Songoftheday 11/22/22 - I thought love was only true in fairy tales, meant for someone else but not for me...

 

 

"I'm A Believer" - Smash Mouth

from the albums Shrek (Original Soundtrack) and Smash Mouth (both 2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from the American rock band Smash Mouth, whose second album Astro Lounge in 1999 had scored the biggest hit of their career with "All Star" along with a follow-up "Then The Morning Comes" that came one notch from Billboard magazine's Hot 100's top ten in the beginning of the following year. After that album was released, drummer Kevin Coleman left for medical reasons, and replaced by Michael Urbano who joined lead singer Steve Harwell, guitarist and main songwriter Greg Camp, and bass player Paul De Lisle. "All Star" was featured on the movie Mystery Men (a comedic superhero movie that bombed) back then, and was also placed on the soundtrack to the DreamWorks animated movie Shrek in 2001. Along with that song, Smash Mouth recorded a cover of a classic pop song that eventually also would be the lead single from their upcoming self-titled third studio album. 

"I'm A Believer" was written by pop music icon Neil Diamond for the "pre-fab four" band the Monkees for their television show of the same name. Appearing on their second album More Of The Monkees, the song was released as their second single (after the #1 "Last Train To Clarksville" from the first Monkees album), and became a massive success, spending seven weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 between the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1967, longer than any other hit from either year. "I'm A Believer" was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1968, losing both Best Performance By A Vocal Group and Best Contemporary Group Performance (Vocal or Instrumental) to the 5th Dimension for "Up, Up and Away"...

Fast forward to 2001, and Smash Mouth were commissioned to record "I'm A Believer" to close out the movie Shrek, which used strategically-placed cover songs within the film's plot. Produced by Eric Valentine, who had helmed the band's first two albums, turns the sound up to 11, while Camp inserts some cribbed "Wipeout" guitar licks to make this more California surf-rock sounding, but does it make you forget the original? Hell, no. It's credibly done, and Harwell's gruff voice is a match for Mickey Dolenz's more laid-back delivery (I mean, compared to Davy Jones), but this is absolutely a product, but for a new generation of very young listeners who hadn't heard the original (too young for even the Monkees' 80's revival), it was their first exposure to the song, and with the wild success of the movie, the song made it back to pop radio for Smash Mouth's last decently successful hit...

Smash Mouth's take on "I'm A Believer" became their third top-40 hit on the Hot 100 (and fifth big pop airplay hit if you count the non-single "Walkin' On The Sun" from 1997 and "Can't Get Enough Of You Baby" in 1998, which couldn't place on the chart at the time ) in September of 2001. On the radio, the song went to #15 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, but it was the biggest at the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, where it spent 26 weeks on the list with a high of #4. Internationally, their version reached #9 in Australia, and made the top-40 in Spain (#12), New Zealand (#12), Belgium (#14F), Italy (#23), and Ireland (#39). The Shrek soundtrack, released in May of that year, crested at #28 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but spending 84 weeks on the chart and going on to sell over two million copies. A second song from the soundtrack, "Like Wow!" by newcomer Leslie Carter, had preceded "I'm A Believer" to pop on to the Hot 100 for a single week at #99. 

As for Smash Mouth, they followed up with a new single from their upcoming third album Smash Mouth that autumn. "Pacific Coast Party", written by Camp and De Lisle, went the full "Sugar Ray", with an almost neo-disco sheen. While the song rose to #37 on the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, and #23 on the Adult Top-40 format, the single missed the Hot 100, only "bubbling under" at #114. The song did give them a first by making the Dance Club Play chart at #20. A third try, album opener "Holiday In My Head", attempting a self-correct back to surf-rock, completely stiffed. The Smash Mouth album, released in November of 2001, started out at #48 on the Billboard 200, going gold (500,000 albums shipped), but compared to their last set which sold over three million, it was a big comedown. 

 

Two years later, the band returned with their fourth album on Interscope Records, Get The Picture?, which stopped at the #100 spot on the Billboard 200. Lead single "You Are My Number One", electro-reggae song with Ranking Roger from The Beat/General Public, slipped on to the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart for a week at #40, and got to #25 on the Adult Top-40 format, but neither made the Hot 100 nor "bubbled under".  At that point, Interscope (now owned by Universal) released an All Star Smash Hits collection in 2005 which hit #96 on the Billboard 200 then cast the group off.

Smash Mouth formed their own indie label Beautiful Bombs distributed through Universal, and released a holiday album The Gift Of Rock at the end of 2005. The following year, coming after Harwell's appearance on VH1's reality show The Surreal Life, they put out their next set, Summer Girl. During the recording of the album, Urbano left the group, and was replaced by Jason Sutter.The big song from the record, "Story Of My Life", had a music video that featured his Surreal Life co-stars, went to #29 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 chart, followed by "So Insane", which did a little better at #25. 

 

The next few years would see a whirlwind of turnaround in the band's lineup, with their longtime anchor Camp leaving, as well as Sutter, with touring keyboardist Michael Klooster becoming an official member, Randy Cooke taking over on drums, and Mike Krompass becoming their guitarist and producing their next (and most recent original) album Magic on 429 Records in 2012.  Revealing the aging of their fanbase, the single "Magic" made the Adult Contemporary or "easy listening" radio chart at #22. Camp briefly reunited with Smash Mouth for a crowd-funded acoustic rework of their debut Fush Yo Mang album in 2018. But the revolving door in the lineup reared up again, with De Lisle, Klooster, and Harwell the steadfast member, but Harwell had been getting more press from his onstage shenanigans than their music. They appeared at the 2020 Sturgis motorcycle rally, which really helped spread COVID throughout the middle of our country. The next year, Harwell infamously had a meltdown at a show that included giving what clearly looked like a Nazi salute and going after the crowd, which got him booted from the band. Max Collins of Eve 6 hilariously campaigned to become their new frontman, but they hired on Zach Goode as their current lead singer. They've put out a couple of one-off singles, most recently "4th of July" this year. 

(5/10)

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A year after the Monkees hit big, Neil gave the song to the group Fifth Estate, who at that time were an up and coming rock band from New England that had a novelty hit with a remake of the Wizard Of Oz song "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" that peaked at #11 on the Hot 100 in 1967. It was given a country-rock treatment for their Ding Dong album, but their record company never released it as a single, in place of more novelty tie-ins like Snow White's "Heigh-ho", dooming the group...

In 1971, Diamond released his own recording of "I'm A Believer" as a one-off single, and went to #51 on the Hot 100 and #31 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart in America, and was a top-40 hit in Germany (#23) and the Netherlands (#29)...

English singer Richard Wyatt had a top-40 hit in the United Kingdom with a spacey cover of the song produced by Pink Floyd's Nick Mason (UK #29) that I quite like...

A version of the song done by British alt-dance band EMF, who had a #1 pop hit in America with "Unbelievable" (cheeky!) with comedic duo Reeves and Mortimer got to #3 on the British Singles chart in 1995...

Up tomorrow: A country singer has second thought verbally.