TOTO "africa" classic or dud

I will confirm that Weezer played this last night to a crowd of about 10,000 people (including me) and most of them fucking loved it and sang along with every word. I knew it was coming and knew pretty much how it would be, so I rolled my eyes and said "meh," but I will not begrudge the dumb fun pleasure felt by 9,999 drunk white middle-agers.

it definitely reached some sort of meme status last year, not really sure why, but the current wave of popularity is more comparable to smash mouth's all star than dsb

Well I do often credit the initial seeds of Africa's resurgence being that time 10 years ago, when I was in a car with Neil Cicierega during a midnight run to Walmart and we were all bobbing our heads to it on the radio.

if y'all haven't, you should read the past year or two of this thread. lots of good (imo) discussion re: why this song is either enduringly or newly popular, whether it's "good" or just a shitty meme, etc.

or at least i enjoyed the discussion. :)

most pointless cover ever - note for note

This would be a good thread in it's own right:
Defend the Indefensible: Note-for-Note Cover Versions

I often find myself liking these more than the original (Faith No More - Easy, for instance) even when I know I shouldn't.
So yeah, i'd probably be singing along with the 9,999 drink white middle-agers at the show when they played it.

Weezer's version of Rosanna was pretty fun too.

Cuomo also did an acoustic solo "Take on Me," which I don't think I enjoyed much but it seemed to serve as a nice communal moment.

I honest to god never used to mind this song - I'd never complain if I heard it on TV or radio. I'm fucking sick of hearing about it now, though.

total baconing

May fit into the meme-ification side of things, I guess... I did enjoy this though, it's impressively done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82nqsksBH7M

asshole millenial substitute DJ played this before my radio show yesterday, I wanted to kill him

Can someone summarize why this song is so popular/meme-ified at the moment? Much as I'd like to read the past year or two of this thread (as suggested above), I don't think I have the time...

The ways of the meme-ification gods are mysterious; no one quite knows what is going to be dredged up from near-obscurity next.

Most people can agree that "Don't Stop Believin'" owes its sudden resurgence to Glee, "Heat of the Moment" to 40-Year-Old Virgin, and "Overkil" to Scrubs.

In short, no one here agrees on why "Africa" is a Thing right now. Some claim it never left the culture because it has always been awesome. Others believe it resurfaced due to use in a meme or a commercial or something, but the jury is out on whether there is a precise single catalyst. Heck, maybe the stars just aligned correctly and people simultaneously / independently remembered it as a thing of excellence. Or of cheese!

please see

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/africa-by-toto?full=1

Thanks, that is helpful!

I thought "Don't Stop Believin'" had a lot to do w/The Sopranos finale(?). I didn't know "Heat of the Moment" had a resurgence (and I'm not sure I even know what "Overkil" is...)

Most people can agree that "Don't Stop Believin'" owes its sudden resurgence to Glee

https://media1.tenor.com/images/6f143685439118732d299b5ed9bfd831/tenor.gif

POLL: Most important cultural artifact to forecast our total Toto "Africa" revival

Part 1: TV version

— Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) June 18, 2018

POLL: Most important cultural artifact to forecast our total Toto "Africa" revival

Part 2: Non-TV version

— Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) June 18, 2018

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City made "Africa" cool and that was 2002

— Daniel Kreps (@danielkreps) July 23, 2016

not TV but it was definitely this pic.twitter.com/L09Xdd4sno

— nicktopath traveler (@JucheMane) June 18, 2018

Most people can agree that "Don't Stop Believin'" owes its sudden resurgence to Glee...

― nonsensei (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Gave it some mileage with the youngs but nah sopranos

lmao everyone jumped on that at once

lmao everyone jumped on that at once

Okay so I clearly do not know what I am talking about so feel free to ignore me. a previous flippant and reductive summary is here:

wtf why are there nearly 300 new answers on this thread - tldr please tell me - TIA

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Friday, September 22, 2017 3:58 PM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wondered the same but I saw sund4r posting and he never shuts up about toto..

― starving street dogs of punk rock (Odysseus), Friday, September 22, 2017 4:00 PM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IIRC, a dood was like "wtf, Africa has always been popular, and it's popular because it's fucking great" and other doodz were like "yabbut it was brought to a new level of prominence due to its presence in the memeosphere" and other doodz were like "what does it mean to be a meme anyways" and other doodz were like "can't it be both a great song and one that was rescued from relative obscurity by a video game" and other doodz were like "does that diminishes its greatness? nope."

At the same time somebody was all like, "why are all these rescued tunes so dude-o-centric?" And then ppl were all like, "dude, are there songs by female artists that are this corny anyways?" And there was discussion of that. Then some other dude was all like, "dude, when are we going to start talking about the awesomeness of the 1982 song 'Africa' by the band Toto again?"

― stop the mandolinsanity (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, September 22, 2017 4:11 PM (ten months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And by Overkil (gah, sorry) I meant the Colin Hay appearance on Scrubs where he plays the Men at Work song "Overkill" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzYjqQezxoQ

Thx for all this... I forgot about the role played by "GFA" in popularizing older songs in the 2000s. Often I'll check out comments on a song's YouTube page, and it's full of "(XXX) brought me here!" (XXX being a new game, or other stuff I'm not even aware of now).

I see "Africa" has 373mm+ streams on Spotify, which seems pretty hot. "Don't Stop Believin'" has 466mm+. Clicking around on some other bands in the "Fans Also Like..." sidebar (i.e., comparable '80s acts), I don't see many other top tracks that come close to these two.

Like, for a comparison - "Sister Christian" has a paltry 20mm+, and that song got another era's equivalent of a (pre-social media) meme-ifying boost, via its appearance in "Boogie Nights."

...and in "Rock of Ages."

speaking only personally, I was a kid when it was popular and I was hella into songs w/ dreamy sounding synths, and then I went without hearing it for years (lol at pre-streaming/dling days) so the lack of exposure to it inflated it in my mind.

Wow - even artists like Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen don't have tracks that hit 373mm+ plays

xp Those synths and the percussion in the intro sound a lot like Peter Gabriel songs that came a bit later. I'll assume this has been noted...

I swear, and I've said this before, the "Don't Stop Believin'" revival started heating up well before the Sopranos finale. I never heard it on the radio as a kid, then I started hearing it more and more during my undergrad years, which ended in 2005. By the time I was living in the Fenway area in Boston a year after that, I got my first case of "DSB" fatigue when a whole subway car started singing it after a Sox game. Again, this was 2006. Sopranos finale was June of 2007.

"sister christian" is like "desperado" but even worse

I think Sister Xian is my favorite of these 3 songs... it's not really my genre, tho.

to any defenders itt: if you are a college radio DJ on the air today, all that you prove by playing this song is:

1. you have active contempt for your audience, most of whom hate this song

2. you have zero creativity or imagination as a DJ

3. you can't even be bothered to look up what "deep cut" means

if I could travel back in time to murder any one band, Toto would be it. suck it, poptimists.

iow DUD

I had literally never heard Don't Stop Believin' before the Sopranos finale

I don't think it was a hit at all in Europe first time around

deservedly so!

I literally don’t understand the fascination with this song

it's "ironic"

thewufs is right though

The song has been a rallying cry for a multitude of sports teams, first by the Chicago White Sox in their successful run to the 2005 World Series, when catcher A. J. Pierzynski and teammates heard the song being sung in a bar in Baltimore. The White Sox invited former Journey lead singer Steve Perry to the team's celebration rally, where he sang the song along with several members of the team.

going back to whiney's tweet, i think the south park reference was a reflexive thing commenting on the resurgent popularity of africa."we've grown fond of this song cause we remember it and it reminds us of a simpler time," etc.

Dear Millennial Meme Influencers -
Please do "Eye In The Sky" next.

Aw, don't ruin that one for me.

don't think sorry's easily said

Sopranos finale was June of 2007.

Scrubs did an entire episode ("My Journey") built around "Don't Stop Believin'" in 2003. It's a song I always heard on CR radio, tbh, though.

"Africa" reference in Community was 2011 btw.

wonder if in 25 years there's gonna be a revival of "Gangnam Style"

Oh, Neanderthal pointed that out last year. xp

Sleeve lmao

I swear, and I've said this before, the "Don't Stop Believin'" revival started heating up well before the Sopranos finale. I never heard it on the radio as a kid, then I started hearing it more and more during my undergrad years, which ended in 2005. By the time I was living in the Fenway area in Boston a year after that, I got my first case of "DSB" fatigue when a whole subway car started singing it after a Sox game. Again, this was 2006. Sopranos finale was June of 2007.

― It's like an Christian pop (thewufs), Wednesday, July 25, 2018 8:29 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i was living in boston at this time as well, i'm about your age, and this is basically otm

Unlike "Don't Stop Believin'," "Africa" was a song I heard plenty as a kid - the big Journey hits on A/C stations were "Open Arms," "Who's Crying Now," and "Faithfully," but "Africa" and "Rosanna" appeared pretty frequently alongside the other soft rock hits on the stations my mom used to play on car rides in the late 80s/early 90s. And I remember I liked it enough that I taped it off the radio sometime between 1991 and 1993. I rediscovered it like a decade later and I still liked it, and it's been a frequent comfort-listen ever since. Has there been a big uptick in radio play for "Africa" like there was for "Don't Stop Believin'" in the early to mid aughts? Because that song wore the fuck out on me, and the same thing hasn't happened for me with "Africa" yet.

I don't think it was one big meme with Africa, just a lot of small ones until it sort of snowballed?

I first came across Don't Stop Believin' in a Family Guy episode from 2005 where there's a big piece built around it, but then again it sounded instantly familiar so either 1) I had heard it somewhere before 2) those are magic chords or 3) collective unconscious

"DSB" was a pretty big Classic Rock Staple in the late '90s.

I don't think anyone likes Toto "ironically" in 2018.

if I could travel back in time to murder any one band, Toto would be it. suck it, poptimists.

The implications of your murder would be far reaching indeed - no Thriller as we know it, for one!

That could be a good thing to you too afaik, of course. It's just Toto are a really fun band to play this sci-fi game with because the entire Pop scene of the era would be different in lots of small ways, in a form that you can't say of many other bands.