Toto Toto 1978 (Columbia)
Don't look now, you better watch that sword.
The Lowdown
Toto’s debut album probably ranks as their most ‘all encompassing’ release from what is their golden period, which more or less covers their first seven albums. Purists though might claim that period ended after their fourth album
Toto IV, but as with most things this is really a matter of opinion. As stated earlier the band members were already vets as recording artists by the time they issued out their debut album, so what they were doing now on their debut, was simply just going public and doing it for themselves rather than for somebody else. Every track on the debut is well crafted (despite the fact that I feel one of its best known tracks does drag a bit) and the album probably fuses their early R&B influences with their harder rocking and epic sections better than with any of their other albums from this period, and in many ways the ‘progressive’ tag comes to mind here due to the diversity of the album. In fact the nearest album to the debut in terms of feel is probably
Toto IV, but even that album for all its fame is not as wholly representing of the band’s initial core sound as this album.
As a whole the album set out what is was designed to do and that was to usher in another mainstream band that would cement AOR as a rock genre and would dominate the US charts. The album went 2x platinum and cracked the US top 10 album chart and contained three hit singles in “I’ll Supply the Love” “Georgy Porgy” and the timeless hard rock classic “Hold the Line”. Despite its success critics back in the day were fairly scathing of the album as a whole, particularly criticizing the band’s tendency to over indulge in the instrumentation department, but any Toto lover will tell you that is one of the reasons why the band were so great.
The album is heavily characteristic of the band’s trademark musical style and their ability to carry quality tracks consistently over the space of an album. Their trademark double-edged sword which appears on the album cover was designed by Philip Garris and is very much an album cover of its time. The album cover denotes a certain amount of mystique surrounding the band, even though I view this album as one of their least mystique, their following Hydra would delve more into that territory. As an album the Toto debut in my opinion is probably the perfect place to start for anybody getting into AOR as it’s a gorgeous and hooky classic, even more so than say the highly acclaimed Boston debut which came out a few years earlier.