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Toto
Toto, formed by a group of top Los Angeles session musicians who'd already played on numerous other artists' hit recordings before forming their own band, brought an unusually high level of collective technical musicianship to their own recordings from the group's earliest work. Their 1982 song "Africa" became one of the most enduringly popular songs of the era, and its unexpected 2010s viral internet resurgence, including numerous cover versions and memes decades after its original release, gave the song a level of continued cultural relevance unusual for a song from that specific era. The band's members' extensive prior session work, having played on recordings for artists including Michael Jackson, Boz Scaggs, and Steely Dan themselves, gave Toto's own recordings a polished, technically accomplished production quality directly reflecting the members' professional studio backgrounds. Toto's combination of genuine technical musicianship, drawn from their members' session musician expertise, and "Africa" specifically becoming one of the most culturally persistent songs of the smooth rock era has made them one of the most recognizable acts associated with the polished late-1970s and early-1980s "yacht rock" sound.
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Hall & Oates
Hall & Oates, the duo of Daryl Hall and John Oates, are the best-selling musical duo in music history according to the RIAA, blending soul, R&B, and pop influences into a smooth, radio-friendly sound that dominated American pop charts throughout the early-to-mid 1980s. Their songs "Rich Girl," "Maneater," and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" became defining hits of the era, and the duo's combination of genuine R&B and soul influence with polished pop production gave their music crossover appeal across multiple radio formats simultaneously. Hall's distinctive tenor voice, drawing directly on his early exposure to Philadelphia's significant soul music scene, gave Hall & Oates a level of genuine vocal soul authenticity that distinguished them from some smoother-sounding pop contemporaries later grouped under the "yacht rock" label. The duo's massive commercial success during the 1980s, combined with their later critical reassessment and retroactive inclusion within the "yacht rock" genre revival of the 2000s, has made Hall & Oates one of the most enduringly popular acts associated with that smooth, polished late-1970s and early-1980s pop-rock sound.
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