Review Summary: The greatest review of the greatest album by the greatest band ever.
Possibly the most avante garde endeavor from the Californian group of time traveling pseudo-humans, Astro Lounge (named after the famous gay space club located on the rings of Saturn) is simultaneously a deeply humanizing album as well as a prophetic work, easily indicative of humanities impending doom.
The first four tracks can be considered act 1 of this deeply rich narrative, so fluid in its story arc that if Smash Mouth had instead traveled to the Elizabethan era they easily could have driven Shakespeare to suicide due to his feelings of inadequacy as a storyteller by comparison. The tracks "Who's There", "Diggin' Your Scene", "I Just Wanna See" and "Waste" introduce the listener to the character of Steve. A slightly overweight, time-traveler from the year 4972 (Steve is obviously a metaphor for the subhuman frontman of Smash Mouth... Steve). As Steve arrives on our planet, he is overwhelmed by the ease of life in the 20th century. He is primarily taken by the music scene, in which he finds immediate success, as the standards for excellence in this primitive time are far lower than in the 50th century. Steve immediately befriends a group of homosexual sewer dwellers and forms a musical group called Smash Mouth (a reference to the venereal disease that all four acquired while performing fellatio on a four dicked space monster that has pursued Steve from the future, but we'll get to that later). The band finds immediate success, often joining forces with a group of special needs crime fighters known as the Mystery Men. Throughout Act 1 Steve is forced to come terms with his homesickness for the future and his infatuation with the 20th century. This internal conflict reaches a climax in "Waste", when Steve's fat ass actually eats his own depression and ***s it out as, you guessed it, waste.
Our heroes adventures continue in Act 2, which spans the tracks "All Star", "Satellite", "Radio", "Stoned" and "And Then The Morning Comes". In this act, Steve and his increasingly VD ridden cohorts begin to suffer from the dark side of glory. Having defeated the hideous ogre known as Shrek, the group has been catapulted to stardom. They are worshiped as gods everywhere they go, but the fame and fortune is as hollow as Steves wooden leg after he has sucked all of the "future whiskey" out of it (usually by about 10 am). Steve finds himself growing increasingly lonely in a world where no one shares his knowledge of the future and almost no one has more than one dick. With valuable dick meat (the primary source of sustenance for all future dwellers) in short supply, Steve is dying. His bandmates are unable to help him due to a combination of severe retardation and jealousy over Steves popularity. Infighting in the group reaches its apex when Steve is invited to a threesome with Ben Stiller and Jeneane Garafolo and his bandmates are left outside on the steps of Stiller Manor with only themselves and Stiller's army of Cambodian children to entertain them.
Act 3 spans the tracks "Road Man", "Fallen Horses" and "Defeat You". Much of this act is told in flashback form after the band has broken up, Steve left abandoned by the inbred, hipster assholes that he once shared so many adventures with. We are introduced to the character of Horsewiener 84000, a four-dicked space monsterbot that has pursued Steve from the future. Horsewieners motives are unclear, but the track "Road Man" alludes to an incident in the 50th century where Steve failed to perform his oral obligations to Horsewiener after he was picked up after hitchhiking on the the space highway, route sixty dicks. Horsewiener wants what he is owed from Steve and refuses to return to the future without it. Unfortunately, Steve has grown so weak without his daily regimen of dick meat that he cannot even begin to attempt the task of orally pleasing any of Horsewieners massive robotic future cocks. Steve needs his band. With Horsewiener in hot pursuit, Steve makes his way across the Gobi desert and into Mongolia, where his former bandmates have established a monastery high atop Mount Flashindapan, Steve begs his former allies to help him defeat horsewiener, but his bandmates have demands that Steve must meet. They demand that Steve and the band all be equally popular in the eyes of the public, whether that means the band becomes as popular as Steve or Steve becomes as well known as the band (history should tell you which of these two fates became realized). Steve agrees and the four make their way down the mountain to confront Horsewiener. The monster is unprepared for Steve to have allies with him and is caught off guard. Before he even knows what has happened each member of the band has latched onto one his enormous, barbed robowangs and begins pleasuring it furiously, nay, mercilessly. The epic battle of mouth pleasure rages on for forty days and forty nights at the end of which Horsewieners four futurejohnsons erupt in a chaotic and overwhelming discharge of piping hot monsterseed that washes over the dessert, eventually allowing life to blossom where there was only dust and sand. But the bands victory is short-lived, as Horsewiener fades off into the ether, he reveals to the band that they have all been infected with an incurable disease known as Smashmouth, the diagnosis for their careers is terminal.
The last act of Astro Lounge, very much like the last act of the bible, is full of ridiculous prophecy and makes absolutely no sense at all. Steve, near death at this point, reveals to his bandmates that he has been sent to warn the world of its impending doom. With the tracks "Come On Come On", "Home" and "Can't Get Enough of You Baby". Steve tells his allies, now his apostles, to go forth and spread the word. That man must find the technology to grow more dicks per person or suffer a fate similar to his. He tells his apostles that he will return and tells them three signs that will indicate his return. First, a work of literature will be released of great significance, known as "Shrek 8: Eddie Murphy Needs Work" it will unite the world in the belief of quad-dickness and change the course of human history. Second, a great star will die. The name of the star will be Brett Michaels, and when his bandanna is flown at half-mast over the capital of Poison Country (known as New Jersey before the Great Taninacan Wars) the world will be united in mourning the passing of a genuinely mediocre human being (but still a huge star for some reason). Third, a mighty cock shaped comet will be seen in the Eastern night sky, on a collision course with Earth. Only a world made strong on a diet of dick meat will be able to deflect the comet and save themselves, but alas, Steve predicts that mankind will never embrace such a penis heavy diet and is therefore... doomed.
So if you have ever felt anything even resembling a human emotion, go buy Astro Lounge by the band Smashmouth. No, *** that, buy a hundred copies and make sure that every single person you know has a copy and never listens to anything else, ever. I dare say, it is the most brilliant, beautiful, mesmerizing, daring, epic, thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, hope-inducing, boner-aggravating, sexually deviant album that has ever been recorded. If you do not listen to it at least ten times a day then you are an incomplete human being who will never know true love and will undoubtedly have handicapped children one day. So for your humanity and your children's little league teams, buy this album. And if you ever see Steve Harwell either out on the street or when he's refilling your ice tea at Applebees, you thank him.
