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

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.:p: 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

:beer:

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

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

The Lowdown
Toto, or more specifically David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, came into the recording of sophomore album Hydra with a particular goal in mind: not to make something that would necessarily just appeal to a worldwide audience, but to make a rock-oriented album that fit the growing scope and vision of what Toto "could" be. To that end, that meant making the "progressive" stuff even bigger and bolder, the rock songs punchier and the ballads groovier. While this wouldn't win the band any points with their critics, the resulting album was a varied and compelling listen to the ears of most.

Hydra was released late in '79 at the peak of New Wave's genesis into mainstream radio, and thus the band's now overtly prog-meets-hard rock-meets-R&B stylings didn't move as many units as before. Nevertheless, the record went gold pretty quickly and lead single '99' (despite obtuse lyrical content) made it into the Billboard's top 50 across the U.S. and sold respectably.

This album also marked the first time where other members of the group besides David Paich would contribute directly to the songwriting, with all five of the key members actually developing the lead-off 8 minute title track together.

Toto have done their fair share of experimental outings, but 'Hydra' marked the end of the primarily David Paich-led era of the group and remains one of their most interesting albums from start to finish.

Side One

Anteater: In the two years since Toto first hit airwaves and record stores, a lot had happened: punk and New Wave had come in with full force and AOR was on the rise.

Anteater: Therefore I think it was kinda ballsy of them to start the album off with a nearly 8-minute long behemoth.

Unknown Soldier: This was the second Toto album I purchased after Toto IV, I therefore had three to choose from and picked Hydra strictly for its cover and the title track is as ballsy as that album cover.


Anteater: Hydra wasn't the first Toto album I'd really sat down with, but it was the one that convinced me that they were definitely more than just a particularly sharp pop-rock group. Paich's piano and keyboard syncopation on the opening title track are awe inspiring!

Anteater: It's not even that much of a stylistic leap from the first album. But the lyrics are rather fantastical, which in itself is kind of an evolution.

Unknown Soldier: The track has that opening ambient section that leads into David Paich's work and as great as David Paich's work is here, I find that guitar lead by Steve Lukather (You know the one) to be the perfect complement. It's a pretty basic hard rock lead but so effective.

Unknown Soldier: Musically the band were less all encompassing than the debut as here they are indulging in fantastical themes and I find the lyrics to be something that have never quite left me.

Anteater: Yeah, they tackle more obtuse material. Less "she broke my heart" and more sci-fi and Dungeons & Dragons-esque elaboration.

Unknown Soldier: Have you seen the video to Hydra?

Anteater: I have actually! Was really bad quality when I watched it before, but a lone swordsman going through what looks like the L.A. sewer system with nothing but leather and a big sword was pretty funny.

Unknown Soldier: I first saw it in 1983 I think on an 'Elvira Mistress of the Night' Halloween special and on that show were bands like Devo, the Doors, Clash, Joy Division, Blondie and Alice Cooper etc but the "Hydra" video for me was the pick of the bunch.

Anteater: Agreed. I also remember reading an interview at one point where Lukather mentioned that the band used to spend tens of thousands back in the early MTV days on music videos, but he said they might as well have "taken all that green and set it on fire in the backyard".

Unknown Soldier: Remember "Hydra" video came out before the MTV boom.

Unknown Soldier: And it was pretty great stuff, the kind of video that bands into fantasy rock would've been proud of.

Unknown Soldier: So overall, "Hydra" is one of my favourite Toto tracks, a rock behemoth in the true sense and one of a kind, the band never tried to copy it again either.

Anteater: Completely agreed. It was the epitome of cheese, but I give them props for embracing video at a time when other bands didn't even bother.

Unknown Soldier: I can imagine Dio probably being pissed off, that he didn't get to walk with a sword in a Rainbow video at that time.

Anteater: Lol! This actually leads me to a key observation on the album "Hydra" as a whole: its arguably better sequenced than the first record.

Unknown Soldier: It what sense?

Anteater: Well, because the title track is immediately followed by the lyrically related 'St. George And The Dragon'

Anteater: I'm not saying this is a concept record or anything, but you can tell they thought long and hard about how these songs should follow one another.

Unknown Soldier: Ah ok sure and agree, as the two tracks go hand in hand.


Anteater: Like 'Hydra', it has a strong piano lead and propulsive melody. But whilst the title track was written by the entire band, this one's a solo Paich composition.

Unknown Soldier: …and of course "St. George and the Dragon" is a more accessible track too.

Anteater: Oh definitely. I love Lukather's guitar lead about 2 minutes in!

Unknown Soldier: …and starts with the line 'can you tell me where I might find the hydra' clearly linking the two songs.

Anteater: The title track mentions a Dragon King at several points, but I don't know if that's the same thing as the 'hydra" he speaks of in 'St. George'.

Unknown Soldier: I also think it may be the band's richest track lyrically. For example the title of the journal is taken from a line in this track.............. I just changed 'the' for 'that'

Unknown Soldier: I'm not sure of that either (‘The Dragon King’), but there is a line that says he's 'wearing a familiar face'.

Anteater: The whole thing is a revenge metaphor.

Anteater: It ties the two songs together into the closest thing to a concept in the album, because after this we're led into '99' which was the key single but a completely different beast lyrically.

Unknown Soldier: Both "Hydra" and "St. George and the Dragon" are as you say linked tracks, but "99" seems to segue in perfectly to make it three in a row.

Unknown Soldier: "99" is a beautiful dreamy track and the kind of thing that Steve Lukather always sung so well.


Anteater: At this point Paich has gotten pretty good at picking the right lead in the band for the songs he was writing.

Anteater: Himself or Bobby Kimball for the rock stuff, Lukather for groovier material, and Steve Porcaro for the occasional ballad.

Unknown Soldier: Do you think that they did different leads or just chose one to go with?

Unknown Soldier: I think the former but I know some bands tried different leads before choosing just one.

Anteater: I think Toto didn't have a true lead vocalist until 1984's Isolation.

Unknown Soldier: Have you seen THX 1138 the inspiration for the song?

Anteater: Yeah I have: one of George Lucas's "better" non-Star Wars outings :D

Unknown Soldier: I saw it so long ago that I hardly remember it, but supposedly there's a section in the "99" video that resembles the film.

Anteater: 99 is literally the name of the woman in the song, which is the big obvious connection to the source material. A nameless society where people have numbers assigned to them but little else.

Unknown Soldier: Anyway as said it's such a beautiful ballad, even though you said you don't consider it a ballad as such.....

Anteater: Critics whined at the time, saying that a song with obtuse source material wouldn't connect with audiences…

Anteater: …but I guess they forgot about Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody', among others :P

Unknown Soldier: Toto I think wrote that song with their progressive rock heads on and by 1979 that was kind of out of fashion. There finest ballad in my opinion though is "I Won't Hold You Back" but "99" is a close second…

Unknown Soldier: …and was certainly very contemporary for its time, but "99" is dreamier.

Anteater: '99' is a ballad lyrically, but the groove is faster than your typical love song.

Anteater: Ballads, atleast to me, are slow things with a lot of buildup.

Anteater: Like some of the big power ballad singles of the 80's and such.

Unknown Soldier: But before that, ballads were often a similar pace throughout like "99". It's kind of like 10CC's "I'm Not in Love" which of course is very dreamy as well.

Anteater: Yeah, that's one of the better ballads. Real masterpiece of recording too!

Unknown Soldier: So we've had three epic tracks and very different on Hydra so far.

Unknown Soldier: What do you think of "Lorraine"?

Unknown Soldier: Because for me we've had the best that the album has to offer.

Anteater: I like it a lot actually. Could have been a single. Rather knotty rhythm with some proggy phrasing in the second half.


Anteater: 'Hydra' is one of the few albums in Toto's whole discography that I think was a tad frontloaded though.

Anteater: 'All Us Boys' is pretty nondescript, but 'Mama' was the last song to even get released as a single.

Unknown Soldier: I think the piano intro is great as are David Paich's vocals in ‘Lorraine’, but I really don't like the chorus section: it really sounds like Toto are trying to be a British band in that chorus execution.

Anteater: I'd argue that all the dragons and swords imagery we've seen so far is pretty British of them anyway, but yeah...

Unknown Soldier: Yes but I feel that the band did that dragon and sword imagery with a Californian twang.

Unknown Soldier: Anyway, outside of Lorraine’s chorus, the song does have some pretty epic sections…and I agree "All Us Boys" is very average.

Anteater: Yeah, five minutes of plodding mehness. Which is something that debut managed to avoid.

Unknown Soldier: I guess there is not too much to say about "All Us Boys".

Anteater: Nope.

Anteater: However, the last three songs on 'Hydra' are actually interesting.

Side Two

Unknown Soldier: "Mama" is different kettle of fish altogether and the best on side two.

Anteater: Yeah, 'Mama' is nice. One of the three Kimball cowrites on the album.


Unknown Soldier: "Mama" easily could've been on the debut too and it's the only song on this album that really belongs more on the debut than on Hydra.

Anteater: It's got a great groove, one of the best "Westcoast" songs in all of Toto's canon.

Unknown Soldier: Also Bobby Kimball does the lead vocals on the three last songs as well.

Anteater: Yep, and he helped write all three.

Anteater: …which means we're finally moving into Toto territory that isn't completely dominated by Paich.

Anteater: From Hydra onwards, every member of the band would start getting more co-writes or even solo credits.

Unknown Soldier: That's always refreshing and according to the credits "Hydra" was a band effort.

Unknown Soldier: The only one on the album.

Anteater: Yeah, which makes it rather special even if you took the 8-minute prog length away from it.

Anteater: But moving on, what do you think of 'White Sister'? As I mentioned before, I really like it. One of Kimball's shining rockier moments.

Unknown Soldier: "Mama" has a great groove, how much of that groove do you think the band owe to Steely Dan?

Unknown Soldier: As for your question, "White Sister" is solid rather than spectacular and well suited to Bobby Kimball's voice.


Anteater: 'Mama' is the better song between them, but I like how much 'White Sister' really rips once it gets a little over 3 minutes in.

Unknown Soldier: Toto were pretty good at ripping up a song with Bobby on vocals.

Unknown Soldier: I love when Bobby sings 'such a card game' which kind of describes what the rock industry was probably like at that time.

Anteater: Very much so. Which I suppose leads us to the "whimper' rather than bang-closer of the album, 'A Secret Love'.

Unknown Soldier: "A Secret Love" is like a reprise than an actual song, but the piano section is kind of unexpected

Unknown Soldier: To me, it sounds more like a Steve Porcaro song than a Bobby Kimball one.


Anteater: Just goes to show you: Bobby could out-Steve the master if he tried. :p:

Unknown Soldier: Truth be told I don't really like the song that much and think they could've done a lot more with it.

Anteater: You’re right. I also think it sounds more like a reprisal than a song unto itself, which lends it an 'incomplete' feeling. It brings us back to the perspective of the protagonist from 'Hydra' and 'St. George...'

Anteater: One of the stranger closeouts to a Toto album, but not terrible by any means.

Unknown Soldier: So overall I think we agree that is a front-loaded album, despite the fact you think the last three are really great songs.

Unknown Soldier: "Mama" is the best of those closing songs by far, even though "White Sister" is solid.

Anteater: ‘Hydra’ is a fun record. Not as good as the debut obviously, but a lot of the songs from the self-titled were songs David Paich had written before the group ever formed.

Anteater: The first album had the benefit of Paich implementing his best material right from the get-go. Hydra, however, was the first album where the group tried writing together more as a unit, so of course it’s more of a mixed bag.

Unknown Soldier: Good points. I classify ‘Hydra’ as one of my favourites simply for the first three tracks and the mystical imagery that the album cover has, that's also contained in the lyrics and videos of the singles as well.

Unknown Soldier: Not as strong as the debut but an indulgent venture away from the more free flowing debut.

Anteater: 'Hydra' was Toto figuring out what they wanted to be whilst grappling with an unprecedented level of success.

Unknown Soldier: For comparison’s sake…the Toto debut kind of mirrors the Steely Dan debut "Can't Buy A Thrill" but whereas Steely Dan then went even deeper for their core sound on "Countdown To Ecstasy" Toto did the unexpected on Hydra.

Anteater: They wanted to stretch their capabilities. Without doing that, I don't think we'd have gotten some of their best future material.

Anteater: On another note, I can also tell Paich had probably been spending time with Ambrosia's 1978 release 'Life Beyond L.A.' before he jumped into writing for 'Hydra'. The two albums share a similar aesthetic.

Unknown Soldier: I've not heard that album but will probably listen to it tomorrow now. :D

Anteater: Both records have darker title tracks.

Anteater: Plus bigg emphasis on keyboard/piano leads…

Unknown Soldier: In conclusion: I wouldn't pick Hydra out for a Toto newbie to listen to: it should come later to really appreciate the quality of the opening three tracks.

Anteater: It's not an accessible album compared to IV, the self-titled or The Seventh One.

Anteater: Still, definitely worth checking out, especially for those who enjoy it when bands shoot for the moon.

Unknown Soldier: Don't you think Fahrenheit is accessible?

Anteater: Yes and no, but we'll leave that for another weekend. :D

The Lowdown
After what was seen as a disappointment by the record company in the band’s second album Hydra, the band were under pressure by Columbia to put out something more straightforward or better said, something more palatable for the music listening masses for their third album. Turn Back would certainly result in being an album that was more straightforward in terms of its compositions than that of Hydra, and also as it turned out to be a lot less diverse than their crowning debut. Effectively what Toto ended up doing on Turn Back, was to deliver us a more straightforward hard rock record to appeal to the arena rock market and the album has a tad more depth than it’s sometimes given credit for, largely due to the fact that it failed to deliver any significant hit singles for the band.

Turn Back is an album for hard rock enthusiasts and again imo track for track it’s probably stronger than Hydra (even though Hydra is still the better album as we be discussed below) as I think it only has one weak track and I know Anteater has mixed feeling about this album (more on that below as well) but it’s certainly an album that splits Toto fans.

The album cover is sometimes seen as low key by Toto standards, but I always liked the use of black and red on a white background in the rough shape of a non-smiling face. The band also worked with a different producer for the album in Geoff Workman, who would be a focal point for some people’s dissatisfaction for the album and as with like Hydra the band co-produced the album.

The album sales were poor in the USA but it did go down a storm in Japan and as I’ve often said those Japanese always knew good rock when they heard it, as so many of my favourite bands ended up being so popular there. The album only saw two singles releases in “Goodbye Elenore” and “If it’s the Last Night” and one additional for the Japanese market in “Live for Today” and is well known as being one of Bobby Kimball’s most vocally dominated albums.

Turn Back was the third Toto album that I ever bought after Toto IV and Hydra. Toto IV of course was the album that got me into the band, Hydra with its opening tracks is what made them something very special for me and Turn Back I guess just provided more meat to the Toto bone that I just loved chewing on and some of it was ever so sweet as well.

The Album
Unknown Soldier: I've got the feeling that I have a higher opinion of this album than you, am I right?
Anteater: I like it.
Anteater: My problem is the way it was produced
Unknown Soldier: That's what you mean when you said that you had mixed views over it.
Anteater: Yeah and I like the songs for the most part
Unknown Soldier: What don't you like about its production.... I have an idea, but in your words? ,
Anteater: The album's first half in particular is pretty muscular
Anteater: Well, it sounds like the equivalent of a stuffed-up nose
Anteater: Like the sound has been flattened out and everything is mixed down reallllly low
[Unknown Soldier: The blame of Geoff Workman do you think?
Anteater: Oh definitely
Unknown Soldier: Sure the four tracks on this side are real hard rock material.

Side One
Anteater: The track 'Gift With A Golden Gun' is a great opener actually.
Anteater: You can tell Toto was consciously trying to do something resembling a real "arena" rock album here.
Unknown Soldier: But I agree that the production is kind of less than adequate, given the fact that the band had so much energy to give.
Unknown Soldier: 'Arena Rock' sure hence the more muscle approach of the album and "Gift with a Golden Gun" is an ideal opener in that respect.
Anteater: From what I understand, Lukather and Kimball both wanted the band to move away from 'Hydra' sonically, and 'Gift...' is just a taste of it
Anteater: The riff sounds like something you'd start up at a honky-tonk joint, but it works really well.
Unknown Soldier: Also the 'Arena rock approach is probably why David Paich doesn't sing one lead on this album and allows Bobby Kimball to really dominate on five of the eight songs.
Unknown Soldier: Agree that riff is effective rather than outstanding.
Anteater: Yeah, it's not an epic song or anything. Excellent rhythm though, with Lukather's leads accentuating the melody.
Unknown Soldier: Now that leads us into "English Eyes" one of the real muscle tracks on the album and also one of the best imo..... and a nod to their British influences as well.
Anteater: It's probably my favorite cut off 'Turn Back': Lukather almost tricks you at the beginning with that riff, making you think they're going into early glam territory or something.
Anteater: Love that chorus though.
Unknown Soldier: That driving riff is so effective and the killer for me on that track is Bobby Kimball's almost forced or exaggerated vocal approach and it's certainly one of his best ever displays.
Unknown Soldier: I think when I first heard the album it was my most played track way back then and the lyrics I love especially on that song, which is why I quickly chose that song to use lyrics from for the album cover.
Anteater: Agreed on all those points, but the best part of 'English Eyes' comes around 2 minutes in or so, when it completely stops the momentum and shifts into really jazzy/groovy territory.
Anteater: ..... and then some orchestral textures come in and Bobby cuts back in... just awesome.
Unknown Soldier: I know that you've got a real ear for picking up on the jazzy stuff on these albums and I know exactly the point you're talking about when Bobby cuts back in and that was always my favourite part of the song as well.
Anteater: AOR bands just weren't doing that kind of thing back in 1981.
Anteater: .... and its little things like that which illustrate how special Toto really are.
Unknown Soldier: That groovy piece you're talking about kind of reminds me of what Ray Manzarek could've done in brief especially on "Light My Fire".
Anteater: .... and 'Live For Today' is next up isn't it? I think its the only song on the album with Lukather both singing and also his first single writing credit on a Toto album.
Unknown Soldier: Yes "Live for Today" is the first Steve Lukather lead and he actually sings a true hard rock lead for a change and surprisingly does a pretty poor job considering that I always veiwed him as the most rock orientated member of that band initially. Just goes to show that he was far better singing on ballady style tracks.
Unknown Soldier: It was actually the third single from the album and only released in Japan I think.
Anteater: Didn't know that actually.
Unknown Soldier: What didn't you know?
Anteater: That it was the third single. From what I understand, the band didn't even tour to suppor the album, so I assumed all the released singles must have flopped.
Unknown Soldier: None of them did very well and the label even threatened to drop the band as well, due to no hit singles.
Unknown Soldier: I don't like the song at all, what do you think about it?
Anteater: In regards to 'Live For Today', its okay. Doesn't really work as a single. The riff is decent, but it feels a bit too by-the-numbers.
Anteater: We're at least three albums away from Lukather being able to handle harder-edged rock material, but I'll give him props for taking the lead on something other than a ballad here.
Unknown Soldier: Now I think the next track "A Million Miles Away" with Bobby back on lead is a strong track and easily could've been on the two previous albums.
Anteater: It's a good song...but that mix. I have to amp up my speakers big time just to hear it.
Anteater: A nearly inaudible power ballad....its actually kinda funny.
Anteater: Kimball carries it well in any case, nice soulful delivery.
Unknown Soldier: Hahaha I hear you on the mix and sure Bobby's soulful powerful delivery salvages the song.
Anteater: At this point back in '81 I can imagine most listeners would have loved to hang Geoff Workman with his own studio equipment cables.
Anteater: But I digress. :D
Unknown Soldier: A friend of mine dislikes him a lot as well as an engineer.

Side Two
Unknown Soldier: So we now move onto side two.
Anteater First track 'Goodbye Eleanore'....I dunno about this one. It's decent, but it feels like a slightly more faceless version of 'Gift With A Golden Gun'
Unknown Soldier: Well it was the lead single and when I hear it I like it, but when I see the official video it kind of feels lacklustre.
Anteater It just doesn't hold a candle to the best stuff on Side A. The energy is good though, and Luke rips it up like always around the second half somewhere, but I feel like they're treading water.
Unknown Soldier: I don't think that the double lead in places works on it either.
Unknown Soldier: But agree its too similar to "Gift with a Golden Gun" but I do think that they could've developed Steve Lukather into the song more as well.
Anteater Yeah, since his guitar tone throughout the album is actually one of the best things about it.
Anteater Speaking of him, we get back to more interesting territory with 'I Think I Could Stand You Forever', which is my favorite of the Luke-led songs on Turn Back.
Unknown Soldier: Even more so than his final track? But it is a great track btw.
Anteater Hmn...tough call. The chord progression is nice. Even so, its just a warm up for Kimball and the outstanding title track.
Unknown Soldier: His vocal at the beginning is great and I love how the song then gets that haunting section, before we're then hit with that hard rock guitar of his.
Unknown Soldier: The song moves through quite a few chord changes as you've mentioned already.
Anteater Toto are at their best when they play with a song's arrangements more
Unknown Soldier: Well basic tracks are kind of wasted on them.
Anteater The more straightforward they get, the more generic the result tends to be.
Anteater Yes, exactly.
Unknown Soldier: Goes to show that when they try to be a normal rock band it just doesn't work, but anyway onto the title track "Turn Back"
Anteater Tied with 'English Eyes' as the best cut on the album, hands down and Porcaro's drums and Paich's synths are huggeee.
Unknown Soldier: I have to agree there as I especially love that kind of oriental feel to it at the beginning.
Anteater Its the only song on the record that doesn't feel particularly squashed by Geoff Workman's abysmal production
Anteater Which makes me think it would have even been more amazing if someone else had been behind the boards.
Unknown Soldier: Styx did something similar on "Just Get Through This Night" and "Brave New World" with that oriental tinge.
Anteater Good observations there. I agree there's a similarity.
Unknown Soldier: So you see Turn Back the album as a lost opportunity? Much like Metallica fans go on about that same album that they always go on about with its crappy production :D
Unknown Soldier: "Turn Back" for me is the perfect late album track to have on this kind of album anyway.
Anteater It wasn't a complete loss. I've heard the 2014 Rock Candy remaster of Turn Back and it went a long way to repairing the main issues I had with the album originally.
Unknown Soldier: I've not heard that remaster btw.
Anteater But I do consider 'Turn Back' to be the weakest of their AOR period.
Unknown Soldier: I agree but their weakest is still better than the best of some of their rivals.
Anteater Oh definitely. I think its a stronger album than anything Boston did after '78 after all :D
Unknown Soldier: My favourite Boston album is Third Stage and when I mention that I get funny looks or comments, but its certainly better than Boston's second album.
Unknown Soldier: I really love the final track "If It's the Last Night" and it would've been even better without that heavier section that it has.
Anteater It's an interesting song in some ways. Has a vaguely Southern/Country twang to the chorus.
Anteater ...which isn't something Toto have done since actually, so there's some novelty in that.


The Conclusion
Anteater So, all in all, where does 'Turn Back' rank for you in Toto's canon?
Anteater For me it might be the bottom simply because it only has 2-3 realllllly strong tracks out of 8.
Unknown Soldier: It has great personal memories, as it was the third album I bought of theirs and played it to death back then. Of the first four main albums sure it's the weakest but it only has one poor track, two classic songs and five songs that could've been better. Not an essential listen but if you like the band you'll enjoy it.
Anteater I don't have a personal attachment to 'Turn Back', but I think that's the result of me being from A. a younger generation and B. the order of albums I've experienced from Toto has been pretty haphazard.
Anteater The first two albums I ever bought from them were their first and "last" (at the time).
Unknown Soldier: That I can understand as when I got into them they just had four albums!
Anteater Its only been in recent years that I've gotten to spend more time with stuff like Turn Back or IV.
Anteater And I share your general opinion on Turn Back (attachment aside).
Unknown Soldier: Next we'll be doing their most famous album Toto IV.
Anteater Yep. And in regards to 'Turn Back' I'd recommend listeners to drag out the first two songs, the title track, and perhaps "A Million Miles Away" or one of the better Lukather ballads and call it a day.

The Lowdown
While not a disaster sales-wise, 1981's Turn Back had the weakest commercial showing of the three Toto albums released at that point. In response, Columbia had this to say to the band:

“Okay, guys. We let you do what you want to do. Are you gonna give us a hit record? Because if you don’t, we’re gonna drop you.”

...and thus the group once again consolidated their strengths, wrote together, and came up with the biggest selling juggernaut of their career. Taking an opposite approach to the recording process of Turn Back (where the recording and mixing had been left up to 3rd parties), David Paich and Steve Lukather labored to create "the most obnoxiously overproduced record of all time", a process which involved mixing over a dozen plus tapes down to a 24-track for the various songs and utilizing multiple consoles.

The effort ended up paying off in a big way: Toto IV won SIX Grammys that year, including Album Of The Year, and sold millions thanks to a couple key singles. The extensive production process also paved the way for key members of the band to get involved in the recording, writing and production of Michael Jackson's Thriller, which was released later that year.

Unfortunately, internal discord and problems were inevitable. Singer Bobby Kimball imploded with drug-related problems and founding bassist David Hungate moved to Nashville. This created several huge holes that the band needed to fill, a situation that marked the beginning of Toto's ongoing battle to find a competent lead vocalist as the 80's wore on...

That being said, IV is a landmark record in many respects, featuring Toto's most well known set of songs and being a fine representation overall of their early "arena rock" era.

The Album

Unknown Soldier: Well Toto IV is probably best described as the album that the record company wanted and certainly got.

Anteater: Yeah, Columbia wanted a hit and they got a helluva lot more than they expected.

Anteater: As I noted in my intro, it won six Grammys in one shot that year.

Unknown Soldier: Five singles were released from it as well and two of those became super famous.

Unknown Soldier: "Rosanna" and "Africa" of course.

Anteater: Yep. One thing that'll be fun to determine from our review here is whether or not Toto's most popular album ranks among their overall best or not. It's the only album that most non-Toto fans have atleast heard of after all.

Anteater: Which means it was also the biggest punching bag for critics and detractors of the band.

Unknown Soldier: If a rock collector says they have at least one Toto album in their collection, it's sure to be this one.

Unknown Soldier: Now what would you say before we go into the songs, were the vital ingredients that made this album so big?

Anteater: Well, from my perspective, every band that has sold tens of millions has atleast that "one" album.

Anteater: You know, the one that's like their 15 minutes of fame in the forefront of mainstream consciousness.

Anteater: Going by sheer exposure, Toto IV is an album that left a big mark on a lot of people. If the songs weren't any good, it wouldn't have taken off to the degree that it did.

Unknown Soldier: Agreed on that score, but I really felt that they worked harder on their melodies here than they had done previously and also the greater mixing of different vocalists working together on the same songs like on "Rosanna" and "Africa".

Unknown Soldier: Have you also noticed that this really BIG album for these kinds of bands is often album no.4

Anteater: The recording process behind IV is also the stuff of legends, kind of like what Steely Dan went through with 'Aja' a few years before this.

Anteater: IV is often used as a benchmark for recording quality by audiophiles...

Anteater: ...when testing out different types of sound systems and such.

Unknown Soldier: It's like they reach their creativity as a band before finally going over a plateau.

Unknown Soldier: Hell the amount of additional musical credits for the album is huge as well.

Anteater: And I did notice the "number four" phenomenon

Anteater: Foreigner had the same sort of breakthrough a year before Toto did.

Anteater: So they're a good example.

Anteater: The early 80's in general was an interesting period where AOR hit maximum commercial viability, steadily giving way to glam and New Romantic as the decade wore on.

Unknown Soldier: Yes the perfect example.

Unknown Soldier: I always felt that glam metal stole AOR's thunder anyway, as being at the lighter end of the metal spectrum they appealed to the commercial rock crowd as well to a degree.

Anteater: Yeah, you've gotten some good insight into that through your Pounding Decibels journal actually.


Side One

Anteater: Anywho, let's start by taking a look at opening #1 smash single 'Rosanna'.

Unknown Soldier: Sure as half the metal albums on there are literally running into AOR territory in the 80's anyway.

Unknown Soldier: "Rosanna" the lead single from the album.

Anteater: It's one of their most recognizable songs

Anteater: Porcaro and Hungate in perfect sync of course on the rhythm. One of their smoothest songs!

Unknown Soldier: .... and a video with a sexy blonde in a red dress and black heels (cool)

Anteater: Yeah, that blonde was great.


Anteater: As someone who wasn't really part of the MTV generation, I look back on music videos with something resembling bemusement

Unknown Soldier: ...... and Kimball and Lukather working a great vocal tandem as well.

Unknown Soldier: I can understand that of course but for me they were great of course.

Unknown Soldier: Is the chain link fence in the video typical in the USA, as I always associate them with urban USA? :P

Anteater: Yeah, you'll see those in a lot of AOR vids in general

Anteater: I recall some of Saga's music videos from around the same period involving them

Anteater: And they're from Canada, so I think it was a border-crossing trend :D

Unknown Soldier: I kind of expect Starsky and Hutch to be chasing some lowlife down an alleyway when I see the Rosanna video and squashing his nose up against the fence.

Unknown Soldier: Anyway the song is an accomplished piece without doubt even if I was never really crazy over the song personally.

Anteater: I like it a lot, but its not my favorite from IV by any stretch of the imagination.

Anteater: I like the circular-grooving 'Make Believe' a little more actually.

Unknown Soldier: Again I was never mad on that, but when I lent the album to two of my friends they both liked that song the best.


Anteater: Toto name so many songs after various women you could create an album simply based on that. :)

Unknown Soldier: Good point.

Unknown Soldier: I guess the reason that I don't like "Make Believe" that much, is because it sounds like the kind of borefest song sung by Billy Joel or Elton John.

Anteater: IV is undoubtedly Toto's most laidback album of the 80's, so 'Make Believe' fits right in. I like the sax that comes in later too.

Unknown Soldier: Well the song sums up the mood of the album and is the kind of album track that would be expected on an album like that.

Anteater: Yep: Kimball takes lead and does well with it. He supposedly was dealing with drug addiction in a big way during this period, but his performance is great.

Anteater: And speaking of mood, that leads us to the big power ballad 'I Won't Hold You Back'

Unknown Soldier: For me not only is this one of the greatest Toto songs of all time but probably my favourite rock ballad ever.


Unknown Soldier: I think the song is totally beautiful from beginning to end and the perfect song for romance, what a pity you're not a woman :D

Anteater: It's an interesting song, kind of like something the Eagles might have done crossed with The Alan Parsons Project.

Anteater: It has a certain gravitas with some orchestral touches here and there which was characteristic of the latter band's material.

Unknown Soldier: Agreed and it's great that it's not super famous like the other two singles........ despite the fact that I do tend to hear it fairly often these days on the radio.

Unknown Soldier: I seem to remember that somebody covered this song recently as well.

Anteater: I'd probably use it to get my girlfriend into Toto (assuming she wouldn't hate 80's material)

Anteater: Yeah, it's not as famous as 'Rosanna' or the big A…

Anteater: ….but one of the best ballads of the era for sure.

Anteater: I'm going to bring up several songs in a row now, since we're getting into the B-side. I like both 'Good For You' and the Oriental-sounding 'It's A Feeling'.

Anteater: The latter I feel is pretty underrated, and I think it could have been a big single in its own right on late night FM radio.


Unknown Soldier: "Good For You" is a great song with Kimball back on vocals and I like it so much more than "Make Believe"

Unknown Soldier: "It's A Feeling" could only be written by Steve Porcaro, as his track were real oddities on the Toto albums.

Anteater: We're in prime time "pop" Toto territory at this point

Anteater: I'm sure the relatively small minority of fans who got into Toto over songs like 'Hydra' or 'Girl Goodbye' would have preferred more intricate material, but IV is surprisingly consistent.

Unknown Soldier: oh yeah the track is clear pop and I love how the track picks up towards its end as well.

Unknown Soldier: Toto IV by the end of its first side is totally tight, nothing too intricate but neither too basic, just right I guess like the perfect cooked egg.

Anteater: From that observation, it’s their best "total package" since the first album.

Side Two

Anteater: And that consistency carries into the second side fairly well with the punchy 'Afraid Of Love'.


Unknown Soldier: …which is also followed by ‘Lovers in the Night’ I associate them together as they are the two most rock orientated tracks/harder edged tracks on the album and also the former almost leads into the second.

Anteater: Yeah, there’s a nice bridge moment between them.

Anteater: I think it was a good idea to open the second side with a pair like that…

Anteater: …since it sends the overall pacing of the album way back up to where it was at the start.


Unknown Soldier: Also at last Steve Lukather sings a rock track properly, on "Afraid of Love" not like on "Live For Today" a drivel of a track from the previous album.

Unknown Soldier: Part of the strength of Toto IV is its song placement, I think a lot of time was spent on its song order.

Anteater: Yeah, this is the first album where we hear Lukather actually melding more on the upper tempo stuff as a singer. He's come a long way since the beginning.

Anteater: I guess that applies to everyone here though.

Anteater: They only held this lineup together for IV before all hell broke loose, but this was the classic lineup at its best in some respects.

Unknown Soldier: I love the piano intro of David Paich into "Lovers in the Night"

Unknown Soldier: ...... and it's surprising that this is the first David Paich vocal on the album.

Anteater: Yeah, Paich has been scaling back his vocal role in the band since 'Hydra'.

Unknown Soldier: Do you know that when I first got this album, those two tracks were my most played which of course shows that I was always a bigger fan of their more rock centric stuff.

Anteater: That applies to me as well: Toto really shine on their uptempo material

Unknown Soldier: "Lovers in the Night" of course has that classic Toto sound halfway through, before Steve Lukather kicks in with his guitar and I'm sure you know the bit.

Anteater: His tone is absolutely snarling. It's not heavy metal or anything, but he's always just ahead of Paich's rolling keys.

Anteater: The second half of this song has a flavor to it that reminds me a lot of the first album

Unknown Soldier: That now leads us into another strong Kimball track "We Made It"

Unknown Soldier: I kind of put "We Made It" in with "Make Believe" and "Good For You" all similar tracks that were destined to be strong album material.


Anteater: Do you think it’s a good or bad thing that IV is so tonally consistent?

Anteater: People never hold that against the classic heavy metal records or other types of genres, but a lot of folks seem to treat that as a strike against a lot of the "radio rock" albums

Unknown Soldier: In hindsight for a true Toto fan bad as there is little variety, but it was the album that the band needed to put out, so it was a perfect from this aspect.

Unknown Soldier: I know when I finally got the previous three albums, Toto IV became the least played.

Anteater: Variety is the spice of life, but its a hard thing to balance

Anteater: Toto thankfully have quite a bit of that over the course of their whole discography, but every album had a different balance.

Anteater: In any case, I do like 'We Made It'. It leads into my favorite song on the album actually, 'Waiting For Your Love'.

Anteater: Pretty much Kimball's 'Georgy Porgy', and he does so well that I think they should have used him more often on that slower stuff.


Unknown Soldier: Now I don't really dig that song, maybe because it's the "Georgy Porgy" of this album. Also the video for it if I remeber was shot in a club environment, not the sort of place a rock band should be doing a video.

Anteater: Hah, I remember seeing that video a long time ago. They didn't really look out of place at a club though, TBH

Anteater: Hell, even Yes used to play in clubs like that one.

Unknown Soldier: maybe it was the thing back then.

Unknown Soldier: So the album finished with its second monster single "Africa" which was even bigger than "Rosanna" here.

Anteater: Great groove, but the chorus on that one always annoys me!

Anteater: But I'm not surprised at all that it ended up being the band's biggest hit of all time

Anteater: Fun fact: the album had been out nearly an entire year before 'Africa' was released as a single. So the fact it went to #1 so fast just goes to show you how much people must have latched on to it.


Unknown Soldier: Well that's the key behind these monster selling rock albums, in that the third of fourth single can still be a massive seller almost a year after the release of the album, it's almost like the label hold something special back.

Anteater: That's a neato trick: it doesn't seem to work in today's mainstream musical world though.

Unknown Soldier: It happened with the Cars on their Heartbeat City album with "Drive" which was released further down the pecking order.

Anteater: <3 that album

Unknown Soldier: Things have changed so much since then of course.

Unknown Soldier: Me too one of my all time favs

Anteater: The best thing about 'Africa' is that looping keyboard refrain.

Anteater: It was pretty unique for the time.

Anteater: I just wish some other song had become the huge multi-million dollar seller, because the lyrics are completely nonsensical.

Anteater: And as a result the group was unable to move away from the mainstream's perception of them as some cheesebox soft rock ensemble.

Unknown Soldier: Yes that looping keyboard is special as is the chorus and the video again was perfectly done.

Unknown Soldier: I think the song reached no.2 on the UK singles chart and Toto IV I know reached no.4 on the album chart here. Not bad for an AOR band that wasn't exactly liked here.

Anteater: That's pretty impressive actually. This was definitely the "soft rock" era.

Anteater: Remember that Christopher Cross had won a bunch of Grammys back in 1980 for his first album too

Anteater: I remember reading some people's reviews of IV saying "how could THIS album had won a bunch of critical awards over *insert obscure post-punk album*" and such…

Anteater: Like it was completely unprecedented.

Anteater: But IV was in vogue, and thus it did well. I'm actually happy it did so well too. If it hadn't, Toto would have broken up completely.

Unknown Soldier: Well albums like Hotel California and Breakfast in America were still in people's minds and the people that made those multi-million sellers would've led the way buying Toto IV.

Anteater: You were actually alive back then, unlike myself :P

Unknown Soldier: yes hahaha but didn't listen to stuff like Supertramp and the Eagles until the late 80s though.

Anteater: People didn't really start digging into cassettes until the mid 80's right?

Anteater: CDs didn't even come into minority use until the early 90's

Anteater: I'm guessing most people heard IV on vinyl

Unknown Soldier: Exactly. 80% of people here bought vinyl and far fewer cassettes. Cassettes were more popular there, as there is a greater culture there of listening to rock music whilst driving, as you drive much longer differences there than we do here.

Unknown Soldier: Most people then replaced a lot of the vinyl with Cd's in the 90s.

Anteater: Thought as much.

Anteater: Taking that into consideration, I consider IV to be Toto's second most successful attempt at a full-fledged album up until the mid 80's.

Anteater: It flows well from song to song and has a decent level of variety without any abrupt tonal shifts.

Anteater: I don't like it as much as their first album, and nothing on it quite measures up to Hydra's title track or something like 'English Eyes' off of Turn Back:, but IV has a pacing that appeals to the driver in me.

Unknown Soldier: It's a safe album and the perfect starter album for anybody listening to Toto. It's more consistent than the previous two albums but of course doesn't have the mystique of Hydra or the grit of Turn Back: and of course it doesn't have the intricate feel of the debut. Toto IV has been polished until it shines and that was what AOR was meant to be for many people anyway.

Anteater: It's definitely one of the best places to start.

Anteater: It's not in my top five albums for Toto, but it's in the top ten.

Anteater: 'It's A Feeling', the monster ballad 'I Won't Hold You Back', and everything on side B bar 'Africa' are my favorite moments on IV

Unknown Soldier: I'd agree with that too and "I Won't Hold You Back" is my favourite track but I really like "Africa" as well, it's just so smooth sounding.

Unknown Soldier: Next of course Toto try something very very different, but when a band are at the top of their game commercially they usually have the freedom to do this type of thing anyway.

The Lowdown
After their phenomenal fourth album Toto were very much at the top of the world in terms of commercial success and were now a world famous band, and AOR as a genre was at the height of its powers. They had also worked on the Jackson’s Victory album, along with being the principal artist on the Dune soundtrack after the success of Toto IV. Now bands in this situation are then usually faced with a number of choices and that normally includes following the album up with another similar album (usually what the record label wants) or the band decide that they want to indulge/experiment a bit in something slightly different and this is what Toto did for their fifth studio album Isolation.

The band underwent though two important changes as already mentioned by Anteater in his Toto IV preview, which saw bassist David Hungate departing the band and his replacement was one of the Porcaro brothers Mike, who was literally an in-house replacement anyway. The other notable change was that of principal vocalist Bobby Kimball, whose drug taking ways finally saw him being sacked by the band and his replacement was Fergie Frederiksen (Trillion and LeRoux) who had been recommended by drummer Jeff Porcaro, after Richard Page of Mr.Mister had declined to join Toto.

Now before I go any further with this album intro, I should point out that not only is this my favourite Toto album, but also my favourite album of all time regardless of genre, my ultimate desert island disc if you like! When I first heard the album though in 1984/1985 things were initially very different, as I saw it as a betrayal of the typical Toto sound and of course there was no Bobby Kimball either on the album (I was so disappointed at the time) but then after a few more spins the whole thing just fell into place and blew me away with its sheer energy, offbeat feel and go for the jugular approach (I eventually wore my vinyl version of the album out) In hindsight this is the band’s most AOR release and to this day I’ve never heard anything quite like it and probably never will from another AOR band, which is why it has always been so special to me.

The album produced two obvious singles in “Stranger in Town” a great song and video and “How Does it Feel” along with the light-hearted “Holyanna”. The other single was the heavier “Angel Don’t Cry” and the only single to feature Fergie Frederiksen on vocals, which goes to show just how much his material was overlooked on the album as he sings the lion share of the album’s tracks. The album sales wise was seen as a disappointment, prompting the band to reject doing this 'cut to the quick' approach again.

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 :D
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 :D
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.

Side 2
Anteater: On 'Endless' is where things get interesting
Unknown Soldier: This is Fergie's side of the album where he mixes in his sounds from both Trillion and LeRoux.
Unknown Soldier: Endless is an amazing song and it also has a funky beat to it which I really love
Unknown Soldier: .... but this is not funky in the traditional Toto style at all.
Anteater: Yeah, it's actually kind of funk oriented in a fresh way, which makes it stand out. The AOR vibe is still here of course (especially that chorus), but it feels inventive.
Unknown Soldier: It's AOR funk with so much energy and sets up the title track "Isolation" and it's kind of like the "Lion" of side 2.
Anteater: It's my favorite song on the album and one of the best uptempo songs they ever did
Anteater: But as Turn Back showed us, when Toto decide to put the title track on side B, that means its going to be exceptional. :D
Unknown Soldier: I have two words for the song 'sheer energy'' and I love the lyrics from the song.
Anteater: Yeah, it's a love song of course, but it captures the emptiness of separation really well
Unknown Soldier: The whole album has a nostalgic love appeal to my ears, in a highly energetic way.
Unknown Soldier: All these songs here have Fergie letting fly vocally as well.
Anteater: Toto have always been really good with melody, but one of Isolation's defining features is how on the nose they were in that department this time.
Anteater:Even IV wasn't quite this consistent and that trend also continues into Mr. Friendly and Change Of Heart
Unknown Soldier: Which leads into "Mr. Friendly" my favourite track on the whole album.
Anteater: Another uptempo winner pretty much, though Paich ends up incorporating some prominent piano which is interesting.
Unknown Soldier: It's the most progressive track on the album as well and covers so much Toto musical territory.
Anteater: Yeah, there's a counterpoint going on under the main rhythm in the main verses, but Toto have always been good at keeping thing subtly progressive.
Anteater: They'll pick a melody line and then dance all over it like there's no tomorrow.
Unknown Soldier: This progression is also evident in places on "Change of Heart" which in some ways is the most rock orientated track on the album.
Anteater: I don't have a lot to say about that one, but only because it's pretty competent. Paich goes into a really juicy baroque-inspired keyboard breakdown in the second half though.
Anteater: It's like something Queen would do.
Unknown Soldier: Admittedly its the lesser of the Fergie sung tracks on the album. Which leads us to the low-key closer in "Holyanna" which feels like a wind down song anyway.
Anteater: 'Holyanna' is decently toe tappin'. Tom Scott on sax returns and its a nice touch, but it has a slightly disjointed feel on the melody that makes me wonder why they chose it as the closer.
Anteater: It's not a bad song of course though
Unknown Soldier: It also has a jangly country feel as well, but I was always peeved that it was chosen as a single over a Fergie song.
Anteater: Yeah, because it's not a clear representation of Toto's sound. Toto don't normally do bluesy, jangly jigs with a sax counterpoint
Anteater: I like it well enough though, and on that point Isolation comes to an end.
Unknown Soldier: But as you say it's not a bad song and I do think it works as a closer. The b-side of the album is kind of like a manic night out and "Holyanna" is the mug of tea or coffee you have just before bedtime.


The Conclusion
Unknown Soldier: So your overall opinion on the album?
Anteater: It's my third favorite Toto album and probably right at the top of their AOR era in quality
Anteater: It feels like Turn Back done right in some respects
Anteater: 75% of the album is pure uptempo jams, and all of them are memorable
Unknown Soldier: As you know it's my all time favourite album, which of course makes it my favourite Toto album. Admittedly my love for the album is based on a lot of nostalgia, as it was the Toto album that I had waited almost two years for after getting into the band on Toto IV. I was pissed off when I got it of course and there was no Bobby Kimball. But I was totally devastated two years later on Fahrenheit when I found Fergie was no longer in the band.
Anteater: Yeah, he didn't stay long. Apparently he didn't gel that well into the overall group dynamic the way Bobby originally did or Joseph would after this.
Anteater: I guess if I were going to rate the Toto albums up to this point, Isolation and the self-titled are A+, IV is an A, Turn Back is a C+ and Hydra is a B.
Unknown Soldier: I've read different reasons why he was fired 1) Given the blame for the poor sales of Isolation. 2)Tracks took him ages to nail down in the studio and the others lost patience. 3) He couldn't hack it live and would make himself ill before going on stage.
Unknown Soldier: I'd agree with that, despite the fact that I would listen to both Isolation and Hydra more often than the others.
Unknown Soldier: Finally Bobby Kimball v Fergie Frederiksen as lead vocalist?
Anteater: I like Fergie more, that being said, he's not my favorite Toto singer :P
Anteater: He was the right guy at the right time for Isolation, but I don't know how well he'd fare on Toto's later material if he had stayed.
Anteater: Its hard to tell
Anteater: He's better than that Byron whats-his-face dude the band got stuck with around 1990-91 though
Unknown Soldier: I like them both the same Bobby for his vocal richness and Fergie for sheer power. I'm guessing your favourite is Joseph Williams another great vocalist as well, few bands have been blessed with three of rocks greatest vocalists.
Unknown Soldier: That Byron with a French name was what I ended up seeing as lead vocalist when I first saw Toto live. I was expecting to see Joseph Williams and got him instead. ;(
Anteater: Lol that sucks for you
Anteater: ....and yeah, I think Joseph Williams was the best singer they ever had, we'll be getting to him after this now that I think about it.
Unknown Soldier: Well more on him next time.

Mike Porcaro RIP

Since Anteater and I started this 'chat journal' for Toto, the third mainstream member of the band has sadly passed away in Mike Porcaro. Whilst not being the band's original bassist, Mike always felt like an original anyway largely because his two brothers featured on the first four Toto albums and he acted as an additional musician on some tracks. So when original bassist Dave Hungate announced his departure from the band Mike was the obvious choice and remained as the band's bass player for the rest of his musical career.

As expected Mike Porcaro was a bass player of the highest order and therefore usually appeared in 'best ever bassist' lists but whenever I think of Mike Porcaro I usually remember how cool he looked playing the bass and had great movement as he moved to the rhythm of his playing and was always a great visual focal point of the band, just standing there in the background.

He joins elder brother the original drummer Jeff Porcaro who died way back in 1992 at just 38 and the main vocalist of the Isolation album Fergie Frederiksen who died last year at 62. Mike Porcaro sadly joins them aged 59.

The Lowdown
1984’s Isolation ended up selling respectively and even produced Toto’s highest charting “rock” single at that point in their career (‘Stranger In Town’, which eventually hit #7 on the mainstream charts). But the lineup wasn’t made to hold together. New singer Fergie Fredericksen wasn’t the best fit for the band’s live dynamic, so they ended up parting ways before the year was even over. Thus it was back to the drawing board, albeit not for long.

Enter Joseph Williams, son of THE John Williams, and childhood friend of Steve Lukather. He was the first singer since Kimball whose voice could handle a wide variety of material, and he fit in so fast it was almost as if he had always been there. So much so in fact that he immediately started contributing to the songwriting upon joining. 1986’s Fahrenheit thus represented yet another subtle and distinct shift in sound for the group, once again taking them into uncharted waters mixed in with some ballads plus more straight ahead pop-rock material. It sold fairly well too, with the power ballad ‘I’ll Be Over You’ going into the top ten in many countries worldwide and subsequent singles doing pretty good too.

With this album, Toto were approaching the end of their “arena rock” era which started with IV and would end with 1988’s The Seventh One. This period also marked a point of frustration between Toto and their parent label Columbia, who were going through a period where entire weeks would go by without someone heading over promotion or leadership for new releases. This would hurt Toto’s ability to develop a consistent momentum on the sales side of things, but with a steady lineup in tow Toto went on tour and ended up pleasing the fans anyway despite label problems.

The Album

Anteater: So with Fahrenheit, we arrive at Joseph Williams' debut in Toto's history. It's a pretty interesting album too, maybe their most progressive one since Hydra.

Unknown Soldier: ...... and also their weakest :D, I'll be honest right from the start and state that I don't really like this album. In fact Joseph Williams is the best thing about the whole album.

Anteater: Well, going experimental is a double edged sword for any band. I find that aspect charming in some respects. It's a very different beast from Isolation though

Unknown Soldier: I can remember that I was so happy when that album came out (back then no internet only music press which I seldom bought) but I was reduced to tears when found out that Fergie had left, so I had it in for the band and especially Joseph Williams from the beginning.

Anteater: So has your perception of Fahrenheit improved at all since you originally listened to it way back when?

Anteater: Or do you feel like there's an emotional bias there

Unknown Soldier: There's no emotional bias there now and have listened to it a couple of times again recently. I find the ballads/singles extremely generic and contrived in a very Steve Lukather way. I think there are a number of bad musical experiments on the album that don't work. There are some good songs though of which I'll mention when we go into the album proper.

Unknown Soldier: I also like the album cover.

Anteater: Yeah, it's very L.A.

Side One

Unknown Soldier: So the first track is "Till the End" written by David Paich and Joseph Williams.

Anteater: Very upbeat track, kinda hi-tech

Unknown Soldier: Now this is a track that I do like, it's upbeat as you say and it has such a great funky thump to it.

Anteater: And some nice parping horns(?) synths

Anteater: Not a bad way for Joseph to make his debut


Anteater: I remember the music video had him and the rest of the band in bolero hats and such

Unknown Soldier: Yes the song is great but that ridiculous mariachi style costume that Joseph Williams wears in the video is a no no..... and his silly dancing doesn't help that much either.

Anteater: Oh that music video made no sense whatsoever

Anteater: I can kind of see from that why Lukather isn't a big fan of the band's mid-80's vids and such

Unknown Soldier: It's pure MTV at its worst, it's glossy and it's the kind of thing the general viewing public liked..

Anteater: 'Til The End' was the band's 3rd single

Anteater: so I'm sure the video didn't do it any favors

Unknown Soldier: Yes and certainly better than the two singles before it imo.

Unknown Soldier: Next up is "We Can Make it Tonight" and the first with an outside writer in Barry Bregman

Anteater: Well some of my favorite tracks on Fahrenheit didn't even make it onto radio, and 'We Can Make It Tonight' was one of them.

Anteater: It was sampled a couple years ago on a popular Grum song, but I think it was done kind of tongue in cheek

Unknown Soldier: It's the kind of track that is perfect for Joseph Williams' vocal array, I also really love this song.

Anteater: It's one of Toto's best mid tempo AOR songs without a doubt!


Unknown Soldier: It also sounds very much like a film soundtrack song as well, it could've featured as a soundtrack from any number of American films from that era.

Anteater: Should have been on Miami Vice, hahahaha!

Unknown Soldier: Oh yeah it's real Miami Vice type material.

Anteater: In any case, I will be the first to agree with you that the ballads on Fahrenheit in general are pretty pedestrian.

Anteater: None of them are bad songs per-se, but they lack the power of the band's biggest ballads we've heard so far.

Unknown Soldier: …which leads us to "Without You Love" a song and video that I really dislike and it's Steve Lukather at his worst and it was actually written by David Paich.

Unknown Soldier: It's only saving grace is its chorus and I guess David Paich thought that this was the type of song Steve Lukather would write anyway.

Anteater: I like Lukather's more laidback, exploratory jazz-fusion guitar work on the second half of the song, but it doesn't really do much for me either.

Anteater:Least as far as being a composition goes.

Unknown Soldier: ..... and the video has Joseph Williams standing around like a loose end, at least Bobby Kimball used to pretend to do something on the keyboards.i

Anteater: Lol, could Bobby even play keys?

Anteater: Though I digress…

Anteater: Our next cut, 'Can't Stand It Any Longer', is a really weird sounding song for Toto.

Unknown Soldier: The best song on the album for me, because it's the only song on this album that I can imagine Fergie singing but to be fair Joseph does a great job.


Unknown Soldier: It was always my favourite back when I got the album and is today as well. It's like a distant cousin of "Lion" in some ways.

Anteater: Lion's weirder cousin with a thing for Reggaeton I suppose :D

Anteater: It sounds like a Police song with Toto's usual dramatic flair on the chorus and main guitar melody.

Anteater: It’s one of those songs I wasn't into initially, but over time has grown a lot on me

Unknown Soldier: I guess so and sure there's a Police vibe to it, surprisingly that hasn't put me off the song as I really dislike the Police.

Anteater: Reggae and arena rock rarely ever crossed over even at their primes in the decade…

Anteater:…so I give it props just for trying. It's just icing on the cake that it's actually pretty listenable.

Anteater: On another note, we have now arrived at the "peak" (or perhaps valley) of the album...

Anteater:A certain power ballad we all know...

Anteater: It even has Michael McDonald on the chorus!

Unknown Soldier: Yes the cringe worthy "I'll Be Over You" and another video that I hate.

Anteater: Haha, I don't actually hate this song. It’s a good ballad, just nothing mindblowing.

Anteater: The video is pretty naff though, even for Toto.

Anteater: Surprised Kenny G didn't show up midway through!


Unknown Soldier: Exactly and boy was I glad it thundered and rained to drive them inside and cut short the song.

Anteater: Hahaha!

Side Two

Anteater: So, moving onto side B, we greet the head-scratching title track: a song that moves Toto into dancefloor, "high NRG" territory.

Unknown Soldier: I find the whole song kind of embarrassing especially with that 'high NRG' or 'hip-hop' style intro. I know little of this kind of music so correct me if I'm wrong here.

Anteater: Well, Jeff Porcaro and Joseph Williams were both actually big fans of guys like Michael Jackson, Prince and such.

Anteater: I like the song partly due to its novelty, since stylistically its not that different from a lot of Japanese City Pop stuff that was coming out at the time

Anteater: Toto had never done a song like this before, so I give it some props.


Anteater: …but it's not the best tier material on Fahrenheit, no.

Unknown Soldier: I'm listening to it right now and looking forward to when it ends.

Unknown Soldier: Admittedly they were brave to go with it for the title track.

Anteater: I consider the title track and then 'Somewhere Tonight' and 'Could This Be Love' to be the weakest stretch of the album.

Anteater: They're ponderous and don't really have strong hooks or ideas to anchor them in your mind.

Unknown Soldier: Well "Somewhere Tonight" I really like a lot.

Anteater: That one at least has some atmosphere. It's better than 'Ill Be Over You' too!

Unknown Soldier: Because the song almost sounds like one of those low key Steve Porcaro songs with its intro and then changes style and the listener probably expects Steve Lukather to be singing it, but instead we have Joseph Williams singing it and I think he does a great job as he sings so well against the backdrop of the song's subtle beat.

Unknown Soldier: To me it's one of the better tracks on the whole album.

Anteater: Williams is unique in that he can handle any type of material

Anteater: it's a trait that would become even more evident on the next album, but like you said he's probably the best part of Fahrenheit too.

Anteater: Do you agree with me about 'Could This Be Love' though?

Anteater: I'm not a fan of it at all.

Unknown Soldier: Mostly I agree with you, as I dislike the opening and main parts of the song, as it all sounds like some drivel that John Cougar would've put out.

Anteater: Sounds very Toto but it’s just bland. I like 'Lea' a lot more.

Unknown Soldier: But there are some more powerful bits that Joseph Williams does well on the song.

Unknown Soldier: Bland is a good word for it…

Unknown Soldier: The problem for me with "Lea" is that if a great closing track came after it, it would work but that final great track doesn't come and it just sounds like typical b-side single material.

Anteater: There's a few interesting things about it though…

Anteater: For one, ol' Joe Porcaro is doing percussion on it alongside Lenny Castro…


Unknown Soldier: It's not one of Steve Porcaro's best written tracks.

Anteater: …you know, the father of the Porcaros.

Unknown Soldier: Oh, yes I do.

Anteater: One thing we actually haven't talked about is that Joe Porcaro has guested to some degree on every Toto album from Turn Back up until this point.

Anteater: Sometimes subtly and sometimes more obviously.

Anteater: I like 'Lea' because it’s got an almost bossa nova groove going. It’s on the better side of Fahrenheit's balladic material and it leads into the Miles Davis-guested closing instrumental 'Don't Stop Me Now'.

Unknown Soldier: To be fair you have a much greater appreciation and knowledge of the musical subtleties of an album than I have, as I usually focus mostly on its meat.

Unknown Soldier: I've no idea why that closing instrumental is on the album, it's nice and sounds like it could be on a New York skyline shot in a film.

Anteater: Yeah, it’s a cinematic touch and kind of a relaxed way to lead out of the album

Anteater: Toto have never done that before or since.

Anteater: Whether or not it’s a good or bad thing, I suppose, depends on the listener.


Unknown Soldier: Overall side-b for me might be the poorest side on any Toto album. Hell I only really like one song on it.

Anteater: I think I'll agree with you on that point: Fahrenheit is an album with big ups and downs in consistency…

Anteater: …which were key issues with both Hydra and Turn Back, though I think Fahrenheit is better than the latter.

Anteater: So while we can both agree that Fahrenheit has problems, what are the things you liked most about the album and would recommend to listeners (and our readers)?

Unknown Soldier: An introduction to Joseph Williams as I know very little of his material outside of Toto, apart from that I can't recommend much else and there's not even a David Paich vocal to speak off. Also if anybody likes contrived AOR, they should check out the album's first two singles.

Unknown Soldier: It's the first Toto album that we really disagree on, for me it’s easily the poorest so far and I would take Turn Back over it all the time.

Anteater: Good points. I see Fahrenheit as Toto trying for a greater palette and only succeeding about half the time. Nevertheless, some great material does come through and Joseph Williams was an excellent choice as singer. A good warmup to the masterpiece that is 1988's The Seventh One.

Anteater: I give it a solid B. As you mentioned, it’s on the weaker side of their discography, but there’s still good stuff to recommend.

The land we call the home of the brave.

The Lowdown
As the album name suggests this was album number seven from Toto and most importantly it would signal the end of the band’s first stage as it were, where the band had been seen as one of the premier AOR bands from the last ten years. Within this time they had proved that they were one of the most eclectic and best of all the bands that fell under the AOR banner, but as the genre had more or less died its commercial death by the time of the Seventh One, album sales for this album would suffer which was a shame as its one of the band’s most accomplished releases. Also on this point, the album surprisingly was ill-received by critics, who saw the whole thing as having an almost ‘anonymous’ sound, which is strange as to me as it feels like how I imagine a Toto album from this period to sound. The two main singles from the album “Pamela” and “Stop Loving You” were both far better than those off Fahrenheit, but like the album turned out to be poor commercial achievers as well. The album is also noted by the fact that its title track never actually appeared on the album but instead was resigned to only appear on Japanese copies of the album.

The Seventh One in many ways sounds like the band pulling out all the stops to try and make an impressive record and its dominant purple cover instantly makes it the band’s most striking album cover, along with the red of Toto IV. The line-up also remains complete from the Fahrenheit album and musically it remained the same, but stylistically the songs are superior here, harder edged where it matters, with a number of musical surprises that really work this time and the commercial material is decidedly less generic as well, sadly though the videos hadn’t improved that much and in my mind are inferior to the videos seen on the first five albums.

The album was jointly produced by the band with George Massenberg and Bill Payne of Little Feat and the album would be the final release at the time with Joseph Williams as lead vocalist. This negative factor now proved that the band seemed incapable of holding onto a highly talented vocalist, as not too many bands out there would’ve departed company with vocalists of the caliber of Bobby Kimball, Fergie Frederiksen and Joseph Williams in just over a five year period, this now led to serious credibility problems by the band which I remember were highlighted at the time.

The Album
Unknown Soldier: You've often mentioned that this is one of your favourite albums from the band, any obvious reason for that?
Anteater: I think it's their best overall AOR recording. There's almost no weak points on it, which would make it the first since the debut in that regard.
Anteater: It's more balanced than Isolation, more diverse than IV, and like you mentioned it's a step up from Fahrenheit in a lot of ways too.
Unknown Soldier: For me it's a difficult album for a listener to adjust to, not because it's complex or anything, but rather it has great depth that's not evidently obvious. For example it's weakest part imo is actually with its opening 4 songs, which not only include its two main singles but also include two very other generic tracks, but it's from there that it slowly drifts into being something else and it's quite a journey as we'll explain.
Unknown Soldier: It's all strange really as the first few tracks on most albums are usually among its strongest and set the stall out as it were.
Anteater: They put all the most "obvious" material out front
Unknown Soldier: It's also a long album for its time as well, but this was 1988 and albums were getting longer.
Anteater: I think there were other factors too, as the band was pretty comfortable with Joseph as lead vocalist by this point
Unknown Soldier: Well he took the lion's share of the vocals here.
Anteater: Well yeah, and whatever band dynamics they initially established had gone up a few notches. The only problem, like you mentioned, was trying to sell the end product to a public who was supposedly disinterested in AOR
Anteater: But from what I understand the problem in this case had more to do with Columbia not promoting The Seventh One and less to do with overall public perception.
Anteater: But like I said, I think as an AOR record its their best of the 80's and probably the 2nd best album we've spotlighted so far next to the self-titled.
Unknown Soldier: Well as you know Isolation will always be the best for me (cool) :pimp:
Anteater: It's a hard call between The Seventh One and Isolation for me
Unknown Soldier: But seriously I do remember at the time, that band wanted to make a big splash with this album, but as you said the label weren't on the same wavelength as the band.

Side 1
Anteater: But anyway, opening single 'Pamela' wasn't a bad way to start things off.
Unknown Soldier: In "Pamela" we find a song that is not only a strong opener, but sounds immediately better than any of the singles off the previous album.
Anteater: 'Fahrenheit' had some really strong single material: the problem was the label didn't use any of them as lead singles, so it was a wasted opportunity
Unknown Soldier: The video also uses that 'pleasant looking studio environment' from the time as well for the Pamela video which I liked back then.
Anteater: But in this case, 'Pamela' is definititive Toto. I don't care too much for the video, but it has an excellent groove.
Unknown Soldier: It has a fantastic groove and Mike Porcaro moves with that groove as he often did RIP.
Unknown Soldier: The song's a pure single and that's the best that can be said about it and of course showcases the vocals of JW.
Anteater: It has a nice brassy sheen to it too and it also shows off another facet of the album from the get-go: the mix has a lot of clarity, making it one of the best "sounding" albums in their whole catalog
Unknown Soldier: ..... and sadly one of the last times that we would see Jeff Porcaro in a Toto video as well.
Unknown Soldier: Yes it has great clarity to it, now we move onto "You Got Me"
Anteater: I'm assuming this one of the "generic" sounding tracks to you, but I like it a lot. Very hi-tech, and a lottttt better than their previous experiment in this area, the title track from 'Fahrenheit'
Unknown Soldier: Generic and somewhat reptitive, when I first heard it I thought the album was going to be another Fahrenheit all over again, but I guess I'm also being quite hard on it too.
Anteater: Joseph Williams was always a big Michael Jackson aficionado, so this song is that element coming out in his songwriting. Paich co-wrote it if I recall too.
Unknown Soldier: You notice this in his style especially in his movement which is very akin to Jackson at times.
Anteater: Toto were basically Michael Jackson's backing band in the first half of the 80's anyway, so I'm not surprised to see that sort of thing pop back up even after the association ended.
Unknown Soldier: Next is "Anna" and for me it's just a case of getting the bland Steve Lukather ballad out of the way quickly here.
Anteater: I actually think it's one of Lukather's better ballads, a co-write with Westcoast session man Randy Goodrum, but the predictability factor is high certainly.
Unknown Soldier: Ok we have some differences on the last two songs a rarity really!
Anteater: It's all about finesse for me, none of the ballad material on 'Fahreneheit' really worked for me, but 'Anna' does for some reason. The arrangement has an extra "something"
Unknown Soldier: I understand that and kind of know the type of thing that you look for now.
Anteater: Like you though, I find it interesting that the weakest material on The Seventh One is on side one and all the best stuff comes after.
Unknown Soldier: Next track is the other single "Stop Loving You"
Anteater: I like this one quite a bit
Unknown Soldier: Which seems to start off with a blatant "Africa" tinge to it.
Anteater: It's their way of winking knowingly at the listener lol, it has a similar vibe, but I like the energy and hook here a lot more than 'Africa'. Plus Jon Anderson of Yes is on backing vocals
Unknown Soldier: Again I don't particuarly like it, it's too 'happy' sounding for me and hell I didn't know that Jon Anderson was backing on it.
Unknown Soldier: By now I'd be switching off from this album, but as I know what's to come............
Anteater: Four songs in and none of them are weak though
Anteater: Next is 'Mushanga' and this is the one that reminds me the most of 'Africa' funnily enough.
Unknown Soldier: 1 good, 1 average and 2 misses for me.
Unknown Soldier: Now "Mushanga" is the oddest way to transform somebody's opinion about an album, because it did with me.
Anteater: It's a surprisingly lyrical song
Unknown Soldier: It's kind of a nice low-key track that rides you on a gentle wave to the really strong material that's coming up.
Unknown Soldier: Yes it has nice lyrics to it.
Anteater: Jeff Porcaro was the main writer here, and there's even a flamenco guitar solo courtesy of Lukather
Unknown Soldier: He always wrote on some of the band's most interesting material and yes that flamenco guitar is the great surprise that works and the track also has that calypso beat as well.
Anteater: Makes me wish Jeff had gotten to do more writing during his "time" with the band
Anteater: You know that Jeff played on literally several thousand albums before 1992 right?
Anteater: The guy had been exposed to so many different genres and artists during his time in the industry its kind of mindboggling
Unknown Soldier: Hell yer, he's on like most Steely Dan albums, if you can find him through all the credits.
Anteater: Yeah, that was where he got started was with "the Dan"
Anteater: Anyway, onward to the excellent 'Stay Away' and we're back in high octane AOR territory now
Unknown Soldier: Now you know I'm going to dig "Stay Away" it's just my kind of thing and contrasts superbly with the previous song.
Anteater: Well, I'll just go ahead and say that I consider side 2 of The Seventh One to be pretty darn fantastic.
Anteater: I like Side A fine of course, but its like they took all the best material and just lined them up like dominos, starting from 'Mushanga'
Anteater: Lukather wrote this one, and his guitar tone here is absolutely killer, almost like a buzzsaw
Unknown Soldier: It's strength is that it's a 5.30 mins song
Unknown Soldier: That keeps it going all the way and never runs out of steam.
Anteater: I heard it was a song they originally wrote for Cher, but Jeff and Joseph pushed to keep it for The Seventh One.
Unknown Soldier: It would be interesting to hear Cher sing it.
Anteater: So they changed the lyrics a bit, lengthened the arrangement and thus we get a surprisingly bluesy AOR rocker

Side 2
Unknown Soldier: Starting side 2 is "Straight for the Heart" the third single from the album and another killer track.
Anteater: Oh I love that track to death. One of my favorite AOR songs of the late 80's and it has an amazing bassline
Unknown Soldier: The video has that 'ranch aspect' with a guy with the white t-shirt and jeans in the video, that could easily could've been a Richard Marx song :D
Unknown Soldier: But I always loved this song as it has so much energy to it.
Anteater: Oh right I saw that video a lonnnng time ago. It sucks of course, but oh well :D I forget who played the girl in that video
Unknown Soldier: These last three tracks have all been special, but now we enter into the more epic stuff like "Only the Children"
Anteater: Toto have done songs about disparity before, but this is one of the better ones
Unknown Soldier: Of course and it has an epic feel and I never tire of it.
Anteater: It's not as punchy as 'Straight To The Heart' or 'Stay Away', but the chorus is excellent and yeah it has kind of an epic feel to complement its lyrical theme
Anteater: Its a good lead up to my favorite pair of songs on the album too
Unknown Soldier: Next is "A Thousand Years" another song that is a favourite of mine as well and we're on the same wavelength here.
Unknown Soldier: It has a beautiful almost dreamy feel to it.
Anteater: It's very dreamy and surreal. I'd go as far as to call it apocalyptic.
Anteater: Because the song reeks lyrically of desolation and uncertainty. It's the first time Toto have ever done a song like this, and it works brilliantly
Unknown Soldier: "These Chains" is the second of that great pair and one of the best Steve Lukather tracks.
Anteater: Another one with Randy Goodrum actually, which is funny because 'Anna' didn't work for you at all :D same songwriting pair, different result I suppose
Anteater: It's one of my favorite Toto songs of all time though, as well as one of Jeff Porcaro's best ever drum shuffles
Unknown Soldier: To be fair I never thought of them as a pair, "Anna" sounds like a boring Chicago song to me and well "These Chains" is a very good song.
Anteater: Well, Goodrum is kinda like an unofficial Toto member at this point. He also helped write 'I'll Be Over You" from the last one hahaha
Unknown Soldier: Probably why he doesn't linger in my mind that much.
Unknown Soldier: Final track is "Home of the Brave" probably the most ambitious track the band had put out since "Hydra"
Anteater: In any case, by the time most listeners have gotten to this point they're probably thinking the band was going to end with a boring ballad or something
Anteater: But they actually close out with one of their best anthems in their whole songwriting history
Unknown Soldier: Also it's the first David Paich vocal on the album amazingly, but of course JW steels the show here as he should on a track like this.
Anteater: Oh yeah, Paich opens up the song
Anteater: You're right though, 'Home Of The Brave' is the most ambitious song they had done in nearly 10 years up until this point
Anteater: Its basically a mini-progressive rock epic
Unknown Soldier: After that snazzy synth intro.
Unknown Soldier: In fact the whole song is a musical display by the band and the song just transforms with that guitar section after the 3.20 point into something more muscular.
Anteater: The whole song is a masterpiece. Easily the best closing song they've ever gone out with.
Anteater: There's even some Yes-styled instrumental tradeoffs about midway through, dueling guitar and synth lines, lots of fun
Unknown Soldier: That muscle guitar sound and you know what I'm talking about here, is always the thing that pumps my blood on these songs and it's one of their best along with the one on "Angel Don't Cry" and of course Journey's "Edge of the Blade". I could listen to these three tracks all day.
Anteater: I find it funny that one of the best "stadium" songs came out at a time that the genre was drying up with most mainstream audiences
Anteater: They should have released it as a full-blown single, length be damned
Unknown Soldier: Well it was kind of wasted but then again some of the really late period AOR material was great, for example that Bad English debut album is one of the best AOR albums imo. Came out just a year later than the Toto album.
Anteater: Oh yeah, '89 was a great year as far as AOR albums were concerned. You also had stuff like Strangeways and that Michael Thompson Band release, so there was plenty of fun to be had
Anteater: In any case, The Seventh One was Toto's last full blown AOR record as you mentioned in your intro, as well as being the rare case of an album that actually backloaded all of its best material.
Unknown Soldier Finally we should mention it's title track "The Seventh One" which was only on the Japanese releases of the album.
Anteater: Yeah, I have that one too. It's a good song: a tad repetitive and more of a "let's jam" kind of piece.
Unknown Soldier: Well I never knew it existed until the age of the internet and even now have trouble believing it's a Toto song.
Unknown Soldier: I guess they ran out of time to fit it on the album.
Anteater: Haha, yeah and it's a weird one for Toto
Anteater: I'm guessing nobody in the U.S. got to hear it except that rare person who went out of their way to import it from Japan back then
Unknown Soldier: Those Japanese imports were always the best and being a Cheap Trick nut I had some of their Japanese imports.
Anteater: Most Toto albums never had any kind of bonus material. So I found it interesting that The Seventh One actually had a title track too a few years ago



The Conclusion
Anteater: How do you rate it in comparison to past albums we've gone through so far?
Unknown Soldier: One of their most accomplished along with their debut.
Anteater: Yeah, since I know you didn't like the first half all that much and Isolation is your favorite of their 80's albums
Unknown Soldier: This is the order that I'd put them in.
Unknown Soldier: 1. Isolation 2. Toto 3. The Seventh One 4. Hydra 5. Toto IV 6. Turn Back 7. Fahrenheit.
Anteater: That's pretty close to my order too
Anteater: In any case, with The Seventh One, we can say goodbye for the time being to Toto's AOR era and look forward to their less well-known material
Unknown Soldier: But I like Turn Back better than you, as I think it has great songs but dislike Fahrenheit quite a bit.
Anteater: it would be a time of many changes and instabilities
Unknown Soldier: Yes next studio album is the Steve Lukather dominated Kingdom of Desire which I do like, but before that we had the death of Jeff Porcaro and that Jean-Michel geezer from South Africa as their vocalist for live performances.
Unknown Soldier: A word of advice, never have a singer with a French name in your band, they're always crap ;)
Anteater: We might talk a bit more about him in our next review, but we'll save the fun for then :D

I'm definitely going to have to go through this thread soon, but until then the only thing I can think of when I read the title is Manowar: "I can see, by the look in your eye, you came here for metal, to fight and to die!"

Foreigner 4 was fantastic BTW. It's like what Trollheart keeps desperately telling himself about Bon Jovi: AOR with balls.

Which is odd, as every time I read the title I think Paul Young: "By the look in your eye, I can tell you're gonna cry: is it over me?"

Juke Box Hero was worth the price of the album alone.

If you liked 4, you'd really dig this one too. Similar vibe.

Michael Thompson Band - How Long (1989)

It's a lyric from the second Toto album (I changed one word)

Foreigner are rough around the edges AOR and Lou Gramm's vocals fit the sound.

You might like this as well and play it loud.

An attempt at nostalgia with a hint of something new.

The Lowdown
After The Seventh One it would take Toto almost four years to release their next studio album Kingdom of Desire in 1992 and this would also be a less than impressive time for the band musically as well. Musically the band would continue touring and would put out what could be described as nostalgic releases in their Past to Present album which is featured here and the album operated as a celebration album rather than a greatest hits type of thing. The following year's Greatest Hits Live...... and More would be more of a best hits type of thing but in a live setting. The man chosen to front the band at this time was Jean-Michel Byron (who we'll be discussing below) and luckily he only stuck around for this period and Steve Lukather also released his first solo album in this period as well. Finally the album Past to Present 1977-1990 is a 13 track 'best of' album that features four new songs with Jean-Michel Byron which is the only reason why we're discussing it.

The album
Unknown Soldier: After The Seventh One which saw the departure of another lead vocalist in Joseph Williams, the band wouldn't release another studio album for four years and in the meantime would hit an all-time low, do you agree with this?
Anteater: I think things started to go pretty "badly" to put it lightly and it was probably their most chaotic era, or at least the start of it
Unknown Soldier: Firstly the band were bold in appointing a black vocalist into the band but in essence their sound was suited to this direction. The problem was though he was so gay sounding and that dancing of his .............
Anteater: Columbia wanted Toto to get "hip" with the times I suppose, and to that end I suppose you could do worse than a Terrence Trent D'Arby knockoff
Anteater: I'm supposing a lot here, but that's because I honestly have no idea who came up with the idea, since it’s a pretty boneheaded idea
Anteater: Guys like Terrence (and I suppose Seal) would have at least been more interesting choices than this guy though: he's not as talented as any of the major players he's emulating.
Unknown Soldier: He was called Jean-Michel Byron from South Africa and had a wig of hair that any girl or glam artist would've been proud of.
Anteater: He's a big step down from Joseph Williams, but perhaps he was a blessing in disguise too.
Unknown Soldier: Why a blessing, a wake-up call perhaps?
Unknown Soldier: He also had a decent voice as you'd expect, but as you say he was a knockoff of more famous guys like Terrence Trent D’Arby and of course Seal was great.
Anteater: Byron's absolutely abysmal contributions basically convinced Lukather he needed to become the band's leader and vocalist full-time. Which was a key element in setting the stage for Kingdom Of Desire and future albums
Unknown Soldier: Well it was the logical conclusion I guess after the vocalists that they had and especially since they couldn't keep quality vocalists like Fergie and Joseph on board
Unknown Soldier: Anyway in this period the band released two 'best of' albums, Past to Present 1977 to 1990 where we'll mention the four new songs and a Greatest Hits Live..... and More the following year.
Anteater: Toto was in full nostalgia mode at this point, but I guess they really had no choice
Unknown Soldier: Anyway let’s cut to the chase with the four songs that were all co-written with Jean Michel Byron to try and incorporate him into the band.

The Four Songs
Anteater: Indeed. They start with the relative "best" of those four, the lengthy 'Love Is The Power'
Unknown Soldier: The best hahaha you're funny!
Anteater: It's the one Jeff Porcaro liked………for whatever that's worth lol
Unknown Soldier: It has that tacky South African intro with JMB entering with a spoken intro, to be fair the song has a decent if somewhat generic groove to it and I remember that they played this at the concert when I saw them in 1990/1991
Anteater: Oh, I think it’s pretty naff and all, but of the four songs it’s the one with the most Toto "identity" it has the wo-oh-ohs, the extended shuffle groove, etc. but generic? You bet your ass it is.
Unknown Soldier: Next "Out of Love"
Anteater: I’d like to substitute the 'Love" part of that song's title with "Out Of *insert other words here* and let's just call it Out Of Ideas
Anteater: It’s a boring bluesy ballad. Byron brings absolutely nothing to it either.
Unknown Soldier: The video is just as boring and surprise surprise it takes place in an empty bar (apart from the band of course) The Cars on "Drive" made an empty bar look cool, Toto don't.
Anteater: Guess people saw they were going to play there with their "new" singer and said "**** it"
Unknown Soldier: Best thing about the video is JMB's lippy and perm.
Unknown Soldier: I’m listening to the song now and it's painful.
Anteater: I can't make it through again either
Anteater: Even Lukather's most generic ballads sound like Bohemian Rhapsody compared to this thing
Unknown Soldier: They sure do and next up is "Can You Hear What I'm Saying" and to be fair it's an improvement over the previous song due to its upbeat feel.
Anteater: It has some energy, but Byron just doesn't work at all.
Anteater: He's too listless, the hook's a bit weak too
Unknown Soldier: I'd agree with that and finally we have "Animal"
Anteater: I have no words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1356oa_qcc8
Anteater: I know you didn't like "You Got Me" from The Seventh One, but surely you can hear the difference between that MJ impersonation and this one in terms of "quality" eh? :P
Unknown Soldier: Sure I can spot it now that you mention it. I should point out that until this week I hadn't listened to these four songs in like 15 years.
Unknown Soldier: In that live video JMB looks like he's priming himself for a male striptease.
Anteater: Hahahaha

Conclusion
Anteater: Now that we've made it through the pain of these four songs, are your impressions "better" than 15 years ago?
Unknown Soldier: No not at all, but I should point out around the early 1990s I was distinctly off Toto and didn't even bother with Kingdom of Desire until a few years after its release, this downward opinion was of course due to this crappy period from the band.
Anteater: I never went through anything like that, but that just shows how different the music discovery process is for someone typically in my generation than, say, someone who lived through the 80's and 90's.
Unknown Soldier: When you grow up with a band it's kind of different, as somebody like you had most of their discography to choose from when you got into the band.
Anteater: Yep! Kinda thankful for that though. I didn't even know Past To Present had four songs from this guy on it til like....2013.
Anteater: But I also rarely look into Best Of collections or even live albums. Just not as interested in them as studio recordings.
Unknown Soldier: I'm hoping that anybody reading this won't waste their time with them either, referring of course to the four songs here.
Anteater: They have been warned...but thankfully what's coming next is actually a pleasant surprise in most ways. :D

Now it was decided for the reputation of the band and this journal, that the four woeful songs discussed above wouldn't be placed here. But for anyone that wants to hear how generic they sound and experience Jean-Michel Byron prancing around the place, there is always YouTube.

The Lowdown
Despite a successful international tour under their belt, Toto’s ‘The Seventh One’ failed to gain the momentum the band had hoped for, leading to the group splitting from longtime label Columbia. Joseph Williams dropped out of the group due to a combination of drug and voice related problems, and Steve Porcaro followed not long afterwards. Between that and the ‘Past To Present’ best-of tour debacle, Paich, Lukather and Jeff decided to go back to the drawing board and just “jam out” for awhile. The result of this was 1992’s Kingdom Of Desire, an album that saw Lukather taking on almost 100% of all vocal duties on top of lead guitar and an almost drastic sonic shift of Toto’s overall sound into jazz-laced hard rock/blues rock territory.

Unfortunately, just as the album was finished and released, tragedy struck yet again with the sudden death of drummer Jeff Porcaro, who at that point was one of the most prolific drummers in existence. His death threw the band into the kind of chaos that would destroy most acts, but everyone pulled together for a hugely successful tour with the help of a lot of people, including newly inducted drummer Simon Phillips (Jeff Beck, The Who, etc.), who stepped in at Lukather’s request.

The album had minor hits everywhere except the U.S., and thus Toto put their AOR days behind them and moved forward into an uncertain future…

The Album

Anteater: So how familiar are you with this album Unknown Soldier? I was actually alive when this album was released, though only a few years old. Is it something you disliked at first and then went back to later?

Unknown Soldier: Well I was distinctly off the band when this album came out due to the debacle with Jean-Michel Byron and with both Joseph Williams and Steve Porcaro bailing out. I don't remember buying it until a few years later and even then I just bought it to complete the band collection.

Unknown Soldier: When I did get it I was immediately thumped if you like on just how heavy and funky it sounded. It’s without a doubt the heaviest sounding album in the band discography to that point.

Anteater: Yeah, it's Toto's heaviest album as of 2015 as well. Very unique sounding and one of my favorites overall.

Anteater: There's some strange things about it though, change in musical direction aside…

Anteater: The album cover is pretty macabre for instance.

Anteater: …and it was painted by Jeff Porcaro less than two weeks before he died.

Unknown Soldier: I was about to comment on that as well, but it's amazing how these tragic occurrences have often followed musicians around.

Anteater: If Toto had been some other band, Kingdom Of Desire would have been the swansong.

Unknown Soldier: kind of like what happened with Led Zeppelin after John Bonham died.

Anteater: Makes the fact that a mostly intact lineup released an album only a month ago pretty amazing, when you consider everything these guys have been through since '78

Anteater: Yeah, Led Zeppelin was out the door before the 80's hit because of Bonham's death. Might partly be why they are univerally associated with the decade and nothing beyond it.

Anteater: They got started right as the 70's began then died off before it came to a close.

Unknown Soldier: Well some bands just go on through all kinds of disaster whilst other just throw the towel in.

Anteater: Yeah, and Toto are definitely in the former camp.

Unknown Soldier: Now before we get into the album, I know that you like it right?

Anteater: Very much so. It's in my top 3.

Unknown Soldier: Well you obviously like it a lot more than I do, which is surprising as I usually really like Toto when they do get heavy.

Anteater: It's a "love it or hate it" kind of album though for both Toto fans and non-fans though. Some of the heavier musical ideas and philosophical touches lyrically that The Seventh One had are actually expanded upon in Kingdom Of Desire.

The Songs

Unknown Soldier: Well the album starts with the almost Jimi Hendrix sounding "Gypsy Train"

Unknown Soldier: In regards to the song title of course

Anteater: What's the phrase I would use for this particular song...."rollicking" maybe?

Anteater: There's even a touch of bar room sleaze

Unknown Soldier: I call it a heavy thumper :D


Anteater: I really dig it, though I'm sure every Toto fan who first heard it probably were scratching their heads in confusion

Anteater: "Isn't Lukather the guy who sings those lame ballads?"

Anteater: "Did I buy a Bad Company album on accident?"

Anteater: etc. etc.

Unknown Soldier: Well I think most of the album would throw most Toto fans and if you remember right from the word go, I always thought of Lukather as the rocker of the band, even though he always sang the ballads.

Anteater: To these ears, 'Gypsy Train' is the sound of a band not giving a ****. :D

Unknown Soldier: His only real rockers before this had been "Live for Today" a poor song and "Afraid of Love" a good song.

Anteater: And its great. Not in the same way as The Seventh One or Isolation, but very interesting once you let it sink in.

Unknown Soldier: I also think this album is a reaction to the lame sounding Jean-Michel Byron period.

Anteater: Haha, this material is so beyond a guy like Byron that its funny to think about it.

Anteater: One other note I'll make is 'Gypsy Train' is the longest opening song on a Toto record so far since 1979's Hydra.

Unknown Soldier: It's a beefy sounding album for sure and fairly bold by Lukather to completely take over the vocal duties, but of course he had already released his first solo album.

Unknown Soldier: Hell every song on this album is long!

Anteater: That's a mix of Luke and Jeff Porcaro's influence I think: they were both itching to move beyond pure radio format stuff.

Anteater: Lukather's solo outing from a few years before this also had a heavier Blues and L.A. jazz-fusion influence: the fact so much of it has bled into Toto's core sound by 1992 shows that he's become the leader of the band.

Anteater: anyway, the bluesy "rock band rocking out at the local watering hole" aesthetic is almost uniformly consistent across Kingdom Of Desire from start to finish, and next track 'Don't Chain My Heart" is a clear representative of this direction.

Unknown Soldier: Agreed and even his appearance had changed as well. If you check out the "Don't Chain My Heart" a single and the second track on the album, the video has him looking like Ian Gillan with a guitar, especially in that leather waistcoat and barechested underneath.

Anteater: Could this be the so called "glam" or "hair metal" influence of L.A. music and fashion of the time finally needling its way into the group? :D
Unknown Soldier: Well have you ever seen the video for the Black Sabbath "Zero the Hero" track with Ian Gillan on vocals?

Anteater: Not recently, but I do remember it

Unknown Soldier: Check it out it's one of my fav ever videos. :D

Unknown Soldier: Next up "Never Enough" which again I like, as the band show there is still no sign of slowing down.

Anteater: It's a fun hard rocking track, infused with a certain world weariness

Unknown Soldier: co-written with Fee Waybill from The Tubes another one of my all time fav bands. Steve Lukather had a few writing credits on Tubes albums, so I guess he was returing the favour here and to be fair it does sound a bit like a Fee Waybill track (as he was a solo artist at this time) usually working with Richard Marx as well.


Anteater: I like it a lot. Three tracks in now and we get a sense that overall mood is consistent to the point where the album feels more like one extended session than a bunch of strung together stuff that's been primed for radio.

Unknown Soldier: Well "How Many Times" continues this trend of four in a row.

Anteater: Yeah, I think we should jump around a bit and talk about the tracks that stand out on the album as opposed to continuing chronologically. This album was constructed completely different from their past records, and as a result you have some cuts that stand a bit higher above the "sea" that makes up the overall mood or experience.

Unknown Soldier: Now is a good time for me to mention as well, that the whole concept of albums had changed anyway due to the invasion of the CD. Albums had now gone from 30 and 40 mins to 60 and 70 mins and of course we no longer had the a and b side format either in most cases.

Anteater: Exactly: we've entered a brave new world, and Toto (atleast on this album) were taking advantage of it.

Unknown Soldier: People were getting greater value in terms of what they were paying and either getting a much longer album or outtakes and unreleased material etc

Unknown Soldier: ............ but in my opinion quality song for song was often lost and that is probably my main gripe with this album.

Anteater: Three high points for me are Wings Of Time, the title track and the closing instrumental Jake To The Bone. :)


Unknown Soldier: I think it's around 15 too long but I often aim that gripe at a lot of these bands around this time anyway.

Anteater: I think that criticism is definitely warranted

Anteater: but I don't mind it as much on Kingdom Of Desire because, when taken as a whole experience, it works really well.

Unknown Soldier: We have to mention of course the main ballad as well, which was due to come in "2 Hearts" which actually sounds more like a film soundtrack than anything else.

Anteater: Yeah, let’s touch on that: there are three ballads on the album, and of them '2 Hearts' is probably the best in terms of construction….

Anteater: …though I like 'The Other Side' a lot too, which strangely enough is a huge throwback to IV.

Unknown Soldier: "The Other Side" Is a nice song and the only traditional Toto song really on the album in terms of ballads. Whereas the other ballad "Only You" is more generic and could've appeared on something like Fahrenheit or any other rock album from this period.


Anteater: 'Only You' fits into the overall mood, but it doesn't do anything special either.

Anteater: As I mentioned before though, 'Wings Of Time' is a great longer piece, and the title track is one of the band's all time best songs ever.

Anteater: …Least if we're talking more progressive material.

Unknown Soldier: "Wings of Time" doesn't really do too much for me but the title track "Kingdom of Desire" is indeed a worthy track.

Unknown Soldier: Along with "Jake to the Bone" these tracks are like 7 mins anyway, which is actually pretty long.

Unknown Soldier: "Jake to the Bone" sounds like it could've been on the debut with its heavy use of different sounds.

Unknown Soldier: "Kingdom of Desire" is a real grower as a song and really needs quite a few listens.

Anteater: 'Jake To The Bone', interestingly enough, has proven to be a hugely influential song on a lot of Japanese jazz bands.

Unknown Soldier: A fact I didn't know.

Anteater: Hah. You hear it's influence in a lot of racing soundtracks in some of the games that came out over there in the mid 90's and beyond.

Unknown Soldier: Didn't know you were a games fan (cool!!)

Anteater: I am indeed. Back to music again - Lukather's guitar solo that starts in around 3:30 on Jake To The Bone is pretty inspiring in any case: what a great way to end the album!


Unknown Soldier: It's a great song as was the previous title track, but if I listen to this album in its entirety, I've normally nodded off on "Wings of Time".

Unknown Soldier: I usually enjoy this album more when I listen to the tracks more individually.

Unknown Soldier: For example 'random shuffle' I prefer with this album.

Anteater: Yeah, there's a couple of big ones to cherry pick.

Anteater: And you start to feel a bit sad as Jake To The Bone finishes though, because it was probably Jeff Porcaro's final drum performance.

Unknown Soldier: Well yes and I have a funny story about this and I guess this is the time to tell it (not funny of course as Jeff died) but it was funny in the context that I was told.

Unknown Soldier: As stated already I was off the band in 1992/1993 when this came out.

Unknown Soldier: I can remember going out on a Saturday night with a friend of mine and this particular Saturday night he invited his druggy guitarist cousin with him.

Unknown Soldier: The guy was a Brit but sounded like one of these druggies out of an American film. Anyway he informed me that Jeff had died and of course I was shocked and asked how he died.

Unknown Soldier: His words were "Hey man, the dude keeled over while watering the daisies in his garden, a heart attack from too much of the good stuff if you catch my drift"

Unknown Soldier: and that's how I learnt that Jeff died, no internet in those days.

Anteater: Hahahahahaha, that’s funny but somehow messed up too.

Unknown Soldier: It's something I always remember with both fondness and sadness.

Unknown Soldier: Anyway my criticism of the album is basically down to two big points.

Unknown Soldier: Firstly it's too damn long, the songs range from 4 to 7 mins and the album is 69 minutes long, this is no quick listen.

Unknown Soldier: The lack of variety on it leads me to point two.

Unknown Soldier: Secondly the great strength of Toto has always been its multiple vocalists. Ok after the previous problems I kind of understand why Steve Lukather took over all vocal duties. The problem is though that due to the similarity of most of the songs, there's not too much variety and if David Paich had sung on a couple of tracks it could've solved this issue.

Anteater: I agree with the second point a bit more than the first

Anteater: Kingdom Of Desire is a pure jam record. Most of the songs were all written within the same time frame and recorded probably hours to days apart in one place. As a result, you get a certain degree of consistency. The downside is that there's not a huge degree of brevity or variety.
Anteater: The band was in a certain "mood"and the album is a reflection of that.

Unknown Soldier: I agree about the jam factor and the lack of variety simply means that if you really did that sound you'll really like the album, well if not...............

Unknown Soldier: But it really must've been a head scratching listen for a lot of Toto fans out there.

Anteater: Kingdom Of Desire is one of my highway cruising records. When I'm in a certain zone or mood it works fantastically. Otherwise I usually just cherrypick Gypsy Train, the title track and Jake To The Bone and make a more general Toto playlist.

Anteater: It sounds unlike anything else in their entire recorded discography, so it gets points for uniqueness...even if those points might be a tad head-scratching. :P

Unknown Soldier: Well distances there are long, because in 69 minutes here you can go from one end of the country to the other :D

Unknown Soldier: That's an exaggeration of course, but it hints at my point.

Anteater: A polarizing album that, at the very least, is worth a few songs for those who don't dig the overall package. Enjoy folks!

The Lowdown
Tambu would be the ninth studio album from Toto, coming three years after the surprising ear-drum blast that we were greeted with on Kingdom of Desire. The name Tambu comes from a genre of Caribbean music, which of course suggests that the mood for the Tambu album would be a lot more sedate than was found on Kingdom of Desire. Also the album cover is highlighted by an almost cartoon voodoo style comic that dominates the album cover, amongst a load of other miscellaneous items, which kind of indicates the thrown down and flowing essence of its material. Tambu would be a well-crafted Toto album with top notch production and engineering team to go with it, of which well-known producer, mixer and engineer Elliot Scheiner would heavily contribute to. The band at this time were now on the Sony label and the album would be nominated for an engineering grammy in 1997. It’s only single of note would be “I Will Remember” which unsurprisingly was a ballad.

The biggest thing of note though is the exclusion of Jeff Porcaro on the album who had sadly died in 1992 which meant that the band had lost what was probably their cornerstone musician. His replacement would be the highly rated British drummer Simon Phillips, a drummer with an equally impressive palmares that had worked with some of the biggest names in the business and these included Jon Anderson, Judas Priest, Mike Rutherford, Mike Oldfield, Jeff Beck and Toyah to name just a few and despite his drumming style being different to that of Jeff Porcaro he immediately slotted into the Toto line-up.

One final interesting thing of note according to Wiki, is that the release date for the album was May 1995 in Europe but North America had to wait for nearly a year before it got a release there in June 1996 and I think that this indicates where the Toto fanbase in terms of record sales was at around this time.

The Album
Anteater: So Jeff Porcaro has been dead a few years and things have settled back down a bit in Totoland, and Tambu is something of a tribute to him. By this point though, I don't think Toto were getting any real mainstream exposure anywhere in the U.S. at all
Unknown Soldier: So much so that yet again at the time I remember I never knew the album had come out till sometime after.
Unknown Soldier: Also by then old bands like Toto weren't really pushed by the labels it seemed, they preferred to go it seemed with something newer.
Anteater: which is weird because Sony was their label at this point and as usual the production team was top-notch.
Anteater: We haven't gotten into the songs or anything, but I'll go ahead and say that from a production standpoint 'Tambu' is fantastic.
Unknown Soldier: Oh agreed, the production is fantastic which is probably why it was nominated for a grammy!
Anteater: yeah, it was up for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical in '97
Anteater: This was the first album with drummer Simon Phillips, whose style is a bit different from Porcaro's.
Unknown Soldier: Well Simon Phillips has such a wide CV in the amount of albums he had played on before. From Judas Priest and Michael Schenker to Mike Rutherford and Mike Oldfield and then onto stuff like Toyah .......... and that's just naming a few.
Anteater: He's very well travelled, and he was one of Jeff's favorite drummers while he was alive too. So he fit in as good as anyone could at the time.
Unknown Soldier: I've never had any problem accepting Simon Phillips as the band's drummer.
Anteater: Neither did I: he's been drummer on a lot of my favorite Toto songs and recordings and I think his inclusion here also created yet another shift in sound from 1992's Kingdom Of Desire
Unknown Soldier: Same concept in that the album runs more or less the same kind of running time and without too much variety and Steve L singing everything (bar the duets)
Anteater: I'll disagree on the variety count: there's a lot more changes in tempo and overall mood here and even some overt funk-oriented material
Unknown Soldier: Well you know and appreciate the album a lot more than I do. I am of course listening to it as we speak and apart from the latest, it's the album that I know least of all.
Anteater: From a pure songwriting standpoint, I consider Tambu a bit more of a "success" thank Kingdom Of Desire despite the fact like the former a tad more due to its behemoth sound and uniqueness within their body of work.
Unknown Soldier: Well Kingdom of Desire kind of smashed the ears of the listener due to it overtly heavy feel, so that kind of took some of the pressure off the songwriting element of the album.
Unknown Soldier: Tambu doesn't attempt to hide imo in that respect anyway.
Anteater: It's a jazzier, funkier album. It also has a few surprisingly nice pop-rockers here and there too, such as the extended opener 'Gift Of Faith'.


Unknown Soldier: "Gift of Faith" does continue the band's tradition of choosing the right type of song to be the album opener
Anteater: It's a very 90's styled "believe in yourself" type of heartland rock piece, the kind of thing Bruce Springsteen might have done as an extended jam live or something.
Anteater: Toto at this point have definitely adapted in their own way to the changing times I guess
Unknown Soldier: In fact it kind of reminds me of an artist that i always forget the name of for some reason, I think he's a Texan btw and had a huge song around this time as well. I'll probably remember him a bit later.
Anteater: One thing on this album that's noticeable too are a lot of female backing vocals on a couple of songs and gives the whole album a vaguely 'spiritual' vibe
Unknown Soldier: Well that comes very quickly on the second track and principal single "I Will Remember"


Anteater: yeah, this one charted in the U.K. and also in Japan I think
Unknown Soldier: According to Wiki 67 in the UK chart.
Anteater: its a good song too, like Peter Gabriel gone super AOR. There's some nice percussion and texturing that serves as a meditative backdrop alongside some piano.
Unknown Soldier: Yes the percussion is nice and Lenny Castro an old Toto additional musician works on that song.
Anteater: I know your kind of leery about Lukather's ballads, but this one fares pretty well
Unknown Soldier: It's not too bad as far as Lukather ballads go
Unknown Soldier: You've mentioned a couple of times that one of your favourite Toto ballads is on one of these later albums?
Anteater: yeah, it comes midway through this album 'The Other End Of Time'
Unknown Soldier: As we're not doing these tracks in order as such, I've jumped to it to see what all the fuss is about. :)
Anteater: It just has a great melody and verse but not sure if its a better or worse ballad than I Will Remember, but since Tambu is all about reflection on life and death and stuff like that, it works really well in context too.
Unknown Soldier: Hate to break your heart, but it's one of the songs I switch off on, but sure it's the kind of thing that chicks really dig, especially with dim lights (cool)
Anteater: What can I say, I'm a big softie. :D
Anteater: For me the best stuff on the record aren't the ballads anyway though. The whole band contributed to songs like 'The Turning Point' for instance.
Unknown Soldier: "Turning Point" I do like and it's one of the better songs on the album and strangely enough my other favourite track is "Slipped Away". Both songs have exactly the same writing credits of: Lukather/Lynch/Paich/Phillips/Porcaro and they are the only two songs to do so.
Anteater: 'Slipped Away', 'Turning Point' and 'Time Is The Enemy' are all pretty swell
Anteater: There's a great soulful vibe going through them all in different ways


Unknown Soldier: "Time is the Enemy" has that funky start but the problem is that it sounds like a Level 42 song.
Anteater: I'd consider that a compliment haha, Level 42 were a musician's band too
Unknown Soldier: Never my kind of band but they were popular for a while here, hell what happened to them?
Anteater: They sorta phased out of popular consciousness by the early 90's, but they get together to tour live every so often. They had some great albums though
Unknown Soldier: We've mentioned the stronger tracks on the album, what would you say were the weaker efforts?
Anteater: 'Baby He's Your Man' and 'The Other End Of Time' are the album's two weakest tracks IMO
Anteater: I like the latter a lot, but its very formulaic and the former has some kind of loop sample thrown in there by Steve Porcaro of all people, but the song is a tad meandering.
Unknown Soldier: I thought the second track here was the ballad that you really liked?
Anteater: 'Just Can't Get To You' is pretty meh too.
Unknown Soldier: "Baby He's Your Man" is a poor song for sure.
Anteater: I like 'The Other End Of Time' as a ballad, but its definitely a weak track.
Unknown Soldier: Ok understand
Anteater: I'd say Tambu is about 70% pretty interesting material and 30% weak to average. It has more variety and energy and even overall nuance than Kingdom Of Desire but it also doesn't have a song on it that just absolutely kicks you over the hill like KOD's title track or Jake To The Bone
Unknown Soldier: I find "Just Can't Get to You" to be weak or better said boring.
Unknown Soldier: Tambu to me feels like a chill out album and when that kind of album arrives I'm often critical of it, as it has to be really good imo.
Anteater: All this being said, 'Drag Him To The Roof' is a surprisingly good and intricate jazz-fusion rock kicker, and 'The Road Goes On' is a pretty closer.
Anteater: But yes, Tambu is a bit of a chill out album, which in all honesty makes it a nice contrast from the previous album
Unknown Soldier: "Dave's Gone Skiing" is the instrumental here and kind of sounds like a Rush instrumental in places.
Anteater: Fantastic proggy instrumental there. This album also illustrates one of Toto's weirder traits as a band. See, even past the AOR part of their career you'd still get sappy ballads and such but then they throw out something like Dave's Gone Skiing and suddenly you remember again that these guys have been playing professionally for decades and they can give the classic prog bands a run for their money on occasion. It's a dichotomy you don't really get with any other band.


Unknown Soldier: Imo it's a pity that more of the songs didn't sound like it.
Anteater: You've got a good point there. But I still definitely recommend anyone exploring the band to give Tambu some time. It has some really good songs and ideas.
Unknown Soldier: Which leads me to the opinion that Tambu is kind of a cop-out album, as the label would've been shocked had they turned up with a Hydra part.2 album.
Anteater: I think Toto realized they needed to start tinkering with the formula again by the time Tambu actually got finished becauase the final part of the 90's album "trilogy" is by far the strangest one. :D
Unknown Soldier: So if you were recommending this album to the listener what would you say were its strong points and why they should actually listen to it?
Anteater: Eight out of the thirteen tracks are all instantly cherry pickable, which includes Time Is The Enemy, I Will Remember, Drag Him To The Roof, Slipped Away and the others we liked
Anteater: I like Lukather's ballads, but they're a tad samey overall for the most part on Tambu and don't do much besides fill up running time on the whole.
Anteater: My edition of the album includes a mid tempo blues piece called Blackeye, which isn't bad either.
Unknown Soldier: For me about 40 mins too long, again Steve.L sings on everything which like KoD stops it giving any real vocal variety and for me it's a chill out album that fails to hit the mark.,
Unknown Soldier: Yes "Blackeye" is with the backing/duet vocalist singing as lead.
Anteater: I consider 90's Toto to be the band in "Lukather really loves blues rock" mode with some stylistic variety from track-to-track depending on which record your listening to
Anteater: KoD is the really heavy one, Tambu is the chilled out one, and the upcoming 1999 release Mindfields is the one with the most variety and moods.
Anteater: But we'll save that review for next time of course :D
Unknown Soldier: Well as I first said at the beginning of these reviews, Lukather more or less took over the band leaderhip through and though by the time of Isolation and was calling all the shots, by the 1990s he indulged a bit too much imo and went from one extreme to the other with KoD and Tambu.
Unknown Soldier: For example anybody just knowing the band based on those two albums, would find little continuity and would unlikely like both albums.
Anteater: The biggest thing I miss about Toto during this period, like you mentioned, is how all the various members used to trade up on lead vocals
Anteater: This practice started to disappear by the time Joseph Williams came in full time, but he was such a versatile singer that it didn't matter as much.
Unknown Soldier: I really don't know why David Paich just stopped singing, he was kind of like equal to Steve Lukather in the early days on the amount of songs they both did behind Bobby Kimball.
Anteater: I don't think we'll ever known why Paich stopped doing lead stuff as much, but it was definitely a detriment
Unknown Soldier: As always when I heard that Tambu was the new album, I was praying that Fergie would be back. I think by the time the band got to the 00's I knew it was never going to happen!
Anteater: Yep! But somebody else does return for the next album....

The Lowdown
As the band's 20th anniversary came and went, Toto hunkered back down in the wake of Tambu and decided to record something ambitious. And they had every reason to try: founding singer Bobby Kimball had cleaned up and was back in the game, and ended up contributing quite a bit from both a performance and songwriting position to the album that would become 1999's Mindfields. Clocking at nearly 80 minutes, it is Toto's longest studio outing and one of their most diverse as well, with a variety of 3rd party songwriting credits and unusual ideas strewn about that gives the album an unusual feel within their body of work.

Commercially, the record did well everywhere except the U.S. upon release in November of that year. The band did a big tour to support it and came back feeling rather optimistic. This marked the beginning of Toto's last and latest musical period as the twenty first century approached, and still the band survived and soldiered onward....