Smash Mouth is not a one-hit Shrek-coattail-riding wonder
June 17, 2016 11:13 AM   Subscribe

The first rule of calling Smash Mouth a one-hit Shrek-coattail-riding wonder is do not call Smash Mouth a one-hit Shrek-coattail-riding wonder. The second rule of calling Smash Mouth a one-hit Shrek-coattail-riding wonderis do not call Smash Mouth a one-hit Shrek-coattail-riding wonder.
posted by Etrigan (191 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
What? No! They're a two hit Mystery Men coattail riding wonder.

I do not recognize "I'm a Believer" as a genuine hit.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:15 AM on June 17, 2016 [28 favorites]


Wait a minute, I thought they were a three-hit Target commercial coattail riding wonder?
posted by murphy slaw at 11:17 AM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I never realized what a musical hit maker Guy Fieri is.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:20 AM on June 17, 2016 [22 favorites]


Wait a minute, Smash Mouth has fan(s)? And there's still a Smash Mouth to have fan(s)?

Everything I've ever believed in is a lie.
posted by tommasz at 11:22 AM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Goddamn I love Mystery Men.
posted by Fantods at 11:22 AM on June 17, 2016 [32 favorites]


Hey, wait a minute... none of the tools in this shed are sharp!
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:23 AM on June 17, 2016 [38 favorites]


SomeBODY once told me Smashmouth was gonna troll me, I ain't the sharpest Twitter-er.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:23 AM on June 17, 2016 [25 favorites]


Wait a minute, Smash Mouth has fan(s)? And there's still a Smash Mouth to have fan(s)?

it was the 90s, man
you kinda had to be there
posted by murphy slaw at 11:24 AM on June 17, 2016 [27 favorites]


Smash Mouth is a one hit green animation theme in the grocery while deciding on which generic salsa wonder?
posted by sammyo at 11:24 AM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


(green salsa)
posted by sammyo at 11:24 AM on June 17, 2016


i mean, i seen things
posted by murphy slaw at 11:25 AM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


waves of smash mouth fans breaking against a wall of swing revival fans, blood everywhere
posted by murphy slaw at 11:26 AM on June 17, 2016 [33 favorites]


This very morning my daughters asked me if I wanted to take her to Santa Cruz to see the free Smashmouth concert on the beach.

"No," I said.

"No."

But if you are in Santa Cruz this August 19th, have some fun.
posted by GuyZero at 11:29 AM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


Does anything good come from naming a band after a football term? "Smashmouth" "Nickleback" "Hoobastank"

Please prove me wrong, Mefites.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:29 AM on June 17, 2016 [10 favorites]


Warning the wife, no Santa Cruz on August 19th. Thanks, GuyZero.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:30 AM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


it was the 90s, man
you kinda had to be there


If you remember the nineties, you probably were there, I guess. Whatever.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:31 AM on June 17, 2016 [13 favorites]


In eighth grade, I was the temperamental star of the world's worst middle school quiz bowl team. The sole highlight on a team with a person who thought that "all roads lead to Rome" was a reference to Pangaea, I was also known to angrily demand replay review of my answers when I thought I'd been misunderstood. I was a nightmare.

Anyway, we loaded up the van one week to go to a competition that I'm 100% sure we lost, and this one weird kid just yells at the top of his lungs "IF THE NEXT SONG THEY PLAY ISN'T 'WALKIN' ON THE SUN' I'M GONNA KILL SOMEBODY" then the van fires up and low and behold there's "Walkin' on the Sun." We stopped for breakfast or something, got back in the van, and he does the same thing, and the fucking song plays AGAIN. I think he was a witch or something. The only other explanation is that they played that song way too much.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:32 AM on June 17, 2016 [56 favorites]


Does anything good come from naming a band after a football term? "Smashmouth" "Nickleback" "Hoobastank"
Please prove me wrong, Mefites.

I can't, but apparently the name "Punt" is available if you and a couple of friends want to try to be the exception that proves the rule.
posted by murphy slaw at 11:33 AM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Does anything good come from naming a band after a football term? "Smashmouth" "Nickleback" "Hoobastank"
Please prove me wrong, Mefites.

I like American Football, and I think that sorta counts.

Also, this conversation wouldn't be complete without a link to Mouth Sounds. (I skipped the intro, but if you wanna go back to listen to it, have at it.)
posted by defenestration at 11:37 AM on June 17, 2016 [8 favorites]


cf. Mouth Sounds, Mouth Silence
posted by cortex at 11:37 AM on June 17, 2016 [12 favorites]


welp i can never listen to modest mouse again, thanks
posted by murphy slaw at 11:39 AM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


earworm:
Some, some, some, some ♫
some some some
some some some
Hey now
Hey-ey now ♫
(thanks for nothing Cortex)
posted by anthill at 11:39 AM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]




I think technically they were a two-hit wonder ("Walkin' On the Sun" from their debut record and "All Star" from their sophomore release/Shrek), but the albums so little resemble each other that they might as well be two, one-hit wonders.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:43 AM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have a friend who worked for some Silicon Valley (the place in California) company and they had a company-wide function headlined by Smashmouth for some reason. She said it was exactly like the opening of the first episode of Silicon Valley (the HBO show) when Kid Rock is trying to hype up the crowd but the nerds are having none of it. So during the show she started feeling bad for Smashmouth so she went up to the stage and started dancing. The lead singer, obviously not aware that irony is a thing, took this to mean "hot chick is totally into Smashmouth and oh man I'm gonna score after the gig" so he started pouring tequila directly into her mouth, which she was not expecting. She spit it out, called him a dick, and walked away.

I still don't feel bad for Smashmouth.

(edited to add: this was like last year, not 1998)

Were they also the guys at the end of Rat Race or was that some other 90s band? It's just not worth the effort to google it.
posted by bondcliff at 11:44 AM on June 17, 2016 [57 favorites]


So, I have actually seen Smash Mouth in concert; they played with Third Eye Blind (yes, I am old). I have to say, they put on a really really good show - high energy, lots of fun, very danceable. They did better than Third Eye Blind that night, whose lead singer had just gotten a tongue piercing.
posted by joycehealy at 11:46 AM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


The folks in the comments who just learned that Guy Fieri isn't actually in Smashmouth are the best part.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 11:48 AM on June 17, 2016 [20 favorites]


I feel like All Star is one of those songs that when people say "I don't like this", what they mean is "I really wish I didn't like this."
posted by jacquilynne at 11:52 AM on June 17, 2016 [30 favorites]


Anyway, yeah, I have to side with Smashmouth here, because "Walkin' on the Sun" was like all over the place everywhere you went in 1997, whether you wanted it to be or not. Yeah, I'm that old.
posted by blucevalo at 11:53 AM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


No love for "Rat Race"? Another late-90s movie that ended with everyone dancing to Smashmouth.
posted by Hatashran at 11:55 AM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


I feel like All Star is one of those songs that when people say "I don't like this", what they mean is "I really wish I didn't like this."

I think it was around the dozenth time I had listened to Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" when I finally grokked that it's called "liking something ironically" not because you're ironically pretending to like it, but because it's ironic that you like it.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:56 AM on June 17, 2016 [8 favorites]


I feel like All Star is one of those songs that when people say "I don't like this", what they mean is "I really wish I didn't like this."

Nice try, Smashmouth
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:56 AM on June 17, 2016 [61 favorites]


"...the van fires up and low and behold there's 'Walkin' on the Sun.'"

That right there is what is technically known as an appropriate malapropism.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:58 AM on June 17, 2016 [9 favorites]


By the time the 90's rolled around, I was in my 30's and pretty much fastidiously avoiding all the stuff people are referring to when they talk about "the 90's". So it was an okay decade for me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:59 AM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


I don't know why we aren't talking about the other big indie breakout hit from that soundtrack, though; Shrek deserves a ton of credit for introducing the world to Hallelujah.
posted by cortex at 11:59 AM on June 17, 2016 [10 favorites]


Surprising timing between this post and this Up and Out comic.
posted by komara at 12:00 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


"All Star" is a great fucking song, and you can eat a pastry bag of donkey sauce if you disagree.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:01 PM on June 17, 2016 [9 favorites]


Shepherd and I's long-running gag is that our chubby cat pretty much just hears that song on repeat forever in her head. She's adorable but that not bright.
posted by Kitteh at 12:02 PM on June 17, 2016 [8 favorites]


Shrek deserves a ton of credit for introducing the world to Hallelujah.

Can't tell if joking... sigh.
posted by daq at 12:03 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


Smashmouth, Blues Traveler, and what's that other one? Oh yeah - Barenaked Ladies. I sorta lump them all together as the sorta music that became really popular in the 90s with people who didn't really, you know, listen to music that much.
posted by Mooski at 12:05 PM on June 17, 2016 [12 favorites]


Also I was about to post that I hallucinated Smash Mouth once while walking-in-space baked on edibles, but upon reflection, it was actually Third Eye Blind.

Who are also an underrated 90s band.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:05 PM on June 17, 2016


my dad LOVES blues traveler and barenaked ladies (god, their christmas album is so bad. so so bad) but i am very thankful that he never really enjoyed smashmouth. he has some standards, at least
posted by burgerrr at 12:08 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


oh jeez and how could i forget hootie & the blowfish
posted by burgerrr at 12:08 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Barenaked Ladies are triple-platinum, are you?
posted by RobotHero at 12:12 PM on June 17, 2016 [20 favorites]


IIRC, the lead singer of Smashmouth lost a child to some rare disease and do lots of charity events for it.
posted by jonmc at 12:13 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Smashmouth, Blues Traveler, and what's that other one? Oh yeah - Barenaked Ladies. I sorta lump them all together as the sorta music that became really popular in the 90s with people who didn't really, you know, listen to music that much.

You mean like the sort of person who would lump Blues Traveler in with Smashmouth?
posted by bondcliff at 12:13 PM on June 17, 2016 [31 favorites]


I like "All Star." It's a pretty sincere, unironic like. I don't love it, and I understand the lulzy hate for it, and I freely use "smashmouthy" as an adjective to describe that kitschy bro-y late-90s bowling-shirt-with-flames aesthetic. But I totally sing along to it in the car.

Barenaked Ladies, though, are one of the few bands I'm embarrassed to have liked in high school.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:14 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Back when I was working in a factory in Tennessee in the late 1990s we were stuck in the main production area with nothing but a tape deck and like 8 cassettes most of which were some pretty redneck rock. One day someone brought in a Blue Öyster Cult best-of tape and we started in on it.

One of my co-workers was like, "Y'know, a few years back I was in Knoxville in this bar on a week night, and they had a back room and there was a band in there playing. Hardly anyone in the bar, basically no one near the stage. After a while I realized that everything that was coming from the back room was a Blue Öyster Cult song and I thought, "These guys are probably the best Blue Öyster Cult cover band out there" and so I wandered into the back room to check 'em out.
...
turns out it was just the actual band Blue Öyster Cult."

I guess I think of this story when I think of Smash Mouth because no one will ever attempt to form the best Smash Mouth cover band because that title is currently held by Smash Mouth themselves and no one would dare - or wish - to try to take it from them.
posted by komara at 12:14 PM on June 17, 2016 [28 favorites]


Fuck you Hootie.
posted by teleri025 at 12:14 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I liked Gordon-era Barenaked Ladies because their live show was fun and goofy, but their albums grew increasingly unlistenable as time went on.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:15 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Metafilter: Your least favorite band is awesome.
posted by Huck500 at 12:17 PM on June 17, 2016 [15 favorites]


Any love for Chumbawumba or the Spice Girls?
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:18 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


My favorite was always Chumba Spice.
posted by komara at 12:18 PM on June 17, 2016 [22 favorites]


Fuck you Hootie.

Is that the punchline to an elaborate joke about a guy who spends years planning revenge for that time Hootie insulted him on TV?
posted by bondcliff at 12:19 PM on June 17, 2016 [12 favorites]


Barenaked Ladies, though, are one of the few bands I'm embarrassed to have liked in high school.

It only took them a few years to go from "Straw Hat And Old Dirty Hank" to singing about being attracted to Sailor Moon characters, so I think that's entirely on them and not you.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:20 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


I don't get the hate for BNL. They're a decent band with fun lyrics. Yeah, they got a little over-played there for a while with If I Had a Million Dollars and that other one about being like wasabi when busting rhymes, but they're pretty harmless for the most part.

Unlike Smashmouth. Man, fuck those guys.
posted by bondcliff at 12:23 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


I stood in the pouring fucking rain in 1998 to see Barenaked Ladies. I even stood through a set by Sister Hazel.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:25 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


For some reason my college's student government decided to pay Smash Mouth to headline a campus concert.

I haven't found it in my heart to forgive them yet.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:27 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ohhh man, so there's a song on one of the later Barenaked Ladies albums that's about the guy fooling around with his high school girlfriend in a car, and it goes into embarrassing unpoetic detail about how, like, he went down on her but they were too inexperienced to actually go all the way. It's a terrible song by any measure, and I think that was the beginning of my horrified realization that they were perhaps not such a good band after all.

That song has a verse about how maybe that old girlfriend will hear the song when she's driving in her car and realize it's about her. I hope not. Poor Barenaked Ladies' ex-girlfriend.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:28 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


Ah Smashmouth, the band that spawned a million memes, notably.
posted by arcolz at 12:28 PM on June 17, 2016


Fish Yu Mang was not a bad album - and I would mention Ms Morisette but don't want to go through THAT AGAIN.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 12:28 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


So, I have actually seen Smash Mouth in concert; they played with Third Eye Blind (yes, I am old). I have to say, they put on a really really good show - high energy, lots of fun, very danceable. They did better than Third Eye Blind that night, whose lead singer had just gotten a tongue piercing.

As little sense as it makes, I saw Smashmouth (and Reel Big Fish!) open for Blur (who I guess were riding high on Song 2 at the time). However, they did not do better than Blur that night.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:28 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Did he ever eat the eggs?
posted by asockpuppet at 12:29 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


turns out it was just the actual band Blue Öyster Cult."

Funny you bring them up because BOC are also playing at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk (apparently).
posted by atoxyl at 12:31 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


You might think it's sad that a former multi hit songwriter whose thumb was on the zeitgeist of non-threatening vaguely affirmative power pop now has nothing better to do than haunt twitter trying to shame tweens that their musical knowledge is inomplete.

However, when you look at the history of flashes in the pan, we should probably be glad that there isn't a member of Smashmouth in jail for trying to sell fake crack to a dog, or something.

Or, you can be glad. Personally, I think the line between aggressively mediocre song writer and twitter troll has always been permeable in the extreme, so I guess I'll just mutter with grim satisfaction.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:32 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


"turns out it was just the actual band Blue Öyster Cult."

It makes sense, because at their best Blue Öyster Cult sounds like a really talented bar band.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:34 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]



As little sense as it makes, I saw Smashmouth (and Reel Big Fish!) open for Blur (who I guess were riding high on Song 2 at the time). However, they did not do better than Blur that night.


That's because Blur was a genuinely great band that happened to get pigeon-holed by a throw-away song that isn't really particularly representative of their style.
posted by explosion at 12:34 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Any love for Chumbawumba or the Spice Girls?

Yes very much so! I enjoy the music of both of these fine artistic groups and spent a great deal of time defending Chumbawamba's non-Tubthumping output. I still sing Spice Girls songs at karaoke when I feel like performing with friends and not alone.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:36 PM on June 17, 2016 [14 favorites]


turns out it was just the actual band Blue Öyster Cult

Was there enough cowbell?
posted by briank at 12:37 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


"turns out it was just the actual band Blue Öyster Cult."

He may have been lucky enough to see one of the semi-legendary Soft White Underbelly shows. That was the name BOC would use when they felt like playing a bar show. (It was also the name they started with).
posted by lumpenprole at 12:38 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


That's because Blur was a genuinely great band that happened to get pigeon-holed by a throw-away song that isn't really particularly representative of their style.

Well, yeah, that was kind of the point. I mean, I was kind of a dumbass 18 year old, but I wasn't enough of a dumbass 18 year old that I'd drive an hour and a half and pay $25 for Smashmouth and Reel Big Fish.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:39 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


kitschy bro-y late-90s bowling-shirt-with-flames aesthetic

oh man, i just had a flashback to 90s men's footwear styles and now i have to sit down.
posted by murphy slaw at 12:40 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


"I liked Gordon-era Barenaked Ladies because their live show was fun and goofy, but their albums grew increasingly unlistenable as time went on."

Gordon was good. My (at the time) spouse grew up in Toronto and was heavily involved in the music scene there, she dated one of the Moxy members and knew all of them very well (we don't need to talk about Jian, I hated that guy and feel vindication now, but it's weird for me to talk about publicly) and someone sent us Gordon the week it came out. Half of the bands in TO sang at the end of IIHAMD.

Anyway, BNL wasn't really the sort of music I liked, but I ended up listening to that (the original Sire release) album a lot. I think they'd won that contest at the alternative station and that led to the making of that album, but I don't think that right at first they had any hits yet, and this was, IIRC, a couple of years before they had anything released in the US. (When they got popular was years and years later.) But I remember telling my spouse one evening that I was very impressed with the technical musicianship by the band, as well as their overall appeal. I predicted they'd be successful, about which I still feel a bit smug. I still think that "What a Good Boy", "Box Set", and "The Flag" are all fine songs.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:41 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


spent a great deal of time defending Chumbawamba's non-Tubthumping output

Yes, Tubthumping was a bit of an outlier for them. Most of their music is lefty/labor protest/anarchy stuff.
posted by briank at 12:41 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


Any love for Chumbawumba or the Spice Girls?

I particularly like Chumbawamba's occasional foray into a capella. (No, I'm not kidding.) English Rebel Songs 1381-1984 is solid, as is New York Mining Disaster 1941 (a BeeGees cover from the WYSIWYG album.)
posted by zamboni at 12:41 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


How has nobody posted the infamous Smash Mouth bread-pelt meltdown yet?

(And if you've never seen that video you owe it to yourself to watch, if only for the moment when Fake Guy Fieri's own band turns on him)
posted by Itaxpica at 12:43 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


I do this thing with my toddler where I sing the chorus of Tubthumping, tipping him backward at "I get knocked down!" and righting him at "but I get up again!" He loves this. One day, years from now, he'll learn that it's not a nursery rhyme and be surprised/embarrassed/miffed, and I will laugh my head off.
posted by Metroid Baby at 12:43 PM on June 17, 2016 [51 favorites]


It makes sense, because at their best Blue Öyster Cult sounds like a really talented bar band.

I saw Blue Öyster Cult play the Naperville Rib Fest in like 2005, and people were going nuts for them. There were signs, and dudes with inflatable Godzillas, and people enthusiastically singing along with songs you'll never hear on classic rock radio. It was quite something. Their warm up act was two people who closed their set by playing "Tequila" only they shouted "Naperville!" at the appropriate time. My Metra ride home featured a woman who let out a blood curdling scream and began to cry when a cop pulled her beer bottle out of her hands. It was a perfect experience.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:45 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Easily the most bizarre thing about going to Epcot a few years ago was realizing the song playing far too loudly was by Smashmouth and was actually being played live by them about 100 yards away. Then I realized I had actually seen them play live (paid even) - although at least it was because they were opening for Blur, which was just a crazy combination. Clearly the 90's had issues.
posted by combinatorial explosion at 12:53 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


I believe there's an article of our Constitution that allows Canadians to still like Barenaked Ladies unironically, even though the rest of the world has moved on, provided we have ever heard a copy of the Yellow Tape. It replaced the clause that allowed us to unironically like Summer of 69, even after everyone realized that Bryan Adams was Bryan Adams.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:54 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


I am filled with disdain for people going to see forty-year-old bands on nostalgia tours, but I would totally go to a Blue Öyster Cult show. C'mon, this is the band that wrote "Joan Crawford".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:55 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


I stood in the pouring fucking rain in 1998 to see Barenaked Ladies. I even stood through a set by Sister Hazel.

Look, Sister Hazel won't be anyone's excuse to cry.
posted by maryr at 12:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


My Smashmouth-viewing Silicon Valley friend would like to add that he also called her "bunny rabbit."
posted by bondcliff at 12:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [10 favorites]


As an aside, you know what movie had the best soundtrack? 10 Things I Hate About You.
posted by maryr at 12:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [12 favorites]


I see your 10 Things I Hate About You and raise you the Clueless soundtrack. It is so good.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 1:05 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


It's a little earlier in the decade, but throw in Reality Bites and we have a whole CD changer of goodness.
posted by maryr at 1:06 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Would also accept Empire Records, which is in my car right now, except that the "Say No More, Mon Amour" song is not actually on the soundtrack. And "Sugar High" doesn't have Renée Zellweger. :( :( :(
posted by maryr at 1:07 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


the "Say No More, Mon Amour" song is actually on the soundtrack.

AHAHAHA that is amazing!

posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 1:09 PM on June 17, 2016


Typo - it is NOT on the soundtrack. Edited to correct. Woooooooooooooooe.
posted by maryr at 1:12 PM on June 17, 2016


For a while in high school when I was That Weird Girl Who Likes Monkeys, people would play me the Barenaked Ladies song, "Another Postcard With Chimpanzees" and think I'd think it was really witty, but mostly I got irritated because they sing about monkeys and of course chimpanzees are apes. Now that I'm professionally That Weird Girl Who Likes Monkeys, people generally assume I'm up on my primate songs, and I don't have to listen to it very much anymore.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:14 PM on June 17, 2016 [36 favorites]


Sometimes I wonder whether something I post to MetaFilter will bring anyone any joy, and then someone writes "people generally assume I'm up on my primate songs", and I realize that it has brought me joy, and that is all that matters.
posted by Etrigan at 1:19 PM on June 17, 2016 [32 favorites]


Likewise <3
posted by ChuraChura at 1:19 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


As someone who has been indelibly inked with at least one lyric from a '90s band that is likely (albeit criminally) lumped in with Smashmouth, et al, in the eyes of the hivemind: This thread is my soul. Please keep the alt-rock radio anecdotes coming.

1998 is dead, long live 1998!
posted by amnesia and magnets at 1:23 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


oh jeez and how could i forget hootie & the blowfish

I spent the best part of 15 years systematically hunting down every traitorous brain cell to hold this knowledge, and then YOU COME ALONG AND TYPE THIS!?!?!?

You are dead to me.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:27 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


I like the re-mix version of their classic hit, where the refrain goes "If you throw one more piece of trash on the stage/I'm gonna beat your ass"...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 1:29 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Blues Traveler guy also searches his band's name on twitter obsessively, and gets into arguments with everyone and never backs down. Beware. He got in a tiff with me after I made some throwaway joke, and my followers jumped in to mock him and it was a mess.

This thread also reminded of a music journalist recounting his strangest karaoke experience:
True story: Just after I’d moved to Los Angeles a decade or so ago, I met some friends for drinks at Barney’s Beanery, a giant, noisy West Hollywood bro-bar that smells like how they describe Valerie Cherish’s trailer on the new season of The Comeback. It was karaoke night, which it somehow almost always is there, and sometime around midnight we all heard the opening chords to “Lightning Crashes.” “Oh, dear God,” I said. “Who would do this?” And seriously: Who wants to sing a song about death in childbirth underneath a TV with SportsCenter on it? Who gets drunk and sings the word placenta? I turned toward the stage and felt a twinge of recognition, and when he began singing, it hit me: The person who would unleash Live’s “Lightning Crashes” on a karaoke night crowd was Live’s own Ed Kowalczyk. I walked toward the stage in disbelief, as did about half the crowd. And as he sang, we all scanned each other’s faces for cues so we’d know how to react: Like, is this the coolest thing we have ever experienced, or is it unspeakably sad? You guys, I still have no idea.
posted by naju at 1:29 PM on June 17, 2016 [66 favorites]


It makes sense, because at their best Blue Öyster Cult sounds like a really talented bar band Dr. Strange incantation.

There, fixed that for Agamotto .
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:29 PM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


I still unironically love Barenaked Ladies. I've seen them numerous times, and still have at least 3 of their albums on my phone. Lumping them in with SmashMouth because they were both overexposed at one point or another during a decade is like lumping together Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass with Jefferson Airplane.
posted by nevercalm at 1:36 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Red Hot Chili Peppers

::drops mic::
posted by Splunge at 1:40 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


I usually hate trolls. But I am so tempted to tweet at Smash Mouth with video I have of a middle school band playing "Accidentally in Love," and say "OMG YOU GUYS!! I LOVE THIS SONG THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT!!"
posted by gnomeloaf at 1:42 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Into the Smash Mouth of Madness
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:44 PM on June 17, 2016 [14 favorites]


gnomeloaf, Shrek is an ogre, not a troll.
posted by maryr at 1:49 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


I generally find Smashmouth songs pretty forgettable and unobjectionable. But "The Way" was really excellent because it happened to come out just before my retired parents went on an epic road trip across Canada.
posted by joannemerriam at 1:53 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


That was Fastball, dude
posted by jonmc at 1:56 PM on June 17, 2016 [22 favorites]


They're no Sugar Ray.
posted by snofoam at 1:59 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


joannemerriam, how could you have ever been so blind? Were you waiting for an indication? It'll be hard to find.

Too B-side?
posted by maryr at 2:02 PM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


But "The Way" was really excellent because it happened to come out just before my retired parents went on an epic road trip across Canada.

Apart from that being the wrong band, you do know that the real-life couple who inspired the song ended up dead in a ravine, right?
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:03 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Were they killed by a lone wolf?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:05 PM on June 17, 2016


When I was in freshman year of college, I wandered up to the free outdoor performances MTV was staging before the VMAs, and my friends and I watched Blink-182.

Later on that year, we went to see Luscious Jackson put on a pretty good show.

I only mention these things because they led up to the twice-in-one year that my friends and I bailed on Smash Mouth shows immediately afterwards.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:08 PM on June 17, 2016


> Red Hot Chili Peppers

This shit week has been capped by finding out those dinguses covered The Ramones' Havana Affair.

But thankfully it's also been covered by
Onda Vaga
[Thank you Spotify Discover Weekly!]
Blondie
posted by morganw at 2:19 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


My favorite thing about Smashmouth will always be the SNL skit where a little girl (Nasim Pedrad) is afraid that Smashmouth will get her. (Video is shit, but it's apparently not on Hulu.)
posted by uberchet at 2:21 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


My favorite Smash Mouth story is about how the lead singer melted down and cursed at a food festival audience a year or two ago. All while the rest of the band nonchalantly played the opening bars of "All Star." For 3 minutes.

I won't spoil the rest of the video it's glorious.
posted by lilac girl at 2:21 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


Smurf Mouth:

So don't smurf, smurf now, smurfs are smurfing smurf
Allow, if you're still smurf, six to eight smurfs to smurf
And if you smurf there may be a smurf but if
The smurf's smurf, you might as well be smurfin' on the smurf
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:23 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


Oh, man, Fastball. OK.

Apart from that being the wrong band, you do know that the real-life couple who inspired the song ended up dead in a ravine, right?
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:03 PM on June 17


Yeah. We thought that was the funniest part about the road trip. My Dad bought the album and everything. I guess we have a fucked up sense of humour. I swear to God I love my parents.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:33 PM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


The nineties were the decade that nearly convinced me that I hate music.

Thank god for Luaka Bop.
posted by gusandrews at 2:41 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


I know for a fact that "All-Star" was all over the place before Shrek, because I almost turned that movie off during the opening scene when that fucking song started playing. Ditto that Blur "woo-hoo" crap. I really dislike Damon whatevers music, but the fact that they made that as some ironic pop song and then it became an Intel commercial (and milliions of other things) also made me want to kick in my TV.

Come to think of it, I haven't actually had cable since then.

A friend of mine took a picture of Smash Mouth playing at a mall in SoCal somewhere. They must have a shit ton of money from all that, so I'm not sure why they bother.

Unless its for the love of music or something, but even that seems debateable.

Also, Reel Big Fish was the house band in Baseketball. That's actually all that I know about them.

So when do Los Del Rio and the Bahamen go on a reunion tour?
posted by lkc at 2:42 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


*flies by in wooden airplane towing hand-painted banner that says DEL AMITRI HAD ONE GOOD SONG*
posted by cortex at 2:48 PM on June 17, 2016 [10 favorites]


I love Del Amitri.
posted by Stynxno at 2:49 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Del Amitri's one good song had better be "Kiss This Thing Goodbye" or it's pistols at dawn.
posted by Kitteh at 2:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Del Griffin Amitri. His song about shower curtain rings was a classic.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:59 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


It makes sense, because at their best Blue Öyster Cult sounds like a really talented bar band.

Pistols, dawn, you know the drill sirrah!
posted by Ber at 3:24 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


So, Guy Fieri is one of those famous people whose name I hear from time to time, but I don't have any idea who he is and I never remember, or am never motivated enough, to look it up. So I read the first link and was like, "A-ha! Guy Fieri was in Smash Mouth!" and I was really happy and satisfied to have this random piece of information. It was like fitting one piece into a five-thousand-piece puzzle. Like, from now on, when Guy Fieri's name crops up in some tweet or something, I will nod sagely and be like, "Right. The Smash Mouth guy."

Not that I could have named a Smash Mouth song, though I do know that All-Star song, and now I also know that Guy Fieri and his band Smash Mouth sang that All-Star song.

I am almost sorry I found out that Guy Fieri was never in Smash Mouth but is a TV chef by reading the second link instead of six months down the line, at some social event, by dropping my Guy Fieri/Smash Mouth wisdom into the conversation. Because that would be a much funnier way to set the record straight.

I have seen pictures of Guy Fieri and he kind of looks to me like the kind of guy who would spend a lot of time on twitter arguing in defense of a song he had that was a hit 30 years ago, so it was easy for me to believe this.

I had no idea, either, that smashmouth or nickelback were a football terms.

This has been very educational.

Personally, I don't think there's any shame in being a one-hit wonder. Because the nature of the music business seems to be that there are lots of those. And when I was young I thought it was pathetic when these old bands toured singing their old music, and old people went to hear them. But just the other day I saw a billboard for an upcoming concert at one of the Indian casinos and commented to my partner that it would be fun to see. I can't remember now who it was. But I'm fifty now and I totally get why it might be fun to do a thing like that.
posted by not that girl at 3:29 PM on June 17, 2016 [24 favorites]


"But I'm fifty now and I totally get why it might be fun to do a thing like that."

I'm fifty-one and I still side-eye it. Except, apparently, in the case of BOC.

A few months ago my seventy-year-old mother told me one night that she and her other elderly friend had just been to see a Cheap Trick show. I found this deeply amusing and wished I could go back in time and tell my teenage self about this future.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:38 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


In 1998 MP3s were taking off but people still had pretty small hard drives and they took forever to illegally download from Napster. My now wife's roommate had a rotation consisting of Barenaked Ladies, American Pie by Don MacLean, and some other forgettable shit. If I had a billion dollars I would buy the rights to "if I had a million dollars" and would bury it forever to only be discovered some day like the Necronomicon
posted by aydeejones at 4:06 PM on June 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


"I do this thing with my toddler where I sing the chorus of Tubthumping, tipping him backward at "I get knocked down!" and righting him at "but I get up again!" He loves this. "

Um, BRB, borrowing toddler.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:17 PM on June 17, 2016 [16 favorites]


Whoa, I've been a Smashmouth fan for years, and didn't even know it! I gotta stand up and be counted and tell all of you to back right the hell off of Smashmouth, man! They rock!

Damn, that's who does Walking on the Sun!? I had no idea. It's not at all like the song from Shrek. Shit, people, cut Smashmouth some slack. I love that song!

Giant steps are what you take
Walking on the sun.
I hope my legs don't break
Walking on, walking on the sun.

posted by Naberius at 4:30 PM on June 17, 2016 [18 favorites]


That really Stings, Naberius!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:49 PM on June 17, 2016 [8 favorites]


Silly business like that needs to be Policed.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:52 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


A few months ago my seventy-year-old mother told me one night that she and her other elderly friend had just been to see a Cheap Trick show. I found this deeply amusing and wished I could go back in time and tell my teenage self about this future.

Grandmama's alright, Granddaddy's alright, they just seem a little less sharp.
Surrender, surrender, but don't forget to sign up for AARP...
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:53 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


I have no ironic love for the Smashmouth experience. The late '90s were the worst period in American rock music I have known in my lifetime. Literally everything was bad. It was like the doucherock dudes were getting their revenge for the first half of the '90s. I completely blame Kurt Cobain for all that happened after his death. It just ruined everything, and no guitar rock coming out of the states was good again for a decade. Smashmouth can walk right into a fucking wood chipper, as far as I'm concerned.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Steal My Sunshine" by Len was alright, though I suspect they might be Canadian (or British??)
posted by clorox at 5:01 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I had no idea, either, that smashmouth or nickelback were a football terms.

I guess "Nickelback" is a football term but that's not where the band says they got the name. "Hoobastank" doesn't come from anywhere so I don't know where the commenter got that idea. Smash Mouth really were named after a style of football though so hey.
posted by atoxyl at 5:02 PM on June 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


Post grunge 90s music was chipper as fuck, riding high on that Clinton economy tech boom enthusiasm. Most of it really did suck, though. At least the Brits were making decent pop to listen to, blur oasis elastica etc.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:03 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Personally, I don't think there's any shame in being a one-hit wonder.

As a young musician, I made fun of them endlessly.

As a lifelong no-hit wonder, I wonder what it would have been like to have even one.
posted by lumpenprole at 5:06 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


Oh, does anyone remember Brimful of Asha? I swear to God that song is the world's most powerful weapons grade earworm.

Brimful of Asha on the 45

Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow.

posted by leotrotsky at 5:07 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


More football names still available:

3-4D
Spread Offense
2 Minute Drill
Slot Receiver
Punter (bonus meaning in UK)
Hail Mary
Man-Press
Cover 3 (might exist in Seattle)
posted by msalt at 5:17 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Smash mouth needs to tear a page from Len's playbook. TLDR; the brother-sister team who wrote Steal my Sunshine rode that one-hit-wonder for a while and then went back to day jobs. Apparently they still make decent money of the royalties.
posted by hot_monster at 5:25 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh my god! Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic just came on Sirius... I think that was Smashmouth too!

Shit, these guys are amazing!
posted by Naberius at 5:36 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


All this talk about late 90s music being shit made me think that surely it couldn't be true, so I sorted my music by year and found the following:

El Oso by Soul Coughing, 1999
Prolonging the Magic by Cake, 1998
OK Computer by Radiohead, 1997

1996 is a three-way win:
Aenima by Tool
Get Off the Cross by Firewater
Odelay by Beck

Yes by Morphine, 1995

You are not Me, and Your Favorites are not My Favorites, but surely we can agree that these releases aren't down in the gutter with the Smashes Mouthes and compatriots of the late 90s.
posted by komara at 5:56 PM on June 17, 2016 [14 favorites]


Reminds me I still need to wrap up the argument with an old high-school friend. No, Frank Black does not sing 'Walkin' on the Sun'.
posted by quinndexter at 6:10 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]




Yeah, this 90s hate is totally off the charts fucked up. I never listened to the radio, watched mtv, none of it. I had all the albums komara lists above and more. I spent those years thanking any and everything anyone considered Holy that the 80s were finally over, with their omnipresent hair bands and dick rock. At least the late 90s was the beginning of lots of places to find music that was not what everyone else was listening to.
posted by nevercalm at 6:58 PM on June 17, 2016 [6 favorites]


kick his ass sea bass
posted by ennui.bz at 7:30 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


As a lifelong no-hit wonder, I wonder what it would have been like to have even one.

Radiohead wrote a song about it. Their first hit Creep was, to the band, like an iron lung--something which kept them alive but was so confining that they came to deeply resent it.
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:34 PM on June 17, 2016


The late 90s and early 00s were a weird time. I don't even know where to begin.

Chumbawamba, first off, is a phenomenal band—Tubthumper introduced a lot of young kids to themes of open sexual exploration, dissatisfaction with the suburbs/upper class aspirations, homelessness, union scabs, and media-induced political blindness. Chumbawamba's non-Tubthumper output is probably better, in a lot of ways; The Boy Bands Have Won is a flat-out great folk album whose lead single manages to be even more relevant in 2016 than it was in 2008. When I encountered them I was a terrified wallflower for whom the recording of somebody coughing in church felt blasphemous beyond belief; now, I am a MeFite. Thank you, Chumbawamba.

Second: I don't feel the need to defend the entirety of BNL's discography, but I picked up their most recent album on a lark, and Passcode keeps lodging itself in my head without my meaning for it to; I keep having a hard time remembering where I know its various delights from, because I generally assume they're from better and more tasteful bands. So this is my backhanded compliment: Silverball is such a good album, I keep forgetting who made it.

Third: regarding this comment—

Shrek deserves a ton of credit for introducing the world to Hallelujah.

—I have to add that Shrek loses that credit for replacing John Cale's incredible version, which both made the song the hit that it was (it was a mostly-unknown Cohen song before him) and is flat-out gorgeous, with Rufus Wainwright's crude simulacrum of a cover version on the soundtrack, so they could remove the verse about fucking. To this day I meet people who insist it was Rufus's version in the movie, which it was not, and those people are stupid, and I hate them. I also have this dark feeling that the Shrek Cale Soundtrack Gap is what opened a cultural void that led to Jeff Buckley's version gaining ground when we nineties kids went to college, and that this is one of the worse things that probably ever happened to culture. I bet you can trace those awful indie bands who're actually signed to major labels and manage to make their Hallmark greeting carts sound "heartfelt" to the Shrek soundtrack producers' cowardice, which in turn is probably why Community started sucking halfway through season two, and really this is just the kind of gash on the face of history that I doubt we have the strength to stitch back together again.

Regarding Smash Mouth itself, though...

(and by that, I mean "regarding Mouth Sounds, which I at some point insisted was my generation's Highway 61 Revisited to a lot of friends without the excuse of weed or alcohol or really anything beyond stone cold Truth on my side"...)

Neil Cicierega tweeted at some point (though this is hard to Google) that the fun in making his mash-up albums came from the sense that Smash Mouth lyrics, applied to songs considered more breakthrough or profound (Lennon's spiritual paean, Daft Punk's production pinnacle, Modest Mouse's emotional catharsis), revealed the extent to which we delude ourselves about why we are drawn to our favorite pop songs. We like them because they're pop. All Star and Imagine share much of the same DNA, and the lyrics to the latter more offer people an excuse to think themselves deep whilst they listen to pop than they actually aid and augment social change or what-have-you. And that's not to say the 5% difference between the songs is insignificant, but we tend to respond to musical movement after movement and act like they represent a significant shift in status quo, without pointing out the extent to which they're mostly just All Star with some extra stuff at the fringes.

(Mouth Silence is even smarter and better, and does a brilliantly good job exposing the ways in which music has and hasn't changed, slaughtering a couple of sacred cows while also highlighting some surprisingly sharp musicians who're usually dismissed as fluff. The B-52s especially, goddamn. It's also a far more interesting set of compositions, and Neil's post-Silence singles have continued to evolve musically, which is seriously gratifying on a lot of levels at once.)

Anyway that's the joyful thing about Smash Mouth, and about Shrek too while we're at it. They're exactly what they seem to be, including the part where they tried to say Important Things and still wound up being Smash Mouth. And what a delightful damnation it is that they continue to insist upon their own slightly-more-impressiveness to random tweeters, ignoring the enormous fortune and luck they've had. That's what I remember of the 90s in a nutshell, right there.

(((((Oh and ALSO while we're reveling in the delightfulness that is the 90s and Neil Cicierega also came up, if you enjoy the weird bits lurking around 90s pop you owe it to yourself to listen to Lemon Demon's Spirit Phone, which seriously took me aback with its inventiveness and menace. It sounds like what you get if you sacrifice an animal at a tacky alter while Walking On The Sun plays in the background—Touch-Tone Telephone is my summer song for the next three years, I'm calling it well in advance.)))))
posted by rorgy at 7:41 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


And the 90s was the decade in which Mike fucking Patton had a mainstream band, and Mike Patton usually gargles professionally for John fucking Zorn, so don't you tell me the nineties were bad for music. Radiohead is pretty okay too, if you can forgive them for the cardinal sin of not being as good as Cardiacs, which nobody ought to do ever.
posted by rorgy at 7:47 PM on June 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Look, Smashmouth is an absolutely amazing band when you're an 18 year old woman, at home for the summer from college, driving down an empty 8-lane freeway at 6am after staying up all night with your friends, drinking an iced Chai from Starbucks, free in the world from all responsibility and care. Under those circumstances, it's goddamn great music.
posted by meese at 8:27 PM on June 17, 2016 [11 favorites]


rorgy were you even alive in the 90s (faved both of those comments in any case)
posted by naju at 8:48 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


The '90s were a great decade for American rock. Unfortunately, that decade ended in 1995.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:22 PM on June 17, 2016 [5 favorites]


Brimful of Asha on the 45

I TOLD you. Luaka Bop.
posted by gusandrews at 9:23 PM on June 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Greg_Ace: "By the time the 90's rolled around, I was in my 30's and pretty much fastidiously avoiding all the stuff people are referring to when they talk about "the 90's". So it was an okay decade for me."

You just had to suffer through the 80s. (as did we, but still...)

Honestly though, 90s were so much better then 9/11, and everything went to shit. I mean, ok, mock all you want, but the pop was pretty magic. Even MMMBOP.

I kinda got sick of that Santeria song my bandmate played all the time (was that, uh, oh Sublime). Also could do without Gwen Stefani's band (whatever they were called).

Kurt Cobain died for this.

Honestly if there's one song I hate it's flagpolesitter. ugh.

And remember Don't Steal My Sunshine?
posted by symbioid at 11:05 PM on June 17, 2016


I need to thank this thread for inspiring the best conversation I've had with my mother in a long time. She took me to my first live concert ever back in 1998/9 (after One Week was released, anyway) to see the Barenaked Ladies even though she haaaaaated them entirely on the strength of how frequently I begged to play their CDs in the car, which is fair.

So I saw this thread and the BNL comments made me laugh and I called her to say, hey Mom, thanks for putting up with my adolescent taste in music and spending real money on it and everything, and she told me she was just paying it forward since her dad had taken her to see Elton John circa 1975 and complained the whole time.

This BLEW MY MIND since one of the defining characteristics of my beloved grandparents, who are both now in their mid-80s, is that they fucking love Elton John and never miss his concerts when he swings by St. Louis.

My mother, as far as I can tell, did not develop the same enduring passion for the Barenaked Ladies.
posted by none of these will bring disaster at 11:19 PM on June 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


I have never seen any of the Shrek movies. I didn't know the song had any thing to do with the movies. I hate that song though. I liked Walking on the Sun at first but they played it until I absolutely despised it.

Three of my favorite albums come from the latter half of the 90s though.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 11:32 PM on June 17, 2016


No Smash Mouth or Republica anecdotes, but I was at Field Day last weekend, which consisted of several thousand Londoners standing around in the rain and mud, and after some of the kids had cleared out to see The Temper Trap downstage, The Brian Jonestown Massacre showed up and played "Geezers," dedicated to "all you sad geezers out there in the rain," which made me very happy. Then Anton said, "I was drinking my first cup of coffee this morning and feeling kinda sad, and I wondered what might cheer me up, and decided that if I could make you all yell PIGFUCKER, I'd feel better." So we all zestily and damply yelled "PIGFUCKER!!!" in veiled reference to the Prime Minister and evidently made Anton Newcombe very happy.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:13 AM on June 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


Yeah, I don't fully understand the All Star hate. I often use it as a point of reference for things that are altogether not bad but become incredibly tiresome through sheer repetition and overexposure.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:23 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]




i'm trying to remember the 90s. Standouts for me are probably NIN and Ministry and Faith No More, with the Pixies never far away ...
posted by nickzoic at 4:18 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


You just had to suffer through the 80s. (as did we, but still...)

Pshaw.

The eighties were an incredible time for music: Rap and hip-hop went from novelty genres to the mainstream of youfh culture, you had this incredible flowering of dance music at the same time, not to mention half a dozen of queer bands making it big and the transmutation of punk from angry shouting into a mindboggling diversity only matched by the similar transmutation of metal.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:48 AM on June 18, 2016 [6 favorites]


Did Chumbawumba have some weird cover art with dogs fucking on one of their CDs? I'm not offended by fucking dogs, now or then, but I remember being taken by surprise in a sort of unpleasant way (because it was a cute doggie on the front and then you opened the CD and it turns out that the part of the cute doggie you didn't see on the front is being vigorously occupied by a dog humping the cute doggie. i dunno maybe it was my mood)
posted by angrycat at 5:37 AM on June 18, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yes, WYSIWYG.
posted by ikalliom at 6:28 AM on June 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


The 90's got off to a rough start, music-wise. I remember the first time I heard Crash Test Dummies and wondering if there was a way I could nail my hands to my ears. Fortunately The Breeders came along about the same time and I just played Last Splash on repeat for the next 5 years.
posted by um at 7:09 AM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Why are we talking about Radiohead in this thread? They don't belong here. What the hell are they doing here? I mean, I guess they'd want us to notice when they're not around, but still.
posted by ambrosen at 7:23 AM on June 18, 2016 [5 favorites]


Don't make this creepy.
posted by zamboni at 8:40 AM on June 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


Huh.

Fush You Mang is a pretty darned accessible album, and I like it a lot. The story about Steve Harwell losing his kid to leukemia at 6 months old is heartbreaking. Ya may not like the success Smashmouth had, but at least Harwell has tried to do a lot of good with the fame and success he has earned.

My defining 90's band, though, was Morphine. There's a very short list of bands I've heard that caused a psychic shift in how I perceived music and Morphine was one of them.

I was laid up on a couch in Seattle post-motorcycle crash in 1999, working through a little wine and painkillers when I heard that Mark Sandman died in Italy. Only time I've ever wept openly and deeply at the loss of an artist.

(the wine and painkillers may have intensified the emotional state, to be fair, but I still felt the loss.)
posted by Thistledown at 9:32 AM on June 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


>If you remember the nineties, you probably were there, I guess. Whatever<

Well, most of the 80's is a blank for me, but I know I had to be somewhere...
(hopefully having a good time)
posted by twidget at 10:45 AM on June 18, 2016


The trap of course is comparing the decade when you were in your twenties and knew the really good music with the next one when you were busy and didn't have lots of friends who also cared too much refining your taste all the time.

I mean, who listened to hair bands in the 80s? I think of it as a great decade with The Damned, The Smiths, early U2 when they were good, Jane's Addiction, The Replacements, etc. But that's my lense and I don't know all the good 90s bands.
posted by msalt at 11:19 AM on June 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


I mean, who listened to hair bands in the 80s?

I always thought they made a neat little stretchy-boingy sound, back when my hair was long enough to keep it in a ponytail.

But I digress.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:05 PM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ha! A great name for a new young pop group would be Silly Bands.
posted by msalt at 1:17 PM on June 18, 2016


my dad LOVES blues traveler and barenaked ladies (god, their christmas album is so bad. so so bad) but i am very thankful that he never really enjoyed smashmouth. he has some standards, at least
I, on the other hand, just got back from the return leg of a 1400 mile round trip family road trip, where the constantly-playing MP3 rotation included Blues Traveler, Barenaked Ladies, and Smashmouth. Other artists included Dean Martin (the guy whose music is horrible enough to scare monsters away in the Percy Jackson books), Weird Al (whose best idea for improving modern music is "polka remix"), Guns N' Roses (which just barely surpasses Weird Al as inspiration for the question, "how did someone with that voice decide to try for a singing career"), and about 24 solid hours in similar veins.

...

It was awesome; you and my kids can all just learn to deal.
posted by roystgnr at 1:31 PM on June 18, 2016


This thread is everything I love and hate about my generation as is Smashmouth.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:04 PM on June 18, 2016


I mean, who listened to hair bands in the 80s?

The 950 zillion people who bought their records.
posted by jonmc at 5:59 PM on June 18, 2016 [4 favorites]


when I heard that Mark Sandman died in Italy. Only time I've ever wept openly and deeply at the loss of an artist.

I've said before and I'll say it again. Mark Sandman is the only person I didn't know who's death made me cry. Though the way 2016 is going...
posted by bendy at 10:07 PM on June 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


The eighties were an incredible time for music: Rap and hip-hop went from novelty genres to the mainstream of youfh culture

Yeah, 90's were good, too. It started with Fear of a Black Planet and ended with Operation Doomsday. Also had, y'know, Illmatic, Atliens, Funcrusherplus, Black Star, Third Eye Vision, and at least a hundred other great albums that I'm trying not to name right now. The first half was the end of the "Golden Age", where the major labels had an anything goes approach because they hadn't figured out how to make the most money. The second half was a huge up-swell of indie artists, and quite a few of the prominent acts from both those periods are still active today.

If you were listening to Smashmouth that's your own damn fault.
posted by lkc at 2:46 AM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


Some of us finished elementary school in 1999 and thus had little to no agency when it came to popular culture. I still remember the horrible, horrible field day where the entire school had to dance the macarena in unison. I'll get knocked down, but get up again a million times over if it means I never again have to dance the macarena next to the assistant principal.
posted by ChuraChura at 6:47 AM on June 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


No Smash Mouth or Republica anecdotes

Are we supposed to not like Republica? I enjoy "Ready to Go." Can some cool people please tell me if this is acceptable?
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:33 AM on June 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


Republica is awesome. I wrote that more in sadness than anger, as in I wish I had some Republica anecdotes. Does anyone have any Republica anecdotes?
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:14 AM on June 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Does anyone have any Republica anecdotes?

my girlfriend at the time that album came out was bi and she thought saffron was the hottest thing and the video for that song got her um…ready to go
posted by murphy slaw at 10:19 AM on June 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


I've seen Barenaked Ladies live, but to my misfortune it wasn't until after The Big Bang Theory came out
posted by Gordafarin at 1:36 AM on June 20, 2016


Also: No one's got a bad word to say against Harvey Danger, right? Because I will fight you.
posted by Gordafarin at 1:50 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


No, Frank Black does not sing 'Walkin' on the Sun'.

I know absolutely nothing about Frank Black,but I do knot that I'm not black like Barry White, no, I'm white like Frank Black is.
posted by maryr at 9:45 AM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also: No one's got a bad word to say against Harvey Danger, right?

They did that song that's in the t-shirt commercial, right?
posted by bondcliff at 10:02 AM on June 20, 2016


More football names still available:

3-4D
Spread Offense
2 Minute Drill
Slot Receiver
Punter (bonus meaning in UK)
Hail Mary
Man-Press
Cover 3 (might exist in Seattle)
Kicker Conspiracy
wrong football?
posted by pxe2000 at 10:15 AM on June 20, 2016


Wrong football
Rolling Maul
Hands in the Ruck
Loose Forward Trio
Tight Five
Illegal Binding
22 Drop Out
Three Man Overlap
Sonny Bill Williams
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:14 PM on June 20, 2016


I guess "Nickelback" is a football term but that's not where the band says they got the name. "Hoobastank" doesn't come from anywhere so I don't know where the commenter got that idea. Smash Mouth really were named after a style of football though so hey.

Hoobastank /n./ When a quarterback tries to lure the defense to go offsides by trying to trick them that he called for the ball to be snapped. Popularized by John Elway's famous, "Hut ONE, Two, Hoobastank" accompanied by a head fake.

Totally a football term.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:15 PM on June 20, 2016


Gordafarin: "Also: No one's got a bad word to say against Harvey Danger, right? Because I will fight you."

Don't look up.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:57 PM on June 20, 2016


Don't want to brag, but I saw Barenaked Ladies in, like, 1995? Pretty sure it was before Born on a Pirate Ship. By myself because I was unpopular a lone wolf, a rebel who played by his own rules. The Blue Shadows opened. They were both really good.

Wait a minute, Smash Mouth has fan(s)?

My original comment in this thread was "Well, the 80s, 90s, & Whatever station needs something to play after Doug and the Slugs" but I felt it would be mean because I too remember for some reason that the Smashmouth guy had a child who died, and plus, who was Smashmouth hurting with their music? It's not their fault they were overplayed.

Then I went to work, and eventually they played When The Morning Comes, and I thought of my unwritten comment and had a snicker. And then they played Too Bad and I nearly shit my pants.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:03 PM on June 21, 2016


station needs something to play after Doug and the Slugs

I'm sure that whatever gets played, you'll be makin' it work.
posted by GuyZero at 4:33 PM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Doug and the Slugs? Canada you are forever making me feel like first third of a parallel universe episode of a sci-fi show, where all the references go over our heroes' head.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:56 PM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hey Oregon Mefites! I'ts SmashMouth live, in the Winco Parking Lot!! Seriously. 4pm on July 2nd.
"Chart-topping all-stars Smash Mouth take over the old Waremart parking lot (which is now a Winco), for a Shrek-splosion of rock and roll vibes and grooves!!!! Putrid Nutria and nineteen other local bands open."
posted by msalt at 8:41 PM on June 21, 2016


Oh man, I love Doug and the Slugs.
posted by maryr at 7:55 AM on June 22, 2016


I love WinCo!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:33 PM on June 22, 2016


« Older What's going on at Yellowstone?   |   "My sister insisted that the van lifestyle is a... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments