Hatesong: Toto - "Africa"

Not to mention a massive drought in the Sahel, though I don’t really think the song’s about that. Or anything. It’s a definite case of “we stumbled on something catchy and distinctive” and leaving it at that. There’s not that next level of composition to turn that into something actually good.

ETA: Though I don’t think I ever heard this in the Netherlands, I can confirm that places do tend to rotate the same few background music songs like crazy (much more so than the US), often for something like eighteen months at a time (I think there are actually rebroadcast/ambient music rights issues in Europe that play some role in limiting what can be played in the background). Just hearing something okay, a bit dated but overall rather innocuous over and over again can drive one mad (or even good ones—I’m a bit sick of a lot of Random Access Memories, for instance). And there were legitimately awful songs that remained omnipresent—“Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, for instance.

In one Hatesong you cruelly and unreasonably malign three of the greatest songs from the 80s: Africa, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Down Under. I'm going to put my Patrick Bateman suit on now and explain why you are wrong.

1. Africa: the key to this song is the harmonies in the chorus. Sure, the guy doesn't know or is wilfully blind as to how to pronounce Serengeti, but when the harmonies kick in on the chorus All Is Forgiven. That Louis CK-looking chap on youtube comes close with the harmonies, and for a moment you think you've stumbled across something as eternal and true as that supercut of Leif GW Persson saying "uhhhhrrrr" for an entire minute, but then NO--his bass player/harmony singer just holds ONE NOTE for every syllable of the word "Africa". The whole reason for that song to exist is so that the harmony part can dip and then rise again on the word "Africa". Without the dip and rise it is garbage, since it is the dip and rise that tells the story of the entire continent and thus, by extension, the entire world. The dip and rise in the harmony part on that single word is all ye know and all ye need know.

2. Total Eclipse of the Heart: I know you're just trolling with this one, since Bonnie Tyler's vocal is obviously one of the most intense and poignant vocals that the 80s produced--the yin to Steve Perry's yang on "Don't Stop Believing". It is nothing short of a roller coaster ride driven by an insane monkey who holds your balls and whispers quiet encouragement with every merciless squeeze. Bonnie's voice starts low, husky, crouching in the reeds nursing a wound. Her vocal then stands on its hind legs and begins to inspect its own scars. Halfway through, you are certain that her voice cannot have any gas left in the tank, but then BOOM her voice's hind legs hit the pedal to the metal! It is the voice of a broken woman who is holding it together just long enough to shriek her raspy, incoherent complaint at the moon. By the end her voice is broken and she's screaming "I REALLY NEED YOU TONIGHT" so desperately that I am done and am on the way over and I have already texted her my bank account and PIN number in case she needs any money.

3. Down Under: first of all I want to point out that this is a very catchy melody, but that isn't the only reason why it's a great song. It is also a great song because when it begins you think you have the singer pegged, and you say to yourself "O I GET IT YOU ARE LOW-TALKING AUSTRALIA GUY". Then the chorus comes, and by the time he sings "YOU BETTER RUN" he is up there in the clouds with the Bee Gees, singing high notes but still retaining a manly husk in his voice, like an angel with massive, God-given balls.

I cannot tell you how much I admire the writing in this, @billyboy. Really, genuinely excellent work. Allow me to raise some counterpoints, to whit:

1) No.

2) The thing about referring to something as a "camp classic", as I do, is that most people tend to focus on the first word of that statement in a pejorative manner, rather than the second word - there's a reason for the word "classic" to be in there too. And ol' Leatherlungs can belt it out with the best of them. Well, the loudest of them anyway. I mean, it's trashy, and it's obviously trashy but it's also a song that overcomes its own inherent naffness by sheer force of will and momentum. Unlike, say, "Africa" by Toto.

3) Nope. Also, I really dislike the Bee Gee's (says the man who wrote a Gateway to Geekery for Abba...) so um. Yea. There's a difference between liking something because it stirs up vague feelings of nostalgia (I'm lookin' at you, pairesta) and it actually being, y'know, good. I still listen to Adam Ant from time to time, largely because he was my first crush, but I'm not going to defend it as great music or anything (well, maybe Dirk Wears White Sox).

OK, those points are flippant, but my first sentence isn't. Quite excellent.

WHAT? Adam and the Ants were fantastic.

And I do not draw a line between things I like for nostalgia, and things I like for quality. Who decides what's good, anyway? Well, you, I suppose, in this thread...

@scarlettletterowhora - To be honest I do enjoy listening to Adam and the Ants, and as I mentioned I think "Dirk Wears White Sox" is a legitimately good to great album, and I'll defend the "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" album as well. Where Mr Ant and I part company is his mid-80s belief that politics and music shouldn't mix ("We're the dandy highwaymen so tired of excuses / of deep meaning philosophies where only showbiz loses", for example, or "so tired of anarchists looking at me / don't need their credibility, "destory", they say, "defy, condemn!" / as long as you don't destroy them"), because I believe strongly that music and politics should engage - that doesn't mean every song needs to be political, obviously (though there is an argument to say that basically all songs are), but to intentionally force a separation isn't something I can agree with. Even though, unlike the vast bulk of his New Romantic stablemates, he did at least pick a side and write about something, which I do appreciate even while disagreeing with it. 

I have a complex relationship with Adam Ant, is what I'm getting at.

Saying that, both as ...and the Ants and as a solo artist, he knocked out some terrifically fun singles, there's no denying that and, even though it's not his best work, I've always loved "Vive Le Rock", his largely forgotten swansong, alongside the more obvious contenders ("Prince Charming", "Goody Two Shoes", "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" and so on). I can't ever write him off, but I can't ever get completely behind him either. Much though my teenage self would have enjoyed that...

See, but that's the thing - All About That Bass is disguised as a body-positive message, but she body-shames thin girls instead. She could have written that song without the line about "skinny bitches". (I should note that I am not skinny, either.)

Meghan Trainor annoys the crap out of me, she pretends to be this sassy body positive feminist but it's just more subtle about its shaming.

Ah, I didn't think about that, but you're right. The "skinny bitches" line isn't cool. She shouldn't be tearing someone else down to prop herself up. 

suuure, that makes it all better

That's so weird. The New Romantics were an outgrowth of punk; Adam Ant was in Jubilee, for crying out loud. Did he also hate goth music?

Not sure where to post this, so I thought it would go here.  Prole Hole.


Toto's 'Africa': The Oral History of '80s Pop's Most-Spoofed Megahit

Aside from how catchy and well constructed the song is, as far as harmonies and stuff, it's just such a joy to sing along with. I'm a horrible singer, and don't know the technical terms for any of it, but the vocal gymnastics of it are all such fun. It's like, no word or phrase keeps the same note throughout, so you're constantly shifting up and down and warbling through things that should just be a steady tone. Add in the convoluted phrasing, it's like vocal parkour.

You know, I couldn't be happier I chose this song. It's always so great when you get a good, ongoing discussion , regardless of which side of the debate you're on, and I certainly was not expecting to see a Japanese cover quite like that.

The song still sucks though.

The story behind Toto's 'Africa'

"One of the reasons I was in a rock band was to see the world. As a kid, I’d always been fascinated by Africa. I loved movies about Dr Livingstone and missionaries. I went to an all-boys Catholic school and a lot of the teachers had done missionary work in Africa. They told me how they would bless the villagers, their Bibles, their books, their crops and, when it rained, they’d bless the rain. That’s where the hook line – “I bless the rains down in Africa” – came from."

But this is the TIF, so it can always be two things.