The video above doesn't need much explaining: In Fuser (opens in new tab), the DJing game from Harmonix, I repeatedly dropped Smash Mouth's 1999 hit All Star into other songs in an attempt to get reactions from my coworkers along the lines of "What's wrong with you?" and "I think you need to be stopped," which I successfully did.
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I really did try to make my mixes sound good, though, and I was impressed with how easy it is to create semi-harmonious mashups in Fuser. Each song has been arranged with a similar structure, making it easy to hop back and forth between them in a way that sounds planned.
As for why I chose All Star as my musical cudgel, I admit I'm just riding the ironic All Star hate/appreciation bandwagon. Truth be told, I genuinely liked All Star when it released in 1999. I was a teenager. The idea of being an all star anything was pretty attractive to me, and according to Smash Mouth, hey now, I already was one. That was nice to hear, although looking back I'm not sure if I agree with the song's suggestion that ozone loss ("the hole in the satellite picture") and global warming ("the ice we skate is getting pretty thin") are more or less just good reasons to get in the pool ("the water's getting warm so you might as well swim").
Even though I wasn't fully committed to the joke—it's a bit played out, isn't it?—I found it hard to stop sticking All Star into songs once I started. I tried to go back to playing the game normally, but every time there was a gap in the vocak track, I felt the intrusive urge to drop in "well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming." After I stopped playing, I had trouble falling asleep because I couldn't stop interrupting my own thoughts with All Star lyrics. You've got to suffer for your work.
I hope you enjoy hearing the various ways I've incorporated a late '90s alternative rock anthem into songs that were better without it. You can also find the video on YouTube (opens in new tab), and read Rachel's Fuser review here.
