Side Two
Unknown Soldier: So "
Goodbye Girl" kind of harks back to the heavy intro of "Child's Anthem" and Bobby by now shows he's the principal vocalist.
Anteater: Bobby kills it in a good way here. It’s the album's centerpiece in some ways, plus it sheds some light on to the fact that Toto were willing to tackle longer, more intricate material if they needed to.
Anteater: There's a strident feel to it, and when Lukather jumps into his solo a little over halfway through it almost sounds like we're dealing with a jazz-fusion band instead of a particularly talented pop-rock ensemble.
Unknown Soldier: The song is slap bang in the middle and also shows both complexity and speed to great effect. It's also the point of the album where you know that every song is going to be great.
Anteater: That chorus is AOR gold too
Anteater: Weirdly enough, I think Kimball sounds a lot like future vocalist Joseph Williams on it.
Unknown Soldier: Jazz-fusion, soul and R&B are all labels tossed at this album. Well Joseph William's appointment to the band was to try and recapture that kind of Bobby Kimball vocal anyway.
Anteater: Agreed. But after you get done with a song as good as 'Girl Goodbye' and hear echoes of it in future material, I guess it could be argued that David Paich almost singlehandedly formulated the Toto equation and the rest of the group just kept up the tradition in some respects over future albums.
Anteater: Refined and occasionally took left turns.
Unknown Soldier: I've always more or less said that, which is why Isolation was such a shock when it came out (but more on that much later)
Unknown Soldier: Next is 'The house on the cape, the place in the sand' with its great acoustic accompaniment, the song of course
"Takin' It Back".
Anteater: Indeed. Really sitting down with Toto again though, I'm always impressed by its pacing. "Takin' It Back" is a great smooth counterpoint to the almost manic 'Girl Goodbye'. And hearing Steve Porcaro take lead vocals is interesting too.
Unknown Soldier: And of course the idiosyncratic start to the song is almost an antithesis to "Girl Goodbye".
Anteater: I love those subdued synth parts!
Anteater: I actually would have picked it as the "ballad" single over 'Georgy Porgy' if I had been a radio programmer back then.
Unknown Soldier: Steve Porcaro on the early albums would normally do vocals on just one track and his songs were really kinda low-key, which sat in contrast to the more dynamic songs of the other band members.
Unknown Soldier: He sings ‘I'd live in a shack eating out of a can' which kind of denotes that he did see himself the lesser vocalist here.
Unknown Soldier: In fact I'd put "Takin It Back" as a classic b-side track, as it would've been a great flip side to the other singles. In fact it sounds like a Steely Dan track.
Anteater: Oh definitely. Oddly enough, I think Steve Porcaro is probably the most financially well off of the various Toto members currently, seeing as he wrote Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature' which is on 1983's
Thriller.
Unknown Soldier: You know those details better than me (cool)
Anteater: I dunno how much of a residual he gets off of songwriting credits, but even one credit on any of those songs is probably worth millions.
Unknown Soldier: Anything off
Thriller is worth mega bucks, I was at school when that album came out and I don't quite remember anything as big again until Nirvana released Nevermind.
Unknown Soldier: Everybody was into
Thriller which is why I hated it.
Anteater: Lol. I just find it ironic that the greatest selling album of all time is in some ways a 2nd tier Toto album.
Anteater: Due to 90% of the regular Toto members being session players or writers on it.
Anteater: Moving on though,
"Rockmaker" is a nice breezy AOR cut.
Unknown Soldier: One of the more straightforward songs on the album and typical late album material.
Anteater: Yeah, it was the last single released off the album too. That being said, huge harmonies on the chorus aside, it’s mostly a warm up for the infamous
"Hold The Line".
Unknown Soldier: About to say that as well, it's perfectly placed for "Hold The Line" which shows the importance of track positioning, which is something I always look at on an album.
Anteater: I find its position in the tracklisting weird considering it was the first single released. Hell, I'll take back what I said earlier: THIS was the song that introduced most people to Toto.
Anteater: I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people bought the album simply because they got hooked on the groove of this cut.
Anteater: It only got up to #5 on the charts, but Hold The Line was technically the debut single.
Unknown Soldier: It's one of the most recognizable rock tracks from the 1970s and as usual David Paich's intro sets the whole song up.
Anteater: If I had to take a guess, I think the band members probably didn't choose it as the lead single which is why it’s on Side B to begin with. It was someone at Columbia who heard it then sent it out to radio stations.
Unknown Soldier: Personally I think it’s perfect as the penultimate track on the album and it’s a track that also gave them their harder rocking credentials as well.
Anteater: Yeah, it has slinky mid-tempo groove but a muscular production and chorus to hook in all those guys just getting into AC/DC or Van Halen.
Anteater: What's funny though is I think closing number
"Angela" is even stronger.
Unknown Soldier: Turn Back would probably be the album that would be their heaviest from the early albums and the one that would most appeal to heavier rock fans.
Unknown Soldier: Well "Angela" is my favourite song from the whole album and I'm often surprised to see how few people like it when it's reviewed.
Unknown Soldier: It's dynamic between soft and heavy is amazing.
Anteater: Yeah, and the synths that opened up 'Child's Anthem' make a new appearance, kind of a reprise and it has that Baroque classical feel to the progression.
Unknown Soldier: And again the lyrics are simply wonderful, it ranks as one of my all-time favourite tracks from the band.
Unknown Soldier: The whole band sound is often underpinned with classic elements anyway.
Anteater: Oh yeah, they're all well studied on theory and all that.
Anteater: 'Angela' is the song where all the different sides of the band are on display in one singular piece, which makes it the ideal closer.
Unknown Soldier: It also serves as a great taster for the mystical influenced tracks of
Hydra, an album which leaves behind some of the 'radio friendly' tracks from the debut.
Anteater: Hydra is one of their stranger albums, but we'll have to save it for next time.
The Conclusion
Unknown Soldier: So your overall opinion of this album?
Anteater: Iconic, defining and still a blast to listen to today.
Anteater: I know for a fact a lot of death metal bands probably jam out to this album and latter era Steely Dan when they're winding down between cities on tour.
Unknown Soldier: The first thing that occurs to me, is just how different all these AOR bands sounded, which therefore surprises me how they all get lumped together by haters as being bland radio rock, that description for me has always been so wide of the mark.
Unknown Soldier: Now I didn't know that fact.
Unknown Soldier: As said in the intro, this is probably the band's most all-encompassing album and one of their very best, even though there are a couple I prefer over it.
Anteater: I was reading some interview with the guys from Behemoth and a few other groups. Toto and Steely Dan are favorites for winding down on big tours, since the last thing any of them want to listen to between shows is the same music they're already playing.
Anteater: Agreed in your overall assessment though. It holds up really well despite being just the start of a long and varied career. That's the mark of a stone cold classic in my opinion.
Anteater: It's not "everything" Toto would eventually become, but their core sound was well established and a few classic songs were born too.
Unknown Soldier: Overall best AOR album of 1978 along with
Pieces of Eight by Styx.
Unknown Soldier: The album is timeless and the perfect place along with Toto IV for anybody that wants to get into the band.
Anteater: There's really no "bad" place to jump into Toto, but classics are classics!