Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by Singlebladepickup » Thu May 31, 2018 8:51 am

Jaguar018 wrote:
Thu May 31, 2018 8:16 am
mezcalhead wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 8:47 pm
I've liked that song since I first heard it in my early teens, and I say that completely without irony.
When I refer to internet twee people, I am generally talking about people that were not born when that song came out. Most of the folks that were around for the original don't feel the need to harass Weezer via social media to do a cover. I could be wrong. :mellow:

As a person who grew up listening to a lot of classic rock and top 40 music in the 80s, the song Africa is fairly harmless in my subjective judgment. I think it's decent, but I never felt compelled to own it or put it on mix tapes.

I think liking things ironically is something that happens to a certain type of people in their late teens and twenties before they know better. I know I have done it in the past, but now I just find it tiresome. With that said, I watch a lot of B-movies and marvel at how bad some of them can be. I don't know how ironic that is.
I like some stuff that I also find silly or bad. Unless you’re putting on a show for people, I don’t really even understand what enjoying something ironically means. Like if you had a normcore phase but nobody is around to see, or you listen to Toto by yourself...unless you’re actively thinking about others while you’re doing it, that’s your style. The irony would only be that you don’t recognize your own style, not that you’re enjoying it if you actually are

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by daemon » Thu May 31, 2018 9:11 am

I'm having trouble reconciling that I live in a world where "normcore" is even a thing.
As far as Weezer, the first album was a watershed moment, but pretty much everything after that has been fairly non-essential (including this cover).

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by mackerelmint » Thu May 31, 2018 12:08 pm

I dislike Weezer. Always have. I like this song, or a at least the original. So I gave the cover a chance.

I think the "straight up" cover with the crunchy guitars in parts thing has been done to death, so I can't say it's got originality going for it. But what really bothers me, the thing that is absolutely deafening about this cover, is that the drummer is so unporcaro that the song just never had a chance. It just doesn't work with that ham-fisted drumming. And the sound of the kit stinks, too. Part of that is probably the mix, but snares should be tuned up tighter than a nun's cunt, or they sound like a basketball being dribbled, as is the case here. That thing is just boinging around all over the place, and there's no trace of the rhythm that held the original together. It's where my new sig came from, a friend of mine remarking on the shit drumming on this track.

If you can't do a respectable job of playing a Jeff porcaro beat, don't try unless you're learning. If you do, don't record it. If you do, don't release it. If you do, you fucked up.

They should have called in a studio player and just not told anyone.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by MechaBulletBill » Thu May 31, 2018 12:13 pm

I don't get why the internet would embrace Africa (borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties) and seemingly disregard their Dune score.

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by mackerelmint » Thu May 31, 2018 12:14 pm

Also, I don't understand listening to something "ironically". I'm a terrible gen Xer. I think "normcore" is just the deceptive blanket term for giving up the plausible deniability of liking things ironically among my generation.

Kinda silly.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by Larry Mal » Thu May 31, 2018 1:15 pm

The whole thing about "normcore"*, at least as I imagine it, is that for a while in the 90s there was this thing where all of a sudden it was cool for bands to, you know, look just like you! And your friends!

"I can relate to this band because they look like me and my friends! Just a bunch of schmucks up there!"

That bores the shit out of me. I don't want the musicians I listen to to be schmucks like me and my friends, that's why I put on the music in the first place, to take me away from myself and my friends.

Kind of like why I hate heartland rock, and Roseanne, the show. I don't need to hear my own life and values reflected back to me. That's boring, I do that every day.

Give me something fantastic, show me something new, or that seems new. Be daring. Be original.

*That's assuming that "normcore" is even a thing. Even if it's not, fuck it.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by PorkyPrimeCut » Thu May 31, 2018 1:29 pm

This is one of the most unimaginative covers I've ever heard.

For the record, I'm kinda fond of Africa. The first record I ever owned was Toto IV and I think I specifically asked for it (for Xmas) because of this song. I was 9 years old. I've noticed it grow in popularity again lately. I guess it was only a matter of time before this happened.

As for Weezer. I never liked 'em.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by shadowplay » Thu May 31, 2018 1:40 pm

Speaking personally a whole thread for one song is a bit much if you ask me. There's a great cover thread that Telliot started, a whole thread for a novelty cover is like booking a brass band every time you open a pack of crisps.

D
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by Fiddy » Thu May 31, 2018 1:55 pm

I always hated that song.

I like Weezer. I like the green album.

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by mackerelmint » Thu May 31, 2018 2:34 pm

shadowplay wrote:
Thu May 31, 2018 1:40 pm
Speaking personally a whole thread for one song is a bit much if you ask me. There's a great cover thread that Telliot started, a whole thread for a novelty cover is like booking a brass band every time you open a pack of crisps.

D
But this is noteworthy, though, because the drumming is so bad. It's like if some famous band covered Van Halen, trying to do it straight up, but the guitarist didn't know the song and they released it anyway. I think that *I* could have done better behind the kit, and that's really saying something.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by Larry Mal » Thu May 31, 2018 3:01 pm

Are we sure that's a real drummer?
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by mackerelmint » Thu May 31, 2018 3:04 pm

Not even the rhythm section of an old organ can sound as shitty as that guy does on that track.

Which is weird, because he seemed to do a passible job on their cover of Rosanna, but even though the rest of the band clearly put in the effort on this track, he didn't. It just makes him look like an asshole.

Like maybe the engineer thought "fuck this guy for phoning it in like that" and left his parts rough so people would notice. I wouldn't be surprised.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Thu May 31, 2018 11:18 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Wed May 30, 2018 6:38 am

Maybe we can all finally admit that "Africa" is a great song, though.
No. We can't. Absolutely not.

I remember hearing this on Top Of The Pops when it first came out and that gawd-awful line (which, the internet tells me, is actually*) "As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti" absolutely floored me. The sneer has never left my face since.

By the way, the concensus on this song may be exactly the opposite of what you claim, Larry.




* For the record, I heard "Olympus" as "a lepress". I'm not sure which is worse, but I think we can all finally admit that is one of the worst lines ever to (dis)grace a pop lyric.

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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by mackerelmint » Thu May 31, 2018 11:38 pm

Lepress is a good word. I'll forever hear it that way now, which improves it. I think it's a perfectly fine song, but a random bit of leprosy improves a lot of things.
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Re: Weezer covered "Africa" by toto

Post by Futuron » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:38 am

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Thu May 31, 2018 11:18 pm
I think we can all finally admit that is one of the worst lines ever to (dis)grace a pop lyric.
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