TOTO "africa" classic or dud

my high school choir even had SATB sheet music for Africa lol (never got to do it tho)

a few things:

1. "Never Gonna Give You Up" is definitely a bigger meme song than "Africa", but then again, there aren't many songs in general that can match the meme power of the Rickroll.
2. "Staying Alive" is a great example of a meme song avant la lettre.
3. I don't recall really encountering "Africa" much during the 1990s, certainly not as a thing in pop culture. I kinda get the impression that people on here saying it's been a constant really mean it has been for the past 10 years or so. There was definitely a period where this track sank a bit into obscurity.

Maybe I'm wrong though, don't know when you were in HS Neanderthal.

'Africa' used to get a fair amount of play on VH-1 UK in the '90s. I remember being in a taxi in the late '90s and the taxi driver fucking playing the thing on a loop. This song has never really gone away. It doesn't feel like a meme to me either.

xp I'm willing to put in the work to make the Go-Go's "Head Over Heels" happen

― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Thursday, September 21, 2017

let's do this!

As long as there isn't a fucking 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' resurgence...

the endtimes are near, i wouldn't rule it out

i think there is a sense to "Africa" being sort of a punchline, and I would hate for that to happen to "Head Over Heels" -- it deserves better than to be intentionally baconed

Wilson Phillips' "Release Me."

"Head Over Heels" is awesome.

There was definitely a period where this track sank a bit into obscurity.

Not just this track, but much of the louchey-douchey radio rock music from this period. It would probably have seemed a bit ridic / faintly embarrassing to admit you liked it. To a lot of people in my social circle anyways. Not that I tested this rigorously, but I suspect it would have seemed a little weird to be unironically cranking this up at a keg party in 1993.

It was normal to like music that was older than this, or newer than this. Or obscurer than this, or more popular than this. But something like Styx or Toto fell into a kind of trough, both in terms of age (neither fresh nor classic) and in terms of exposure level (neither unknown nor popular). My high school had deadheads and metalheads, goths and punks, but nobody who walked around wearing an REO Speedwagon concert tee.

REO speedwagon was for olds

Wilson Phillips was featured at the end of Bridesmaids but I don't know if that connotes meme status.

i doubt i have heard this song played in a non-jokey way (outside of a cvs) in 30 years. i mean i've totally enjoyed this thread's discussion of the chord changes, etc, but it's a corny-ass song with in-your-face terrible lyrics, and not even in a fist-pumpy way like 'don't stop believin'

hold the line is a jam, though

tbh i'm having a hard time thinking of songs by female artists that are this aggressively corny about something so random. certainly not the go-go's. i guess we'll always have rebecca black

I think that the meme-ification process - especially of Glee and the Pitch Perfect movies (plus the accompanying popularity renaissance of a capella) - may have had a liberating effect on what people feel they can admit they always liked.

Personally I've always liked "Africa" but I probably would have been quieter about it in high school and college. Maybe that just means I suck at being a human, or am insufficiently secure in my taste/judgment, or care too much about seeming "cool." But teens and young adults generally develop a pretty good sense at what you'll get laughed at for championing.

tbh i'm having a hard time thinking of songs by female artists that are this aggressively corny

Heart, "These Dreams." It's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"-level corn.

"Black Velvet" is a borderline case. I have days when I think it's the awesomest thing that ever awesomed; at other times I think it's pretty cornish.

omg "black velvet" is horrible

I associate 'Africa' with this compilation, which my parents had on cassette and that I used to listen to a lot as a kid.

http://images.eil.com/large_image/VARIOUS-60S_%26_70S_OPEN%2BTOP%2BCARS%2BAND%2BGIRLS%2BIN%2BT%2BSHIRTS-449225.jpg

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Open-Top-Cars-And-Girls-In-TShirts/release/8718875

Looking at the tracklisting again I guess that some of those tracks would have been considered cool/'credible' at the time and some wouldn't, but I think these distinctions matter less to people the further away you get from the era they were released?

'these dreams' is a good call

I agree that Head Over Heals is not corny enough for this kind of appreciation, but maybe Heaven Is A Place On Earth/I Get Weak/Circle In The Sand? they are all great but also corny imo

Heaven is a Place on Earth has scored in this field via Black Mirror iirc

xps I don't think I ever noticed before that it's written "T'Shirts" and not T-Shirts

xps Oh and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G4O5AMSevc

Cornier than Field of Dreams.

xp LL - thanks for mentioning that! There's like 20 excellent near-forgotten songs in that Black Mirror episode.

well only one of the girls is actually wearing a t-shirt

t'shirts made me lol
it's like t'pau

As long as there isn't a fucking 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' resurgence...

I heard this in a Walgreen's yesterday and was depressed

would totally support Michael Penn "No Myth" revival imo

xpost I would enjoy that song more if 20 seconds in the music gave way to the sounds of a shotgun pump, a loud blast, screams, and then nothing but stunned silence and sobbing

That's a good song. He was kind of a proto-Elliott Smith with less self-loathing

xp

the lyrics for "no myth" are sufficiently verbose, i think this one has a chance

I mentioned it because I hear it these days at CVS

"No Myth" helped me win back an ex-girlfriend. (Reader, I married her.)

i just watched the video and 1) it's terrible 2) seeing michael penn again reminded me how cuuuuute he was and 3) all the lyrics about romeo and heathcliff and who knows what else are balanced by the repeated universally understood message that "she's just looking for someone to dance with" which let's face it, resonates in a universally understood way like "it's gonna take a lot to take me away from you"

sometime from now you'll bow to pressure!

"No Myth" is a perfect single and he was adorable. March was the first album on CD I ever bought.

No Myth > Barely Breathing > Breakfast at Tiffany's > Friends Theme.

You're welcome.

i just checked and he is still very easy on the eyes

No Myth is awesome.

Wasn't there some indie cover of Heart's "Alone" not long ago?

Robert Forster covered it about twenty years ago.

there's this piece of shit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uep94GnfiOI

oh lord pac

Fingerless gloves are the new Linda Perry hat-goggles.

No Myth > Barely Breathing > Breakfast at Tiffany's > Friends Theme.

You're welcome.

― Each of us faces a clear moral choice. (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, September 21, 2017 8:31 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What about the theme tune from Baywatch?

I see I already mentioned the 2007 Rune Lindbæk edit upthread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQOU7Nz2xuE

So this was 2013, a good example of the song as lazy punchline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9F86cAoi3o

"these dreams" is an example of a song I thought was insufferable at the time, and which is indisputably corny as hell, yet which in my early middle age has become totally poignant and beautiful to me; i matured into it

THERE'S SOMETHIN' OUT THERE

"alone" on the other hand is just fire. Ann Wilson's singing on the choruses is like a silver sword.

I like those Heart AOR power ballads pretty well, but I think it's because I was the bullseye age. Like, These Dreams was ... 1985? Which means I was 10, didn't have MTV, no CDs, iirc no walkman, even (the first friend of mine who got one was playing "Back in the Highlife"), so that was peak '80s radio listening for me.

also black tiger in video

iirc

It was pretty common practice to sneak large cats into many videos back then, as little easter eggs for those willing to rewatch and spot them.

https://i2.wp.com/thegrio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/tumblr_m9iuxlru2g1rrywaao1_500.jpg?fit=500%2C500