TOTO "africa" classic or dud

The rain in African stays mainly in the plafrica

I hear "lepress" too. Right or wrong, I love the image of a sort of elegant female leper that it evokes.

I get to sing the chorus of this song in a cover band bc I'm the one who can sing high. It's fun to sing. I'd still like to know why it's "Gonna take some time to do the things we never HAD" the fuck?

lol

Waiting for your Love (the track just before Africa on the LP?) is such a jam

Awful

The "Despacito" connection http://pca.st/episode/0949df36-895c-4af5-8254-b3c252f37581?t=1294

The guy is missing that it's actually one of the most common pop progressions of all time, it's just that the third chord is what is usually the first chord. It's the Closing Time progression, aka When I Come Around progression.

Always been "lepress" for me too. Which works much better than Olympus

Africa is one of the few top hits of the 80's which I unashamedly love.

it reminds me of riding around in my parents' shitty Nova and I was always enamored with the synth sounds

Maybe if I'd heard it at my age now I would say dud but I heard first as a tiny person and now it's part of the fabric of life so classsssic

"Rises like a Memphis." Either one, you know: Egypt or Tennessee. One Memphis.

"Rosanna" > "Africa"

Well, yeah.

Xxxpost you mean Olympus?

were Toto the least photogenic band of all time?

https://30daysout.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/toto-the-early-days.jpg

Great song tho (although yes, "Rosanna" is better)

All but one of the guys in that photo looks like a Slightly Creepy Uncle from the 70s. Works at Radio Shack, or maybe is just a really good customer of Radio Shack. Lives in his parents' basement, but because it has a separate entrance he pretends it's kind of like an apartment. Drives an El Camino.

The exception is Blondo McWhitesuit (David Hungate?). He looks like an aspiring soap opera actor who is slightly too handsome to be a credible bartender.

Rises like a Lepus

Yet another 70s horror reference from toto

oh so that's the podcast i have been hearing about, i am like mostly unimpressed after actually listening to it, it verges on heinous at points

I like 'Africa', 'Hold the Line' and 'Rosanna', but on the whole I'm one of those people that's not really into the work of Toto as songwriters/a recording act in their own right, but I rate them supremely highly as musicians and love their work on other people's records.

Why is it that supergroups of "top flight professional studio musicians" never hire a top flight professional lyricist?

Because (since the advent of marginally competent singer-songwriters in the mid-1960s) "professional lyricists" mostly don't write memorable or even ?

Pete Brown = okay with some duds.

Robert Hunter = pretty good with some duds.

Bernie Taupin = mostly terrible with some gems.

Neil Peart = um. Huh?

When I think of lyricists my mind goes to W.S. Gilbert, Oscar Hammmerstein, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Richard Adler. Gerry Goffin? From thenceforward I struggle to think of people who are doing just that and doing it well.

*or even good lyrics?

Yeah, I was half-joking, I just think it's funny how a band built around the concept of having people who are at the absolute top of their craft also completely sucks at one key aspect.

It's the easiest aspect to overlook, because for most listeners, who cares?

I think Paich is a professional songwriter? I don't really think these lyrics fail as pop lyrics.

OK lol saw the discussion upthread; clearly some people put more thought into these lyrics than I did.

Scansion on "Serengeti" is p forced too

It makes me happier than it should that pizza parlour covers dude seems to have launched a career off the back of it:

http://www.mikemasse.com/

being in a band where I have to sing harmony on Africa gives me special appreciation for what a terrible chewy mouthful the lyrics are.

there is nothing wrong with either the lyrics or the music of this song.

Sure as KilimanJARo RISes like a LIMPness above the SARANgetNEEEEE

No it's SEEHHHHR...engeDEEEEEEEEEE

"There's nothin that a hundred men OR MORE could ever doooooo" -- the "or more" is such a "Damnit, how do I make this lyric fit the melody?" thing.

there are plenty of things wrong with the lyrics or the music of the song and the inescapablility of it is reaching "sweet caroline" depths

i'd give my life for this song

yes i feel like the ubiquity has sharply increased in recent years and i'm curious what spurred it.

it couldn't have been Jeffster, could it?

I'm just a couple years too young to remember the first time around, so I don't have a sense of how ubiquitious it was when it came out. I did just hear it on saturday night at a work event.

Love this song, but this is Groundhog Day by this point

xxpost lol Jeffster i forgot abt that

No matter how I feel about this song (underrated: Rosanna), everything about the Serengeti line drives me nuts. The way it's delivered, the way it squeezes too many syllables in, the way it compares an iconic mountain to another iconic mountain ...

yes i feel like the ubiquity has sharply increased in recent years and i'm curious what spurred it.

Was just talking about this the other day. It's kind of akin to "Don't Stop Believin'"'s resurgence, but at least that was bolstered by both ironic and serious pop-culture/sports use. "Africa" ... I have no fucking clue. Though it does make for the funniest "Shittyflute" clip, imo.

I mean are these songs whose legends have actually grown with nostalgia? At least with Livin' On A Prayer I feel like people got just as excited about it back then as they do now.

Re forced scansion- my friend used to memorably rag on Minutemen for "The toiLET / Starts fluSHING"

I honestly don't know who is into these songs, but I do get a sense it is more than just, say, people my age. The question is, why would someone 20 years younger than me be into "Africa," or "Don't Stop Believing'" or "Living on a Prayer?" Certainly they don't seem to be particularly into Journey or Bon Jovi, let alone Toto, as bands. Maybe they are?

Anyway, Toto is just the most mercenary shit, imo. Super players who sort of lucked into a time when their brand of schlock would be heavily promoted and consumed, maximum AOR. Though I do like this surprisingly ambivalent Xgau review:

Toto IV (Columbia, 1982)
Wish I could claim this millionaire Grammy-rock was totally pleasureless, but professionalism is rarely that neat. The fattest of all studio bands is almost as hooky as Shoes or the Ramones, and their production excesses at times betray verve, delight, even (though I must be mistaken) a sense of humor. But the lyrics are utterly forgettable, and the tone and spirit have nothing to do with rock and roll--unlike Thom Bell, to whom they've been rapturously compared in Billboard, they don't know the difference between slick and smooth, between hedonism and conspicuous consumption. At least Michael McDonald learned his shit from the real thing; Bobby Kimball and Steve Lukather learned theirs from McDonald. Still, for a band that crosses Chicago, Asia, and the Doobie Brothers, they have their glitzy moments. B-

let's not forget the derulo kinda cover
a work of art

I never really got the impression that this stuff went away among the white working class?

Seriously, I don't think it's that surprising that big singles would endure longer than the bands' oeuvre (although I totally have known younger people who are into Journey and Foreigner as bands; the latter seems to have a definite following in Western NY state). Wrt "Don't Stop Believin'", it always did stand out to me among Journey's radio staples so it never surprised me that it became the one that was revived, even if it wasn't their biggest hit at the time.

how is Toto more "mercenary" than 8 million critically beloved songs recorded by session musicians at Stax, Motown, by the Wrecking Crew etc?

like Hal Blaine is sitting there thinking oh man I'm glad I'm not playing jazz Sonny & Cher really pumps my nads

Africa keeps getting lifted up on a sorta regular basis by GTA, South Park, Stranger Things:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa_(Toto_song)#In_popular_culture

and other weird places, like a famous couple's vaca video:

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/13/toto-africa-lyrics/

sorry if I am just repeating stuff everyone already knows, it's possible i'm misunderstanding the convo?