that would change the world. Well, maybe it didn't change the
world …but for a while, this song dominated it musically. There wasn't a single person on Earth who haven't heard it, and the majority of the cool, young population had it memorized word for word. Or maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, whatever. That song was called… All Star. |
information
Written by: Greg
Camp.
Performed by: Smash
Mouth.
Album: Astro
Lounge.
Released on: May,
1999.
Background and the band
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Back on 1994, a white rap singer named Steve Harwell wanted to
start a rock band. He joined guitarist Greg Camp and bassist Paul
De Lisle and formed a band named Smash Mouth. They failed in becoming a rock band though, playing ska-punk, but their failure becaome a major success. In 1997 the band released their first album, Fush Yu Mang, which spawned an instant hit called Walkin' on the Sun, and the band became famous. The time was right to make it big. |
"Hey now, you're a rock star"
Smash Mouth followed Fush Yu Mang with an album called Astro Lounge. Abandoning all ska-punk influences, they decided instead to focus on the more popular retro-pop. Fans were upset, but a lot of new people discovered the band, which rose to a new level of popularity. While the album contained several small-time hits, including Then the Morning Comes and Waste, there was only one song that really got the public's attention. It was called All Star. Interestingly enough, Harwell's first insticts about the song were not to release it, but instead to sell it to advertisers. He immidiately recognized the potential value in this catchy song! Luckily, the song was released as a single in May, and success followed.
The song itself
All Star is only 3:21 minutes long. The verses are sung in Harwell's distinct white-rap style, while the chorus introduces a very smooth, poppish tune. The lyrics of the song paint a picture of a optimism against a pessimistic world ("It's a cool place and they say it gets colder"). The line "all that glitters is gold" was stolen from the Led Zeppelin legendary song Stairway to Heaven, and it indicates a naive positive view of the world. In a sense, the song calls for listeners to break norms and follow their dreams, stating that "only shooting stars break of mold".
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The song also featured a popular music video. Containing cameos from Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller and Dane Cook, it begins with a superhero audition, and progresses to the band walking and driving around the colourful streets, encountering interesting situations such as having their limo attacked and saving a school bus full of cheerleaders. The video was created to promote the Ben Stiller movie Mystery Men, which contained All Star as its theme song. |
Impact on pop culture
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After the song's release, it became huge instantly. It was featured in numerous movies, including Digimon- The Movie, Inspector Gadget, Mystery Men, and of course the notorious Shrek. Smash Mouth themselves appeared at the end of the movie Rat Race (which was an all-star movie itself) to sing this song. For a while, it looked like you just couldn't get away from this song, but everybody seemed happy to sing along. Smash Mouth was raised to a level of popularity they never seemed to achieve again, and their next few albums and singles were not quite as successful (save for a cover of I'm a Believer, originally by the Monkees). The song helped propell both white-rap and retro pop into the mainstream. To this day, it remains highly popular, being recently features in the game "Guitar Hero: On Tour". |
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