All Star (song)

Infobox Single
Name = All Star


Artist = Smash Mouth
from Album = Astro Lounge
Released = July 19, 1999
Format = CD single
Recorded = 1999
Genre = Rapcore Ska punk Alternative rock
Length = 3:21
Label = Interscope
Producer = Eric Valentine
Last single = "Why Can't We Be Friends"
(1997)
This single = "All Star"
(1999)
Next single = "Then the Morning Comes"
(1999)

:"For the record label, see All Star Records"All Star" is a single by Smash Mouth. It was featured on their album "Astro Lounge" and is one of the group's most successful songs. The music video for the song featured cameos from Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, Kel Mitchell and, relatively unknown at the time, Dane Cook. The video was produced to promote the film "Mystery Men" and was directed by Joseph McGinty Nichol.

Lead singer Steven Harwell has said that his first instinct after recording the song was not to release it as a single but to sell it to advertisers.

Soon after its release the song became quite ubiquitous in pop culture. In addition to "Mystery Men," it was included in the opening credits to the film "Shrek" (where it was originally scratch music), and Smash Mouth performing the song closes out the film "Rat Race". In Canada it was featured in the album "Big Shiny Tunes 4." The song was also featured in the soundtrack to "" and is the last song played before the movie ends.

The song reached number 2 on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks and number 4 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.

Personnel

*Steven Harwell - Lead vocals
*Greg Camp - Guitar, additional keyboards, main songwriting, backing vocals from Europe
*Paul De Lisle - Bass, backing vocals
*Kevin Coleman - Drums
*Jacquire King - Remixing, Mixing, Recording, Pro-Tools
*Eric Valentine - Producer, Engineer, Mixer"'

Lyrical references

*The line "with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an 'L' on her forehead" refers to the popular mocking hand gesture "Loser".

*The line "all that glitters is gold" is probably a parody of the proverb, "All that glitters is not gold." It may also be a parody of the line from the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven".

*Given that it accompanies other metaphorical references to weather, and is followed by a line saying "It's a cool place and they say it gets colder" and then the next one referring to a "hole in the satellite picture" (probably a reference to the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica), also, the following line is a reference to global warming, and the term "meteor man" in the line "but the meteor men beg to differ" most likely refers to television meteorologists. It may or may not also be a pun referring back to the line "only shooting stars break the mold", since a meteor is also referred to as a "shooting star". The line "the ice we skate is getting pretty thin," and the following line "the water's getting warm so you might as well swim" may or may not be references to global warming as well.

In other media

* God Lives Underwater did a popular remix of the song on Smash Mouth's CD single I'm a Believer.
* In the TV show "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends", episode "One False Movie", the song Wilt sings in Bloo's movie sounds very similar to "All Star".
* In the TV show "Tom Goes to the Mayor", episode "Vehicular Manslaughter", The Mayor (Eric Wareheim) and Michael Ian Black are singing a song similar to "All Star" in the scene where they are standing up in Black's LeBaron following Tom (Tim Heidecker), in front of him, to where Tom wants to lay the pipes for his Energy Plan.
* It was featured in the movies "Shrek", "", "Mystery Men", "Inspector Gadget", and "Rat Race", Smash Mouth appears in the final scene and performs "All Star" as the credits roll.
* The song was also performed live at the 1999 MLB All Star Game.
* The song is featured in the music video games for the Nintendo DS and the North American release of "Donkey Konga 2" for the Nintendo GameCube. British gaming magazines NGamer and the Official Nintendo Magazine questioned the song's inclusion in the former, with the former adding "One remembers the period between 1999 and 2001 when all films were required by law to include the song in their soundtrack. As long as that film is Mystery Men, Rat Race or Shrek."
* On July 11, 2006, "All Star" was the wake-up song on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Chart positions

ample clip

Notes and references