In 1983, the band Toto followed up the big hits Hold the Line and Rosanna with a song about the dark continent; Africa.
At the time, a critic called the song “the perfect marriage of terrible and good”, with its acute musicality – he describes it as “well-played, well-sung, harmonically enticing, rhythmically enticing” – juxtaposed with a “completely incoherent text about Africa”.
While it’s hard to argue with any of that, it is a pretty catchy tune.
Then in 2017, a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland, Ohio launched a campaign on Twitter to get the band Weezer to record the song. Why? Nobody really seems to know. But the band eventually succumbed to popular demand and did so and it became a moderate hit.
Recently, a group of people in Australia who just love singing, gave it a go. And by a group, I mean over 18,000 singers. The Pub Choir meet to belt out a song together every few months. Their leaders teach a well-known song in 3-part harmony to non-trained singers.
Past efforts have included The Cranberries Zombie and Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
In the case of Africa, they recorded 18,812 singers in several different locations throughout the Australian continent, accompanied by 37 professional musicians, including one guy with a bullwhip. Yes, a bullwhip!
Why? Because singing makes you feel good. And, in fact, just watching people in this video singing can make you feel pretty good as well.
The result is pretty cool.
[YouTube: Pub Choir] [The Music Man UK] [Wikipedia: Africa]
