Music

Thank God: Smash Mouth Has Finally Released an EDM Remix of "All Star"

To celebrate 20 years of the song, the band has dropped the first ever official remix. And it's a slapper, folks!
Leslie Horn
New York, US
smash mouth
Image via YouTube

Well, the years start comin' and they don't stop comin', and before you know it, Smash Mouth's "All Star" is 20 years old, and how did that happen? Time flies, they say, but it's also a flat circle. Though "All Star" was first released in May 1999, and you can find countless remixes of it on YouTube, it never got an official Smash Mouth-sanctioned remix. Until now!

To celebrate the song's big milestone, Smash Mouth commissioned EDM duo Breathe Carolina (we haven't heard of them either, sorry) to give the song a tropical-house rework. And guess what? It slaps, and if you try to say anything different you'll reveal yourself to be a hater of fun and also life.

The 20th anniversary is certainly cause to celebrate, and there may well not be any deeper reason beyond that the band chose to remix a song made iconic by Shrek. And yet the more cynical side of us feels duty-bound to note that we're in an era when, thanks to "Old Town Road" and its success, basically everything is getting a remix. Will Smash Mouth use Lil Nas X's easily replicable formula to take "All Star," which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard charts in 1999, to No. 1? Probably not! Could they? Technically, with the powers of the internet, maybe! The internet, the blurring of genre lines it has caused, the collective obsession with Smash Mouth it is responsible for, and also probably the highly contagious case of brain worms it has given us, explains the existence of this remix anyway.

It also explains why we're talking about Smash Mouth two decades later, why we'll probably talk about them two decades from now, and why Smash Mouth (who is woke now, by the way) will continue to be part of the conversation till death do us part. Or until climate change or fascism kill us all. Maybe this is all reading into this a little too much. Maybe my brain worms are terminal. Regardless, this remix is a delight, and it's something anyone can enjoy, whether they first encountered the original version of "All Star" in middle school 20 years ago, or via Shrek 4 nine years ago, or through the undeniable power of memes two years ago, or via this release. This remix is new. Smash Mouth is eternal.