The Mouth Experience

By: Paxton Wall

Neil Cicierega is a musical artist who was made popular by his earlier works on YouTube. He goes by Lemon Demon these days, but one cannot look past the prior accomplishments that built his internet infamy. One of his most bizarre works, and quite possibly some of the strangest collections of music on the internet, is the “Mouth” series of albums. Named after the band Smash Mouth, these four albums are collages of songs that combine dozens of different samples from various genres of music. These songs are both satirical and parodic in nature, but some of them still manage to sound shockingly good. The albums are all influenced by the song All Star, some more than others.

The first of the albums is titled Mouth Sounds. It is the most heavily “All Star-themed,” with a large number of songs mixing All Star’s lyrics with different songs’ melodies. There are also other tracks that are completely separate from this motif, such as “Vivid Memories Turn to Fantasy,” which is a remix of the Men in Black theme.

The second album is titled Mouth Silence, and it features a distinct lack of all things Smash Mouth. It is somewhat themed around news segments from the 90s, with a few songs featuring these segments. It also includes an interlude that is inspired by Russian number radio stations.

The third album is titled Mouth Moods. It has a few songs that feature the song One Week by Barenaked Ladies. Another song on this album is called “Wow Wow.” This song is a remix of Wild Wild West by Will Smith, and it is a fan favorite.

The fourth and final album is titled Mouth Dreams. It is themed around sleep, dreams, and nightmares. Its tracks are pretty much unique from each other, not sharing any samples. It is also the only album which has an intro and an outro.

If any of the songs in these albums sound bizarre to you, then they are doing their job. Neil made these weird songs for the sake of making something weird, as well as to challenge the concept of “new.” He certainly accomplished something after making four of these albums, but what was that, exactly? I feel like that is objective. You’ll just have to listen to the albums to figure that out.