TOTO "africa" classic or dud

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.

sleeve otm

there are entire genres of music that seem to be huge in america that are known in the civilised world through ironic shout outs in american tv/sitcoms

most of them are bad, very bad.

I don’t recall being specifically aware of “DSB” in the ‘90s )or it having any special place in “the culture”).

I do remember being aware of the Toto song, but not sure how. Was a snippet of it maybe played & identified in a TV ad for one of those mail-order compilation albums?

I remember being in a hipster diner in Philly after closing time in like 2001 and when DSB came on the radio everyone started singing along and playing air guitar--so it had some kind of ironicred pre-Sopranos

hey did you guys know there’s not even really a “south Detroit”

there was a rollerskating scene in Monster (w Christina Ricci & Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos) in 2003 that used DSB that recontextualized it for me. Before that it was just a corny Journey song but it seemed a little more poignant after that. I didn't see the Sopranos finale until much later, but that didn't happen until 2007.

Africa remains a mystery but I have always liked it, ever since it came out and i was a dumb little kid. It's got a big chorus & a cool beat. What more do you want.

I was a huge DSB fan as a kid so it never really left my consciousness

Dave Q was citing it as a quintessential AOR song in 2002: Top 10 AOR Songs

I do remember being aware of the Toto song, but not sure how. Was a snippet of it maybe played & identified in a TV ad for one of those mail-order compilation albums?

DSB has always been a huge song, its popularity with Golden Age Of TV viewers is what’s new. America was there before Columbus discovered it. Etc.

omar otm

It was never unfamiliar to me but tbf I don't remember it being THIS huge before the millennial revival: it has more than twice as many Spotify plays as "More Than a Feeling" or "Dream On", over 10 times as many as The Cars' "Just What I Needed". I would have pegged it as less big than at least the first two of those songs in the 90s. I probably heard "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" nearly as often.

i'm sure i heard it before this, but the first time i ever heard the song knowing it was "africa" by toto was in an episode of Chuck

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

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

nor any silk degrees which would be a huge absence for me personally

imo you can't fuck with the band that played "lowdown"

well technically, we still could've had the even numbered thriller tracks, plus wanna be startin' somethin'

i think that's why "as we know it" was in there

right. anyway, sleeve please don't murder porcaro before he has the chance to play on Katy Lied

even that Chuck performance is passable because this song is unimpeachably perfect.

Can someone summarize why this song is so popular/meme-ified at the moment?

A. random churn of pop nostalgia
B. Weezer cover
C. incessant news cycle thrives on memes
D. all of the above

i remember the song being on a fast food commercial. towards the end of me regularly watching on air TV there were all these retro 80s commercials where they would play a one hit wonder like this and that would be the gag.

honestly it is just a well recorded song. the synth is my favorite part, the were futuristic robotic waterfall arpeggio after the 7 main notes doooo-dooo-dooo-do-do-d-dooooooo
dingdingindingdillidindingdingdiddlingdingdingdingding

weezer cover is the end result of it being memeified, it happened due to someone on twitter campaigning for them to cover it as a joke

my contribution to this meme was substantially completed in 2007 following my post-"Yacht Rock" flirtation with Toto fandom. it was never released, made no impact whatsoever, and the current version from 2010 has multiple passages where i got disgusted with corny/crowd-pleasing verse samples and ripped them out leaving nothing behind. take that, meme sheeple!!

xp along with their focus group to pick songs for their album, I wonder if Weezer makes any moves today that are not suggested by their fans

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.

― enochroot

the way mike patton says "eww" right before the solo sells the hell out of it

the version with the spoken-word intro is ass, though, the "songs to make love to" version is the fucking one

also, like, fuck it. can we just talk about popol vuh instead? they're really good.

there's popol that a hundred men or more could ever vuh

Everyone in my family except me went to see Sir Ringo Starr & his big band last year. They played "Africa". The keyboard player was from Toto which somehow made it a reasonable thing to do at a Ringo Starr gig.

"africa" by toto is a great song

― 21st savagery fox (m bison), Wednesday, May 9, 2018 7:34 PM (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree, "africa" by toto is a great song

I don't know where we landed on this, but my 2 cents:

Africa was popular when it came out in the 80s and is popular again now.

DSB never stopped being popular, it's a classic rock staple, although it did get an additional boost from Sopranos.

to counter sleeve

the extended mix of this song is indeed great, and annihilates the overplayed original

this song definitely inspired tornado wallace and possibly dawn richard 86, though that last one might be a stretch

but in fairness to sleeve i would never dj this myself unless at home with buddies, it is way too visible

dawn richard "86" is better than this song

No one else seems to have expressed this viewpoint, so...

Weezer cover is awesome and, in part, precisely because it's note for note (the other part being that "Africa" by Toto is a good song).

^ so much this
The Weezer version came on the local AAA radio station during my commute yesterday, and I had that exact thought sequence.
The underlying song is so good that a note-perfect cover version is exactly the right way to play it.

then why play it at all

Yeah, this feels a bit like when Shakin' Stevens shows up on early 80's TOTP and I just wonder "did they not have Elvis records back then?"

I get it, weezer trying to make money, but shit, this is bottom feeder behavior

then why play it at all
― calstars, Tuesday, July 31, 2018 8:45 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Probably because that twitter campaign to get them to cover it went viral, and they decided to be good sports about it.

Here's an interview with the Weezer bassist:

Q: Would you have believed it, if someone told you a few years ago that you're going to have your biggest hit of the decade, but the bad news is, it's going to be Toto's "Africa"?

A: It's a great story how it started, with a fan reaching out, and us tweeting back. Then we released (a cover of Toto's) "Rosanna," that really confused everyone. I guess we were just kind of doing it for us, because it was fun, having no idea it was such a good story.

Q: "Africa" is all over the internet. There's even dancing dog memes. What is it about that song?

A: Obviously, it's a world class hit song, so there's that, and it's just kind of globally relatable, somehow. I don't know, it's a massive song. Wasn't it in Season 2 of "Stranger Things"? It started with that, and a lot of younger people became aware of it.

Q: Does part of you wonder if you'll be tied to Toto's "Africa" forever, and have to play it all the time?

A: Yeah, I think Rivers said as much: "OK, now we get to play this for the rest of our career. Ready? Go." How can you be mad? The whole amphitheatre lights up and sings along. No matter what I think about a particular song, to see everyone have such a great time, you can't help but have fun.

No matter what I think about a particular song, to see everyone have such a great time, you can't help but have fun.
the opposite of a board description

Toto returns the favor

This is going to be a split 7" for RSD next year, isn't it?

I get it, weezer trying to make money, but shit, this is bottom feeder behavior

i know this band and this song are both big jokes to the cool kids, but Weezer is doing just fine without covering Africa. they might've done it to feel loved, but they didn't do it for the money.

we are living in hell

Can't wait for Toto to do "Tired of Having Sex"

we are living in hell

This is going to be a split 7" for RSD next year, isn't it?

i think Weezer already put out their own 7"

we are living in hell

nah. ive made my peace w Weezer, they are just old dudes trying to stay relevant at this point. going back and listening to their first ever hit, "Buddy Holly", that cool/uncool opening line "What's with these homies dissing my girl?", etc. kind of makes you realize they've always been like this, it's just the mid-late 90s was the right time right place, they were a younger band back then, and past the mask has been slipping ever since.