The Album
Anteater: Isolation is a pretty fitting name for Toto's fifth album in some ways - it has a very singular and distinctive presence in their vast body of work.
Anteater: It's almost frantic in places, which might be a reflection of the group's state of mind at that point
Unknown Soldier: To be fair for such a favourite album of mine, I've never given the name that much focus, but have always been taken by the use of black and white on the album cover, harking back to
Turn Back.
Unknown Soldier: It's always difficult when an established band makes line-up changes anyway.
Anteater: It's pretty minimalist, but it is certainly striking. The disembodied lips there are almost iconic.
Anteater: Yeah, Hungate was gone and the guys eventually ended up going with Fergie as you mentioned. What a lot of people don't know, however, is that he was actually the group's third choice.
Unknown Soldier: Richard Page of Mr. Mister
Anteater: Richard Page from Mr. Mister was first, followed by Eric Martin, who would later feature prominently with Mr. Big.
Unknown Soldier: Hell I'd forgotten about Eric Martin.
Anteater: Yeah, but Jeff Porcaro pushed for Fergie over him, so that's what sealed the deal.
Unknown Soldier: To be fair though I can't imagine the other two singing with Fergie's energy and for that reason alone he was the bold choice. Especially since these tracks were designed with Bobby Kimball in mind.
Unknown Soldier: There is real debate as well on just how much input Bobby Kimball had initially on the album.
Anteater: Kimball was probably so out of his head by the time the Isolation sessions came up that I'm sure his input was minimal at best but we'll never really know.
Unknown Soldier: Hahaha in true Jim Morrison style.............. you've gotta love him
Anteater: Derek: lol indeed. Another thing of interest is that Lukather and co. are kind of lukewarm towards
Isolation today.
Unknown Soldier: Well I do know that in a video Bobby Kimball stated that Fergie sung these songs better than he did anyway, very high praise indeed.
Unknown Soldier: I remember reading a few years after its release they never liked it and when I saw the band for the first time in concert in 1990 I think, they never played one song from that album either.
Anteater: That's because
Isolation was the product of a weird, stressful time in their career as a band and it wasn't a huge seller either.
Anteater: The line-up only held up for this one occasion and I'm sure they have mixed feelings on the whole experience, though as a listener I consider it one of their best albums ever. It's #3 for me anyway.
Unknown Soldier: It also started the band's downward spiral in terms of commercial success and Steve Lukather always commented that the band lost credibility, as this is where they started chopping and changing lead vocalists.
Unknown Soldier: Which is funny because by this time he was effectively the leader of the band and he did most of the firing from what I can gather.
Anteater: Yeah,
Isolation was the first album where Lukather really started to step up as a leader.
Anteater: He wasn't the main writer at this point, but he was starting to call a lot more shots.
Side 1
Unknown Soldier: Anyway the album starts with something that Toto had already adopted to a degree and that was a kind of duet between two of its vocalists on
"Carmen".
Anteater: Yeah, 'Carmen' is killer. Maybe the best opening song on any Toto album,
Unknown Soldier: It was extremely unique for 1984 as well and blends the smooth sound of David Paich's voice with the frantic pace of Fergie's and it was the song that finally got me into the album as well.
Unknown Soldier: ..... and of course it has that classic Toto sound midway as well.
Anteater: I just like how it kicks off with a bang.
Unknown Soldier: It's a foretaste for what is to come as well later in the album.
Anteater: Yeah, it segues into
'Lion' really smoothly
Unknown Soldier: It was also written by David Paich and Jeff Porcaro and yes it links superbly with "Lion".
Unknown Soldier: "Lion" of course is our first real intro to Fergie's singing style and despite its lack of speed fits superbly on the album.
Unknown Soldier: It's the only track as well that has a Bobby Kimball writing credit.
Anteater: One of my favorite modern AOR groups from Sweden, called Work Of Art, basically derived their entire approach to AOR from stuff like 'Lion'. That chugging rhythm is infectious.
Unknown Soldier: Hell I need to listen to them, why didn't you tell me about them before.
Anteater: I've reviewed them on several occasions now, even Trollheart has actually.
Anteater: The only other album I've ever heard that even sounds like
Isolation was Work Of Art's first one.
Unknown Soldier: 'A chugging infectious rhythm' best describes it and a friend of mine who also likes Toto, says that "Lion" is his favourite track by the band.
Anteater: Kimball probably chipped in on the main melody of the chorus, since I can totally picture him singing it
Unknown Soldier: I prefer other tracks on this album over it but it does have amazing consistency over nearly 5 mins.
Unknown Soldier: This now leads into the first single and main one from the album
"Stranger in Town" and the band played things safer here.
Anteater: Kind of a unique song, more of a synth-pop piece than AOR.
Unknown Soldier: David Paich on vocals and a state of the art video as well for its time
Anteater: it sounds like like Paich listened to some Duran Duran and sprinkled some Toto magic over it, maybe The Cars too
Unknown Soldier: It even has a well known actor in it Brad Dourif I think.
Anteater: The video was pretty good (for once) not to bag on their music videos, but I can see why Lukather hates most of them
Unknown Soldier: I'd hate to hear Simon Le Bon trying to sing it.
Unknown Soldier: The vids are no different to most other bands at this time. The Cars circa
Heartbeat City era probably had the best selection of videos from that time.
Anteater: He's gone on the record numerous times about how much he thinks "MTV ruined music" and all that.
Unknown Soldier: In hindsight maybe but if you were around in 1980s you'd probably think more like me.
Anteater: It's true that a lot of good songs have been let down by generic or poorly produced videos, but he's way too harsh on them. I love most 80's music vids.
Unknown Soldier: Should point out here that Jeff Porcaro co-wrote on this song and he co-wrote on a lot of Toto's best tracks as well.
Anteater: Well yeah, Jeff was the spine of the band
Anteater: So now that we've gone past the holy opening trinity, what do you think of
'Angel Don't Cry', Fergie's first co-write with a Toto member?
Unknown Soldier: I adore the song, I love the video and Fergie finally shows what he can do with the right song, and right here Toto literally blast most AOR bands out of the window with the perfect example of a high-energy AOR track.
Anteater: I think its a winner too. Paich gets some nice key interplay before Lukather jumps in in the latter half. It keeps the momentum up from the previous three songs quite nicely.
Unknown Soldier: Also Fergies's LeRoux album
All Fired Up, showed that this was the kind of sound he was working at anyway, do you know this album?
Anteater: I have it actually, and really dig it!
Unknown Soldier: Also in the video for the song, it's just so cool how Fergie walks off stage after his vocals are completed and does it like a true rock star.
Anteater: Rock Candy remastered it not that long ago
Unknown Soldier: The song also heavily reminds of "Edge of the Blade" by Journey which I also love as much.
Unknown Soldier: All Fired Up is a great album and not too well known either.
Anteater: That's probably why Fergie caught their attention to begin with
Anteater: Cause his performance on
All Fired Up was so superb
Anteater: From there though, we're at a solo Lukather ballad
"How Does it Feel".
Anteater: it's technically the end of Side A I think.
Unknown Soldier: Which is almost an anamoly on this album, which is shocking in itself, as it's the most typical Toto song on the album. The album typically would fit on all the previous albums but not really here, but it does set up the amazing side 2 of the album, which in my opinion is even more spectacular than the first side.
Anteater: It's a good breather and maybe something of a nudge telling the audiences "hey, we can still do normal Toto stuff" wink wink.
Unknown Soldier: It's a good song and typical Steve Lukather material and not too much else really.
Anteater: It's pretty fair, though I feel Lukather's best ballad material was yet to come.