TOTO "africa" classic or dud

xp Pretty much everyone I know in their 30s knows and could sing "Jessie's Girl."

I'm in my 30s and the last seven are seared into my brain but OK, fair point on a lot of those, especially the ones that are contemporary with "Africa".
4xp Well, yeah, "Jessie's Girl" too

I know pretty much all of those by heart, but then I'm 46.

i'm 30 and i know most of those but i'm weird

I am 42 and could sing 18 of those off the top of my head. The others, I would not be shocked if I heard just a second or two of them and they immediately came back to me. maybe I'll check.

i feel like this song is just as popular now as it was like 10 years ago *shrug*

― dyl, Tuesday, September 19, 2017

OTM. "Africa" and "Rosanna" have never gone away.

tbf I expect I would probably know more of these if I heard a bit, but I don't recognise the titles. Plus these are US hits and some might not have been popular over here.

xp

xpost You heard them all the time in the '90s?

"Who Can It Be Now?" Men at Work

I take exception to this one too, but yeah, Jessie's Girl has reached after-midnight bar sing-along status for my generation along with livin on a prayer, africa and others

xpost You heard them all the time in the '90s?

I definitely heard "Don't Stop Believin'" (and other Journey hits) a lot on the radio in the 90s. Toto a little less but it wasn't obscure stuff by any stretch. Def more than Stars on 45.

xpost You heard them all the time in the '90s?

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Yep! Eighties radio, A/C radio, CVS, Walgreens, Publix – they've never gone away.

Sort of what I was getting at above with my half-joking reference to the WWC. The 'revival' of these songs has mostly just seemed to be like a wider public and critical recognition of stuff that was always popular and enduring but overlooked or ridiculed in the press. (I was defending AOR on some of the earliest ILM threads.)

OK, I went through that random list again. These are the ones that didn't leap to mind, even if I recognized the title:

"Stars on 45 Medley" Stars on 45: I want to say there were a bunch of neo-disco era novelty songs? Anyway, I know the title, but not this track.
"The Next Time I Fall" Peter Cetera and Amy Grant: This one came back to me pretty fast!
"Shake You Down" Gregory Abbott: Ooh, totally forgot about this one, but it came back fast. Remember it well.
"Truly" Lionel Richie: I was pretty sure I'd recognize this one, and I did.
"At This Moment" Billy Vera and the Beaters: All these power ballads. I always got this one confused with some cover of If you don't know me by now, but yeah, I know it.
"Jacob's Ladder" Huey Lewis and the News: I know plenty of radio Huey, but not this one!
"Always" Atlantic Starr: Yeah, I know this one.
"Foolish Beat" Debbie Gibson: At first didn't recognize it, but it's in the noggin somewhere.
"When I'm with You" Sheriff: The only one, upon review, that I don't know at all. Not the act, not the name, not the song.

Omg that Sheriff song was inescapable in Canada at least into the early 00s. It actually charted in the early 80s ('82?) AND in '89.

Like Alfred, I know I've heard "Africa" out and about since it was first on the radio, but it seems only recently that it's become this sort of iconic go-to punchline/singalong, a la Bohemian Rhapsody post Wayne's World. Like, I know that song (BR) was long beloved, but WW transformed it into a more pervasive cultural mainstay in the same punchline/singalong mold. That's why I'm trying to figure out what gave "Africa" a big boost relatively recently, like last 10 years.

Wiki not too helpful:

The song was used in an advertisement for Castle Lager in South Africa in the late 1990s.
The song was used in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the fictional radio station Emotion 98.3.
A Foster Farms commercial in the United States features a choir of animatronic chickens singing the song as part of the poultry producer's "Amazing Chicken" campaign.
The song was featured at the beginning of the Scrubs episode "My Way Home". The song was being played through J.D.'s iPod and the band's name was the first of many references to The Wizard of Oz in the episode.
"Africa" was featured in multiple episodes of the 20th season of South Park.
The song was featured in the first episode of the first season of Stranger Things.

I'm still leaning toward Vice City. The/a question is, how many people in their 20s and 30s know "Self Control" by Laura Branigan? Or any of the relatively lesser publicly heard songs from that game?

"Jacob's Ladder" got to #1 because (a) payola (b) Bruce Hornsby. It's the only News hit I couldn't hum either.

"When I'm With You" remains ubiquitous. The lead singer formed Alias and scored a huge hit with 1990's '"More Than Words Can Say."

Hey look at this:

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

Though honestly that just comes to the same "good song, people like it" conclusion. I suppose I never thought of it as "world music" before, I guess it doesn't sort of presage something like "In Your Eyes," written by Peter Gabriel for ... Rosanna Arquette! She is the key to this all, I think.

(Does, not doesn't presage)

This is one of the major recent uses of Africa that I seem to recall, and it's from 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkpdMKZBlP8

A while ago I heard Chris de Burgh's "Don't Pay the Ferryman" in the grocery store. Took me back, let me tell you. Another time it was Martin Page's "House of Stone and Light."

"House of Stone and Light" reminds me of "Africa" quite a bit - soaring, great chorus, vaguely spiritual, a white person's idea of shamanistic imagery, a piling up of almost-random metaphors to approximate an unearned deepness.

But that Triumph song has vanished.

Oh, and for the persistence in popular culture of "Don't Stop Believin',"* note that it was also given post-Glee prominence by the execrable Tom Cruise vehicle "Rock of Ages."

* - PHEAR MY MAD PUNCTUATIN' SKILLZ, YO

Oh, forgot about Glee! Is Africa in Glee?

There's also Straight No Chaser's acapella cover of 12 Days of Christmas that incorporates Africa at the end which seems to go back as far as 1998, but I feel like I've heard more and more in recent years, and was included on a Chirstmas album in 2009.

Do younger people glom on to "I Want to Know What Love Is?" the same way?

a close friend and I are forever going WITHOUT MY SOOULLLL YEAH re "House of Stone and Light." It sounded like the mid '90s Sting hit that Sting couldn'ts core.

Josh: not "Africa" that I know of, but that show did rescue a lot of other stuff from potential oblivion.

Re: Men at Work, I don't think "Who Can it Be Now" or "Down Under" have ever quite faded from the culture, but Colin Hay as an artist was almost certainly rescued from bankrupt obscurity by "Scrubs" and "Garden State."

Lord Alfred, one cannot discuss pale Sting imitators without tipping the hat to Mr. Mister. Which was recently given an attempted rescue via a shout-out in that horrible Train song with the fucking ukulele.

Men At Work >>>>>> Toto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBIOekGeiGE

at least in Canada, I always assumed this was the reason for Africa's re-appearance.

Rosanna is definitely better.

"Rosanna" has never faded from YouTube - and probably never will - not least because of drummers trying to learn the shuffle.

Ha, I was going to say that Triumph is still in heavy rotation on Canadian rock stations. To confirm, I just checked the playlist of Ottawa's classic rock station and, yep, "Magic Power" was played less than an hour ago.

I was in a nightclub in pto vallarta called Strana this weekend (probably the best nightclub in mexico i've only seen better in las vegas) and they played this song! It was a mashup of Rihanna's pour it up with the Nick Merenda edit of the song, not the original... which I'm guessing was live because I cant find it on the internet.

Anyways I recommend giving the edit a listen it's cool and apparently great for live mashup mixing:

https://m.soundcloud.com/nick-mere/toto-africa-nick-merenda

Sund4r, thanks. I guess my problem is living 500 miles south of the line of its glacial advance.

The/a question is, how many people in their 20s and 30s know "Self Control" by Laura Branigan?

Knowing the song and video for self control (not just knowing them but KNOWING them) ought to be an indispensable and obligatory component of any young person's sentimental education IMO

My wife (age 39) did not know it. When it came on the radio, she was intrigued and shazammed it. I was like "oh yeah, that."

as a kid I only knew Laura Branigan from watching VH1 and they only talked about "Gloria" and I'm pretty sure I'm the only 20/30something who watched VH1 as a preteen

I prefer the Raf version

it's kind of interesting that there was a pop singer in the US who became moderately successful doing italo covers

freaking LOVED laura branigan when i was a kid
all of these songs leaked into my brain as a childhood radio freak and remain there permanently except for the Huey Lewis one

the rest of them i could sing on cue, sadly

Men At Work are awesome, and the fact that they were successfully sued for "Down Under" is one of the greatest copyright law travesties ever.

That is all.

Men At Work >>>>>> Toto

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, September 19, 2017 11:19 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a mega truth bomb right here.

"Overkill" is so fucking good, i have lots of time for MaW

there's an interesting documentary about colin james hay on amazon prime

there's an interesting documentary about colin james hay on amazon prime

"Overkill" is so fucking good

^^

I CANT GET TO SLEEP

My mom really liked that documentary, I am def intrigued to explore menAW

Wiki not too helpful:

The song was used in an advertisement for Castle Lager in South Africa in the late 1990s.
The song was used in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the fictional radio station Emotion 98.3.
A Foster Farms commercial in the United States features a choir of animatronic chickens singing the song as part of the poultry producer's "Amazing Chicken" campaign.
The song was featured at the beginning of the Scrubs episode "My Way Home". The song was being played through J.D.'s iPod and the band's name was the first of many references to The Wizard of Oz in the episode.
"Africa" was featured in multiple episodes of the 20th season of South Park.
The song was featured in the first episode of the first season of Stranger Things.

I'm still leaning toward Vice City. The/a question is, how many people in their 20s and 30s know "Self Control" by Laura Branigan? Or any of the relatively lesser publicly heard songs from that game?

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, September 19, 2017 7:56 AM (three hours ago)

Hey look at this:

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

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, September 19, 2017 7:58 AM (three hours ago)

lol, these are the two links i posted yesterday, largely in response to your "no fucking clue" post, Josh.

thread moves fast, i understand.

Men at Work get a pass because the two huge Cargo singles ("Overkill," "It's a Mistake") rip their Business as Usual counterparts to shreds. But they still weren't very good.