Mouth Silence

Mouth Silence is the second mashup album by American musician and comedian Neil Cicierega. Following the format of his previous release, Mouth Sounds, the album is composed of mashups and remixes of popular songs from the 1980s, 1990's, and 2000's. Unlike Mouth Sounds, which used the song "All Star" by Smash Mouth as a recurring element, no tracks on Mouth Silence explicitly reference Smash Mouth (although some contain Easter eggs of various "All Star" clips).[1] On the album's cover, Cicierega can be seen giving a silence gesture in the shape of an L, referencing a lyric in "All Star". Also on the cover, a screenshot of Hampton The Hampster's "Hampster Dance" can be seen on Cicierega's glasses, referencing the remixed lyrics in "Goodbye" and the song's samples in "Piss". A third installment, Mouth Moods, was released in 2017.

Mouth Silence
Mixtape by Neil Cicierega
Released	July 19, 2014 (2014-07-19)
Genre	Mashup, remix
Length	55:48
Neil Cicierega chronology
Mouth Sounds (2014) Mouth Silence (2014) Spirit Phone as Lemon Demon (2016)

Reception

Much like its predecessor, Mouth Sounds, critics remarked on the album's simultaneous appeal to and perversion of the listener's nostalgia, with Katie Rife of The A.V. Club describing it as "laugh out loud horrifying"[2] and Ryan Manning of The Verge promising that listeners would "have a strong reaction, negative, positive, horrified, glorified".[3] Sasha Geffen, writing for Impose Magazine, describes the effect as "total context collapse", calling it "paradoxically [...] comforting".[4] As of January 11, 2019, the album has received over 660,000 plays on Soundcloud.[5]

Track listing

No.	Title	Featured works	Length
1.	"Goodbye"	Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" Yes's "I've Seen All Good People" The Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster"[lower-alpha 1]	2:17
2.	"Rollercloser"	The Ohio Players' "Love Rollercoaster" Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" Kool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie"	3:25
3.	"Furries"	Kool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie"[lower-alpha 2] Hanson's "MMMBop" The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Foxy Lady", "Purple Haze" Ylvis' "The Fox"	2:20
4.	"Friends"	The Rembrandts' "I'll Be There For You" Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness"	0:10
5.	"Best"	Foo Fighters' "Best of You" Rockapella's "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" Rockapella's Folgers jingle Zapp and Roger's "More Bounce to the Ounce" Tina Turner's "The Best" Joe Esposito's "You're the Best" One Direction's "Best Song Ever" TaleSpin theme Pokémon theme	3:53
6.	"Pokémon"	Found audio from news reports about Pokémon Herman Cain's 2011 speech suspending his presidential campaign The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back"	3:17
7.	"Sexual Lion King"	Hans Zimmer's The Lion King score Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" "Circle of Life" from The Lion King	3:52
8.	"Crocodile Chop"	Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" System of a Down's "Chop Suey!"	3:42
9.	"Transmission"	David Bowie's "Space Oddity" Spoken numbers (taken from "Space Oddity") that spell out "SMASH MOUTH" in ASCII code, in the style of a numbers station	0:54
10.	"Love Psych"	The B-52's' "Love Shack" Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score Katy Perry's "California Gurls"[lower-alpha 3]	3:54
11.	"Orgonon Gurlz"	Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting" Katy Perry's "California Gurls"	4:19
12.	"Born to Cat"	Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" Bent Fabric's "Alley Cat"	0:43
13.	"What Is It"	Faith No More's "Epic" War's "Low Rider"	3:04
14.	"It's"	Michael Palin saying "It's..." John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell", which served as the opening theme for Flying Circus Bon Jovi's "It's My Life"	1:09
15.	"Close to the Sun"	The Carpenters' "(They Long to Be) Close to You" Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"[lower-alpha 4]	1:24
16.	"Numbers"	Lead-in from "Close To The Sun" Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" Cake's "Never There" Milli Vanilli's "Baby Don't Forget My Number" David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (quoting Tommy Tutone's "867-5309/Jenny") No Doubt's "Spiderwebs" Ray Parker, Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" Crazy Calls' "Wait For The Beep" Kraftwerk's "Numbers" Misc samples from premium-rate telephone number commercials and novelty answering machine greetings Nokia tune	5:07
17.	"Space Monkey Mafia"	Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"	3:48
18.	"Wndrwll"	Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"[lower-alpha 5] Oasis' "Wonderwall" Jesse Frederick's "Everywhere You Look" Smash Mouth's "All Star"[lower-alpha 6]	3:28
19.	"Piss"	Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life" Enigma's "Return to Innocence" Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" Justin Timberlake's "Rock Your Body" Spin Doctors' "Two Princes" Hampton The Hampster's "Hampster Dance" Aqua's "Barbie Girl" Fraggle Rock theme Morse code that translates to 'SOMEBODY ONCE TOLD ME', half of the first line of Smash Mouth's "All Star"	4:58
Total length:			55:48

In addition, multiple tracks are embedded with clips from Smash Mouth's "All Star" that are slowed down by a factor of 1728%. The song lyrics are sung in the octave below Middle C, making those notes lower than the range of human hearing. To hear the clips in their original key, the music must be sped up by factor of 1728%.

Outtakes

On 19 October 2014, the YouTube channel "NeilCicieregaMusic" uploaded three outtakes from Mouth Silence.[6][7][8]

No.	Title	Featured works	Length
1.	"Zingle Ladies"	Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" Spice Girls' "Wannabe"	1:19
2.	"Jocko Homo Mashup"	Cher's "Believe" Devo's "Jocko Homo" LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out?"	3:25
3.	"Say It Ain't SoCal"	Weezer's "Beverly Hills," "Say It Ain't So"	3:39
Total length:			8:23

Notes

1. Briefly at the end of the song, as a transition into "Rollercloser".
2. Briefly at the beginning of the song, carried over from "Rollercloser".
3. Briefly at the end of the song, as a transition into "Orgonon Gurlz".
4. Briefly at the end of the song, as a transition into "Numbers".
5. Briefly, for a few seconds during the intro, the "and on and on" lyric is continued from "Space Monkey Mafia"
6. During the silence before the 2nd verse, the word "Some-" can be faintly heard.

References

1. Lachenal, Jessica (January 24, 2017). "Neil Cicierega Drops Ever-So-Deliciously Weird "Mouth Moods" Mashup Album". www.themarysue.com. Archived from the original on February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
2. Katie Rife (July 22, 2014). "The sequel to "Mouth Sounds" is here, and it's laugh out loud horrifying". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
3. Ryan Manning (July 26, 2014). "Mouth Silence is the sound of your brain roasting". The Verge. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
4. Sasha Geffen (September 10, 2014). "Mouth Singularity: Neil Cicierega's Context Collapse". Impose Magazine. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2017.
5. Neil Cicierega (2014). Mouth Silence (streamed) (audio). Archived from the original on January 29, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2019.
6. Cicierega, Neil (19 October 2014). "Neil Cicierega – Zingle Ladies". YouTube. Archived from the original on 1 September 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
7. Cicierega, Neil (19 October 2014). "Neil Cicierega – Jocko Homo Mashup". YouTube. Archived from the original on 1 December 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
8. Cicierega, Neil (19 October 2014). "Neil Cicierega – Say It Ain't SoCal". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2 October 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2018.

External links

• Official website