TOTO "africa" classic or dud

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.

business at usual was the first album cassette i ever bought

xpost That's funny. sometimes on my phone links show, sometimes less so.

ha, Business as Usual was the first album (LP) I remember getting excited about buying. It was a Thursday and I knew I would get it on the following Tuesday. This is how I remember that Thurs-Tues = 5 days.

the first cassette i bought was She's So Unusual

young(er) people do learn of classic hits thru, hm, classic hits radio (this song has been a mainstay at that format forever) -- doesn't have to be grand theft auto or glee or rock band

love this song. i made a few remixes of this recently. one is looping just the intrumental hook part over and over w stuttering gitchy noise. the other is that beat slowed down really slow with a repeater instead of pitch bending. ill post them here when i find them!

xpost Honestly didn't know young people listened to the radio. Even then, don't know what classic hits radio is. Trying to think what local station would play "Africa" ...

Men at Work rule

The common take is that Men At Work benefitted from the Police taking too long in the studio, due to a few superficial similarities, but yeah, that first album at least is pretty strong.

anecdotally, i heard "africa" at the roller rink when i was a kid, but i never gave a shit about it until vice city came out. i'm 41. and i didn't actually ever _play_ vice city.

Case closed. Blame "Vice City."

africa by toto is a meme

i definitely became more "interested" in toto once i learned they were studio whizzes who played on steely dan recs... as a youngster i just grouped them with stuff like air supply, didn't know they were the ones who did that awesome 'love isn't always on time' song

and i definitely grew to enjoy the production of "africa" and the huge, brilliant chorus

See - and I know at least on paper they are of a totally different class - but I always grouped them not with Air Supply and the like, but REO Speedwagon and bands like that.

I think only Jeff Porcaro played with Steely Dan. The rest of them were your otherwise ubiquitous studio hacks who handled everything from yacht rock to top 40. I'll give them this, though, "Human Nature" is a sophisticated little track.

BTW, I just learned than one of Toto's former and now, again, current singers is the son of John Williams.

If you're looking for an explanation of "Africa"'s surge in appeal among Millennials, don't underestimate the i-VI-III-VII progression of the chorus. For better and for worse, hat progression and its inverse (I-V-vi-III, which "Don't Stop Believing" is built around) have become to 00's pop what the 12-bar blues and the doo-wop progression were to the 1950s and 60s. Those two progressions were relatively uncommon in the early 80s, but you started to hear them a lot more when alt-rock and pop-punk went major in the 90s. Since the heyday of Blink-182 they've been fucking inescapable. But they're a pop lingua franca, so older songs that use them probably slot a lot more comfortably into contemporary medleys and playlists.

Inspired by UMS's praise, we watched the Colin Hay documentary this evening -- and it is indeed very good. Highly recommended to all.