My Testimonial
The music that makes us who we are is a funny thing: although I tend to be rather album oriented, we can always identify those individuals songs that stuck to as as kids. By nature most people are very singles-oriented to begin with and remain so all their lives: why else would Top 40 radio exist otherwise?
My dad is one such person. He was always an avid radio music listener since the 70's, transitioning from CSN&Y to Scorpions, Pink Floyd and the like as he entered millitary service in the early 80's. But after getting into programming and becoming more and more involved in a corporate based career from the 90's onwards, he drifted away from music until the advent of ITunes in the early 00's. All of a sudden, he began rabidly collecting singles and albums of stuff that made up his young adult years and showing them to me and my younger brother at every opportunity. One of those bands was Toto, and the song in question that made up his first "single" purchase was the Steve Lukather-led 'Georgy Porgy' from the 1978 self-titled best selling debut.
To the ears of a middle schooler, it was something of a musical marvel. I had been weaned on bands like Disturbed, Dokken, and mostly heavy rock bands, so I had very little experience in anything R&B-ish. All it took was this one song to broaden my world and convince me to explore further. Over the course of growing up I've since spent time with all their various albums, followed the various band members across the thousands of collective albums they've done session work on...but all it takes is one good song at the right place and time to convince you that your listening to something special. Toto showed me that a band can keep tabs in all sorts of different territory and yet retain traits that give them a distinctive, cohesive identity over the course of many years.
For me, Toto are one of the bona fide, all time greats. They've never done a bad record, are always at the top of their game, consistently doing new things...and thus they definitely deserve the sort of in-depth reviewing we're giving them with this journal. Hope you all enjoy this collaboration!
Last edited by Anteater; 03-08-2015 at 05:21 PM.
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