If you could create music in a totally unique way, a form that showed incredible ingenuity and creativity, which song would you perform? Would you play something modern and fun, like the latest hit by Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish? Or would you prefer a famous and beloved classic a la Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy?” Or how about busting out the most unlikely take on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody?” Would you look to other all-time bands, like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, for inspiration? The number of great options seem endless, but that’s an illusion. There is only one song that anyone on the internet plays when they do an absurd cover. That why this artist who created instruments out of melons used them to play the track that will outlast Twinkies and cockroaches. Yes, of course we mean Smash Mouth’s “ All Star.”
YouTuber Pupsi has the incredible ability to make real instruments out of food, proving sometimes it really is okay to play with your food. In his latest he made some out of watermelons, canary melons, and honeydew melons. By carving them up and putting in holes he turned fruit into functional musical equipment.
Each makes their own distinct sounds, and when put together—along with some good old spoon scrapping and banging—they are able to play a pretty spot-on rendition of “All Star.” Because of course that’s where this ended up. There’s something about Smash Mouth‘s hit track that compels everyone in the world to cover it in any way possible.
No, seriously, everyone and in every way. The first song ever made on the Nintendo Labo? “All Star.” Star Wars characters being edited to sing together? “All Star.” Translating lyrics from English to Aramaic and back to English to make poetry? “All Star.” Someone even used Windows XP sounds to create their own version of Smash Mouth’s eternal track, because why the hell not? WHY THE HELL NOT?
We don’t have to live this way, you know? We don’t have to constantly revive the spirit of this one absurd, objectively mediocre song from the ’90s. So many other better songs have been released in mankind’s existence. The tyranny of “All Star” is a choice we have made for reasons no one understands! Does “All Star” has some kind of malicious subliminal message that makes it impossible to forget it? Probably not. So maybe we can let hang out in the historical dustbin where it belongs. It can reside next to its brethren like The Offspring’s “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” and Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West.”
Of course, there would appear to be a perfect alternative sitting right there. It’s a track the internet genuinely loves. A song that seems like it should be the only choice to be played by fruit. But unfortunately, for reasons that elude non-food musicians, you can’t play it with melons. You have to play Toto’s “Africa” with sweet potato and squash.
We will never get the obsession with “All Star.” Yet for some reason, hearing “Africa” played by starch makes total sense.
Featured Image: Pupsi