YMMV / Smash Mouth

• Hilarious in Hindsight: Magic, made in 2012, has a song called "Justin Bieber" themed around the band's seeming irrelevance, comparing them to other dead fads like high-top sneakers. Released at the height of the anti-Bieber hysteria, it started with "Whatever happened to Justin Bieber?/Was he all bad or was he left behind?" While Bieber went through an Audience-Alienating Era thanks to his erratic behavior and the rise of One Direction taking a big chunk of his core fanbase, he would undergo a Career Resurrection in 2015 and has maintained a presence on the charts ever since.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Following Steve Harwell's death in 2023, some of their earlier material contains lyrics that are rather tragic in hindsight.
  • "Let's Rock" is probably the most notable, featuring this verse:
  Lately I've been thinkin' about my vices
  And about the prices, that I'll later have to pay
  I've been thinkin' about myself
  And about my health
  Then I'll say, "What the hell?"
  • The aforementioned "Justin Bieber" has two:
    • As part of the general theme of "dead or dying fads", the lyrics take a potshot at Glee for "covering everything except a song of mine". Cory Monteith, the actor who played Finn on the show, would die of an overdose the next year, and since the finale aired several stars of the show had either died or had their careers ruined ^note Puck's actor Mark Salling hung himself after being found with "the worst collection of child pornography the nation had ever seen", Lea Michele who played Rachel was accused of being a racist bully, Santana's actor Naya Rivera accidentally drowned, and Blake Jenner who played Ryder Lynn was accused of domestic violence Nowadays, it would seem weird for them to just complain about THAT.
    • The chorus goes "Oh, oh, where did everybody go?/In another ten years or so, when it's after the show/Would you buy another ticket, or just let me go?" Nine years after the album, Steve Harwell left the band to deal with his alcoholism, and two years after that he died of liver failure.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Fan reactions to Astro Lounge after it became a mainstream hit.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "All Star" has become well known among Shrek's parodic "Brogre" fandom.
    • Some
    • BODY once told me the world is gonna roll me... ^Explanation The opening lines to the song, usually accompanied by someone slamming a door open in reference to the opening scene of Shrek. The above format where "Some" is isolated is popular when quoting the opening in posts.
    • people call me the Space Cowboy...^note Here's a kinetic typography set to the song.
    • And then taken up to eleven when one of the memes became a meme!!
    • "Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming..." ^Explanation Extending the above lyric of "All Star" so the section that says "and they don't stop coming" never stops coming. One of the most-viewed examples lasts for 10 hours.
  • Bread puns are especially common thanks to the Taste of Fort Collins incident.
  • Steve Harwell is occasionally noted for his resemblance to Guy Fieri and to Violent J of Insane Clown Posse.
  • Smash Mouth's twitter feud with DJ Khaled has in the eyes of the internet, freed Smash Mouth from being "The Shrek Band". Now they're the band that advocates eating out your girlfriend.
    • "Is that what Smash Mouth means?"
  • @smashmouth eat the eggs^Explanation A viral joke campaign by the Something Awful userbase to get Steve Harwell to eat a bowl of raw eggs in public. The persistence of the campaign resulted in Harwell becoming jokingly tied with eggs online, culminating in him making good on its demands by actually eating a bowlful of eggs under Guy Fieri's supervision.
• Older Than They Think: "All Star" was originally a successful hit for the group in 1999, but was widely forgotten until 2001. Also, while it was originally released to promote a movie, the film in question was not Shrek, but the less well-known Cult Classic Mystery Men (which the song's music video was a tie-in for, even featuring the film's actors).
• Signature Song:
  • "All Star" obviously counts as this due to being their highest-charting hit on the Billboard Hot 100 at #4, and being featured in a wildly successful children's animated movie which certainly helped it garner Memetic Mutation. Kids of The New '10s are most likely to only know the band because of the memes that song spawned.
  • Before "All Star", their hit "Walkin' on the Sun" was their most successful one.
• Song Association: Try not to talk about the band without thinking about Shrek.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Greg Camp, wanting to write a surefire hit, modeled "All Star" on "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies.

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