Sometimes the internet still manages to write its own success stories – and they are even funnier when memes are involved. Because, let’s be honest – memes keep us sane in the earth’s daily race for insanity and towards doom, right? Australian dance music duo Chris Stracey and Jack Glass aka BAG RAIDERS are the latest victims of that unplanned success, resulting in their almost one decade year old song Shooting Stars suddenly becoming a major hit, especially in the USA. While the track flew relatively under the radar when it was released back in 2009, it suddenly took off in early 2017 and sparked tons of really hillarious memes of people in ordniary situations suddenly jumping into the surreal void.
The origin of those crazy compilations lies within a moment in the original music video (watch above) which sees BAG RAIDERS suddenly falling into infite space before landing on some cool 80s retro sports cars. It’s happening around the 2:15 mark and it clearly inspired a lot of others to add a weird psychedelic twist to everyday scenarios. Our colleagues at The Daily Dot got a pretty good historic overview about the evolution of the Shooting Stars meme and also some of its finest moments. My favourite is probably the one of the fat man jumping off the bridge and into the centre of the universe. Priceless!
The sudden rise to fame resulted in unexpected attention to the band which released a pretty good self-titled debut album back in 2010. Happening in the course of a new self-confident wave of Australian synthpop bands like MIAMI HORROR, CUT COPY and EMPIRE OF THE SUN, the record is packed with summerly and funky little pop gems like Sunlight, Not Over and the still pretty euphoric anthem Way Back Home. Following extended touring the band started releasing new singles over the past three years which could result in a long overdue follow-up. On the other hand, they just booked a spontaneous Shooting Stars tour through the US, following the meme-based breakthrough so that might take a while. The story of Shooting Stars is a fascinating fairytale for the digital age we’re living in, proving that a hype could happen anytime while also remaining highly unpredictable. Sorry, PR managers.
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