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YMMV / Toto

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  • Awesome Music: "Africa" and "Hold the Line" are this for quite a few people.
  • Critical Dissonance: It's difficult to find words for how much these guys were despised by critics, before being Vindicated by History. They were all highly skilled session musicians who aimed for polished production styles and precise songwriting, which was at odds with what the critics liked at the time. When Toto IV won six Grammys, they were accused of fixing the awards.
  • Epic Riff: The triplet piano motif and guitar riff in "Hold the Line" are probably the best known. There's also the tribal drum beats and synth riff in "Africa", and the drum intro of "Rosanna".
  • Friendly Fandoms: With Weezer after both bands covered a song by the other.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Like a few Arena Rock groups, their popularity in Europe probably eclipses their popularity in their native United States. This is particularly true in the Netherlands; their albums continued to chart well there long after their success had diminished in their home country, and their 25th anniversary show was filmed in Amsterdam.
  • Memetic Mutation: In The New '10s, it's become something of a meme to heap tons of hyperbolic praise on their song "Africa", making it into the musical equivalent of a Memetic Badass.
  • Misattributed Song: "Hold the Line" and "I'll Supply the Love" were big hits, but a lot of people thought they were by Foreigner, Journey or Boston. This was a big problem for Toto; the fact that they'd played on just about every record to come out of Los Angeles meant that they'd practically defined the sound of the eighties and as a result, they struggled to find a unique sound of their own.
  • Narm Charm: This is the likely reason behind the resurgence in popularity of "Africa" in The New '10s.
  • Replacement Scrappy: One album singers Fergie Frederiksen and Jean-Michel Byron. Even the members of the band hated Byron. If you ask them, they will be sure to remind you that he was forced upon them by the record company.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Patrick Swayze played one of the gang members in the "Rosanna" video. His face is visible near the end of the video, during the gang fight. The girl in the red dress was played by Swayze's future Dirty Dancing dancing partner Cynthia Rhodes.
  • Signature Song: "Hold the Line", and "Africa".

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