What do you really think of Africa by Toto

[marquis_de_sad]

Mr. Brightside was a great song and it's great melody, great rhythm within it's melody as well and it tells it's own story as well and to do so with so much energy and so much flare that yeah, as a band, great fun.

Nags, delete your account. It's over.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Where does "The whole of the moon" fit into all of this?

Somewhere near Love Shack.

[alan nagsworth]

Nags, delete your account. It's over.

James Blunt is a fucking P.I.M.P., this forum's lost the plot. I should have seen it coming when the awful album covers thread kept churning out more-than-passable work.

[Dewt]

Where does "The whole of the moon" fit into all of this?

Incredibly boring personal anecdote about that. I choose it as a song to try and transcribe when I was trying to learn better piano skills as a young 'un. Hooked up a MIDI keyboard to record myself playing the intro chords and couldn't figure out why mine sounded like shit. That's when I had the realisation, "oh right, dynamics"

see, boring

[ersatz99]

Speaking of which Roger Sanchez - Another Heart which got to #1 in 2001 used the vocal/piano intro to Toto - I Won't Hold You Back

This has made my day, thanks.

[Dewt]

Ah yeah, I didn't realise it was a Toto sample!

[phantom_power]

I think Africa is a bad song in terms of songwriting but the synths are lush and captivating.

It depends what you mean by songwriting. The lyrics are a bit crap but the harmonising in the chorus is great and the whole thing is melodically pretty interesting

[buzby]

It depends what you mean by songwriting. The lyrics are a bit crap but the harmonising in the chorus is great and the whole thing is melodically pretty interesting

The sound of the Eventide Harmonizer. They also used the Publison DHM89 digital delay (the forerunner of the Infernal Machine 90 soe beloved of S/A/W). The synths were the Yamaha CS80 and the Kalimba sound came form the then-new Yamaha GS1, their first FM synth (the forebear of the DX1 and DX7) plus a bit of MiniMoog and Prophet V. The basis for the drum track was a one bar tape loop edited out of a 6-minute playthrough.

[phantom_power]

I more meant the way they add harmonies to the vocals in each line of the chorus

[the science eel]

REM were working towards this kind of thing their whole career. And they split up just before they got there! such a shame

[kngen]

Africa brings up a very specific childhood memory for me (driving down a big hill on Ngong Road in Nairobi on a sunny day, the song coming on the radio and my mum turning it up and us both singing along - a rare happy memory from a fairly turbulent time in my young life), so I feel like I get to have an emotional attachment to the song (me, not you) even if it was the worst song in the world. But it's clearly not. Even the hazy geography (immediately apparent to anyone living in Kenya, which is right next to Mount Kilimanjaro) doesn't ruin what is a pretty fucking great slice of AOR cheese.


Confused by the mentions of Mr Brightside because my head registered it as both Mr Brownstone by Guns N'Roses and Mr Jones by Counting Crows - had to listen to it on Youtube: 'Oh, that one,' I thought. Is it really that popular? It must be, as I immediately recognised it even though I had no idea what it was called or who it was by, but didn't realise it was the cultural phenomenon people here have said it was.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

^ the correct ranking of "Mr B.S. " songs is as follows, from best to worst: Blue Sky, Brownstone, Brightside