I Can Tell By That Look in Your Eye: Toto reviewed 1978-2015

[Unknown Soldier]

I Can Tell By That Look in Your Eye: 1978-2015

Presented by Anteater and Unknown Soldier two Toto Disciples

The classic Toto band shot circa 1978

Band Introduction
Anteater has come up with the fairly original idea of hosting a joint journal focusing on the classic AOR band Toto and he has asked me of course to co-host it with him, as he knows I’m a fanatical Toto fan and has conned me into writing the intro for it. Before starting this concept we had been bouncing ideas off each other, on how to present a detailed discography of the band and their twelve studio albums, so as to celebrate their thirteenth studio release that comes out at the end of this month. We’ve split the albums between us in terms of introducing each one, but once the introductions are over we’ll be going into an informative chat about each album in some detail, where we’ll be dissecting everything that’s great and possibly not so great about each studio album. We may even include some live or solo stuff as well, but we’ll see how it goes. We’ve also opted for my journal format in general, but there will be some changes there to incorporate the novelty of our ‘chatting section’ which of course is something new for us.

Toto as a band are the perfect example of an all-encompassing AOR outfit and they released their debut album in 1978, the year where genres like punk and new-wave were king on both sides of the Atlantic and progressive rock was looking like old hat. I mention progressive rock here, as had the band formed several years earlier they may well have been playing a progressive rock sound, especially since the band members had exquisite ability as musicians. The band though found that crucial commercial niche provided by the likes of Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers, two bands that were great examples of how to corner the very viable soft rock market, a sound that hugely appealed to a North American audience. Newer bands like the meticulous Boston and the harder edged Foreigner, clearly showed that there was a strong market for this kind of sound. The members of Toto themselves were already known around Los Angeles as not only seasoned session musicians, but as ‘the session musicians to have’ and they had worked on a large amount of quality releases by other artists between the mid to late 1970s and in some cases writing material for other artists as well.

Like most bands the original line-up was pretty pivotal with the heavy-weight vocals of Bobby Kimball dominating, guitarist Steve Lukather who would become the band leader a few albums later, bassist David Hungate, keyboardist David Paich the heart and soul of the band in terms of their material and feel, Steve Porcaro synthesizers/keyboards and Jeff Porcaro on drums, who in the early days was probably the band leader as he was the eldest. The third Porcaro brother bassist Mike would join officially much later on, but acted initially as a session musician for the band, in fact the band often used other notable session musicians such as Lenny Castro amongst others as well. Apart from Bobby Kimball, other members like Steve Lukather, David Paich and Steve Porcaro would all feature as principal vocalists as well, something unique as they all added something special to the band in the vocal department.

Finally no introduction for Toto would be complete without mentioning how the band got their name. Common knowledge has it that the band took it from Dorothy’s dog in the Wizard of Oz, also from Bobby Kimball’s real surname which was Toteaux and even an Italian person I once knew, thought the band had taken it from the famous Italian comedy actor Toto. The truth though is something far more reputable and as bassist David Hungate explained, the name ‘Toto’ is a Latin term that means all-encompassing, a description which perfectly suited the band.

[Anteater]

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!

[Unknown Soldier]

My Testimonial

I discovered Toto sometime in 1982 by way of the “Africa” single and its video and quite liked it, so I went out and bought the album with my pocket-money and chose Toto IV over the other potential buys that would’ve also appealed to me. I would always after school every Friday, go down to the high street about a 20 minute walk (my local shopping area of London) and go to the same couple of record shops that of course only ever sold vinyl or cassette (no cds back then) but I always liked vinyl as you always got more for your money, or so I thought. I’d always rush home thinking does the album have the lyrics on the inner sleeve and even additional photos of the band (you never really knew back then what the inner packaging was going to be like) needless to say after a million plays I was hooked on the band which meant that I now had to find the rest of the earlier albums, which was always exciting as there was no internet back then and I certainly didn’t have any rock books either just loads of music press to help me with my investigation and of course going to other record shops.

Whenever I think of Toto I think of a very special band, a band that takes me back to certain periods in my life, I view the band as one of the most magical sounding rock acts to have ever existed. The smooth lines of their music drifted between soul influenced soft rock tracks and at a simple shift the band would enter into powerful hard rock territory, all this was often punctuated by that epic juddering keyboard sound unique to the band, which was provided by both David Paich and Steve Porcaro. Whenever you heard Toto playing you instantly knew it was Toto regardless of which vocalist was singing, as their whole sound was underpinned by those special Toto musical attributes, that will be mentioned in more detail in these reviews. I first heard Toto circa 1982 the year that their biggest selling album Toto IV came out and I quickly fell in love with them, despite the fact that the biased UK press at the time would have you believe that this was ‘faceless mid-western American rock’ that was best avoided. Most people I knew at the time didn’t much care for them, but as far as I was concerned I was listening to something very special and as years went by I met converted Toto fans that seemed to be falling out of the woodwork, as the greatness of the band dawned on them too.

[Trollheart]

Great idea guys and I can't think of two people more qualified to write a journal on the likes of Toto, Foreigner, Journey or any other AOR band than you two. Looking forward to seeing how it develops. Not a huge Toto fan personally, but I'll certainly be reading...

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Great idea guys and I can't think of two people more qualified to write a journal on the likes of Toto, Foreigner, Journey or any other AOR band than you two. Looking forward to seeing how it develops. Not a huge Toto fan personally, but I'll certainly be reading...

Thanks, we should have the first album review up next weekend as we aim to do one album a week.

[Unknown Soldier]

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.

[Unknown Soldier]

The Album
Anteater: The self-titled Toto record, at least from my perspective, is a bit of a different beast in some ways from their next couple of records. A lot of critics blasted it at the time for being "style" and "craft" over soul and substance or some other bull****, but the virtuosity these guys were known for makes it one of the best debuts ever IMO.
Unknown Soldier: The 'style' and 'craft' label is a common accusation against that album but as usual the critics got it completely wrong IMO.
Anteater: They had a similar reaction against Boston's first album from a few years before this one now that I think about it, which this self-titled has some similarities too: huge production, guitars way up and out in front, some complex hooks and harmonies, etc.
Unknown Soldier: Boston were of course more groundbreaking, largely because it came first and the virtuosity of Tom Scholz was already heavily regarded by the time Toto issued their debut. I also think there is a certain similarity in the smooth vocal approach from the singing members of Toto to that of Brad Delp of Boston. The hooks and harmonies were there because that was what was expected from the record label as far as Toto were concerned and the band delivered.
Anteater: Oh, the public loved this album even if the critics hated it: three big singles within the span of a year, plus every person in the band was good enough to share lead vocal duties to some extent (bar drummer Jeff Porcaro).
Anteater: And speaking of him, he's the big driving force here creatively along with David Paich, who wrote most of the material on this first album. Which makes it all the more interesting that there's so much variety despite it all coming from the pen of just one or two people.
Unknown Soldier: That was one of the great strengths of the band, in that they had multi-vocalists that really suited different songs and the album laid out the stall for this, and sure David Paich showed fantastic diversity and range in the material that he was writing.
Unknown Soldier: Also of note as well, Journey put out their first album that year with Steve Perry on vocals and saw them change direction as well, 1978 really was for me the true taking off of AOR as a genre.
Anteater: Agreed: Toto have that "post" progressive rock grandeur that Journey mostly had moved away from by the late 70's though.

Side One
Anteater: Those pulsating synth runs in the opening instrumental "Child's Anthem" isn't what you'd normally start an AOR record with. Kinda orchestral, but it segues beautifully into the megahit 'I'll Supply The Love'.
Unknown Soldier: "Child's Anthem" is bloody epic and right there in just a few minutes the whole structure of the Toto sound is laid down, no other band quite sounded like that and not many bands got their signature sound that quickly either.
Unknown Soldier: That type of segueing was something very contemporary at this time as well.
Anteater: Sharp as a razor, something you'd expect out of older more seasoned musicians maybe. But I think Steve Lukather and most of the other members were only around 21 years old or so at the time Toto came out!
Anteater: People made a big deal about all the young up-and-coming punk bands and musicians around this same period, but the guys in Toto run circles around them even on more straightforward songs.
Unknown Soldier: Yes, but Bobby was quite a bit older than the others and David Paich and Jeff Porcaro just a few years as well.
Unknown Soldier: Well "I'll Supply the Love" though is a pretty amazing song, as it runs through various styles and there is even some disco on there as well.
Anteater: It’s one of "the" original AOR songs I suppose: set the beat for bands like Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, etc.
Unknown Soldier: And could only really be pulled off by Bobby Kimball, as a vocalist he just has so much power and energy to give.
Anteater: I think for a lot of audiences this was the first exposure anyone had to Bobby Kimball. Hell, for some people, he pretty much MADE the band.
Anteater: But we both know vocalists are only one piece of the puzzle obviously.
Unknown Soldier: Foreigner never put out anything as good as this which was a surprise given the background of some of its members and REO Speedwagon were always one of the more lightweight AOR bands, even though they did have heavier roots.
Unknown Soldier: Hell Bobby was the true star for me on the album, but I've always been a sucker for a great vocalist.
Anteater: Which makes it all the more interesting when we get to second megahit "Georgy Porgy" and immediately shifts into jazzier territory. It's also one of the only two songs on the album where Steve Lukather takes lead on the mic.
Unknown Soldier: Most reviews of the album in retrospect, tend to pick out Steve Lukather as the pick of the musicians……. sure he only takes the vocals on two cuts here and I've often been surprised by his vocal choices as well, as he tends to go with the so called 'lovey dovey' tracks the kind of things that the women really dig, it's strange as I always saw him as possibly the most rock orientated musician in the band.
Unknown Soldier: "Georgy Porgy" sounds beautiful and crisp as Steve Lukather leads us into it vocally and that jazzy feel just sounds great, lovely lyrics as well.
Anteater: The only slight against it is the chorus for me, because the verses and guitar solo are sublime. Good point about Luke though: he rarely fronted the rock-oriented stuff for a long time, and that might have been part of how the group designated roles when they got started. Lukather started off merely being a great performer, but he later grew into a songwriter.
Unknown Soldier: As I said in the intro for the band, he was more or less the band leader by Toto IV.
Unknown Soldier: Now strangely enough "Georgy Porgy" goes downhill after its great start largely due to Cheryl Lynn and I don't feel they should have had a female vocalist on the track as Steve Lukather was doing just fine on his own. As for some reason she really makes that track drag, but then again it's one of the most popular on the album.
Anteater: It wasn't quite top 10 from what I know, but it still did pretty well. It's their most well known "ballad" track aside from 'Africa'.
Unknown Soldier: "99" or don't you consider that a true ballad?
Anteater: We'll get to that one for Hydra, but that one's more of a mid-tempo stomper for me.
Unknown Soldier: It was a tribute to a George Lucas film and it is kind of dreamy.
Unknown Soldier: Anyway onto "Manuela Run" and the first David Paich vocal.
Anteater: “Manuela Run” is a nice follow up from the snaky Georgy Porgy. And again, I think it’s just fascinating how these guys just turn on a dime from song to song even on the debut. It's pretty much the Paich & Porcaro Show (with friends) at this point in their career, but the shifts manage to work without being jarring.
Unknown Soldier: David Paich as was often the case starts with a piano intro something he often inserted into his tracks.
Anteater: Gotta love those Paich/Lukather harmonies too. On another note, that opening line ('You better watch that sword that's hanging over you') was also the key inspiration for Toto's sword-and-circle logo.
Anteater: I think Jeff Porcaro literally said in an interview I saw once that it was a reference to the Sword of Damocles
Unknown Soldier: .... 'and don't look now' just before it could be a reference to the Nicolas Roeg film.
Unknown Soldier: Sure the sword and circle logo were a big part of the band back then.
Anteater: It's present to some degree in a lot of their album and liner art and there's another meaning to it too. The guy who did a lot of those early Grateful Dead covers, Philip Garris, made the sword double-edged because he felt it represented the band's musical range.
Unknown Soldier: Most definitely and luckily for us Toto never ended up sounding like the Grateful Dead.
Anteater: I'll second that sentiment lmao! Though Toto certainly had jam-band potential.
Anteater: Dunno what all those record executives would have done if Toto had started doing double LPs with 20-30 minute songs though, they had the chops for it
Unknown Soldier: Had they been around as their own band maybe several years earlier they may well have been doing this.
Anteater: Agreed. Interestingly enough, one of my top three songs off the record comes right after “Manuela Run” with a flute I might add!
Unknown Soldier: Yes "You Are the Flower" really showed that Bobby Kimball could also write as he brought that song with him to the band.
Anteater: Pairing Paich's piano with some wind instrumentation from guest Jim Horn was a really neat idea, one they'd never revisit after this album.
Unknown Soldier: And it's also a great fav of mine and Bobby sounds so good here. Jim Horn just has so many credits to his name according to Wiki and his flute is so subtle but also quite unforgettable.
Anteater: There's a nice brass section in there too: subtle, but classy.
Anteater: We're actually at my favorite set of songs on the album: You Are The Flower through Takin' It Back one of my favorite three songs runs on any album.
Unknown Soldier: Yes just listening to it now, in fact everytime I listen to the album it becomes more 'proggy' by the listen which I guess shows its true depth.
Unknown Soldier: That choice shows you're a true fan, as you've picked out right there what some listeners might regard as three lesser known album tracks.

[Unknown Soldier]

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!

[Chula Vista]

Succinct version: So much talent. Such great songs. Excellent production.

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Succinct version: So much talent. Such great songs. Excellent production.

We said the same thing, but it took us over two thousand words to do so.

Our second review the album Hydra will be up this weekend.