Although my love for corny ’80s music is undeniable I can’t say I’m necessarily a fan of every big cheesey ’80s hit. I am not, for example, all too psyched about the Lite-but-Progressive-Rock band Toto’s big hit singles “Africa” and “Rosana,” both of which hit the charts in 1982.
Sure, “Africa” features a compelling story, but I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing when I was a kid and it would come on my radio in the least. And the Grammy-winning “Rosana” has some kitsch value since it’s widely believed to be about actress Rosanna Arquette, but I didn’t know that then, nor do I think I even knew who Rosanna Arquette was at the time. Besides, thanks to flicks like True Romance, the young me would grow to appreciate her sister Patricia far more anyway, and there are, to my knowledge, no songs dedicated to her anywhere in my record collection.
Digressions aside, my apathy towards Toto’s bread-and-butter compositions doesn’t mean I have a disdain for the band itself. It’s actually kind of difficult to hate on a super-group comprised of some of the most prolific studio musicians of the 1970’s, having worked with R&B-influenced rocker Boz Scaggs, sarcastic Jazz-Rock act Steely Dan and even wuss-Rock duo Seals & Croft. In fact, the genesis of the band occurred when future Toto members David Paich, Jeff Porcaro and David Hungate found themselves working with Scaggs’ to record his hit Silk Degrees LP, a record which featured 6 tracks co-written by Paich, including the Grammy-winning classic “Lowdown” and the oldies radio staple “Lido Shuffle.”
While the band’s 1978 self-titled debut shares some things in common with Silk Degrees — it’s not as consistently funky and clearly marks out the trajectory (a sometimes jazzy, sometimes proggy brand of Soft-Rock/Power-Pop) that the band would take to it’s ultimate triumph in the ’80s — it still has it’s moments. Tracks like the album-opening “Child’s Anthem,” and the hit single “Hold the Line” are interesting in an over-dramatic “could have been sampled by Dipset” sort of way, which is what the band was ultimately the best at. But any real cache held by the album stems from “Georgy Porgy” and “Takin’ it Back,” a pair of soulful gems that are the highlights of their respective sides.
If you were listening to Hip-Hop in the early ’90s you should know the laid back Disco groover “Georgy Porgy” since it’s main riff and “kiss the girls” vocal refrain (courtesy of guest Cheryl Lynn) were notably sampled. But aside from that it really is one of the best Soul/Funk/Disco numbers accredited to a band otherwise known as a Rock or Pop act, and gives the aforementioned likes of Boz Scaggs, Steely Dan, and even Bobby Caldwell, a run for their money in that department.
I guess that means my nostalgia for the Hip-Hop of my teen years, and by extension the music it sampled, beats out my nostalgia for the schmaltzy Pop of my childhood.
-El Keter
