Having now finished Toto’s albums, it’s time for a summary post.
Every time I come to Toto I get reminded how much I fucking love them. I became kind of obsessed with Toto for a couple of weeks, more so than with the other artists I’ve reviewed. I could listen to Toto for days on end.
I think Toto’s excellence comes back to their background as session musicians and as great friends. Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather and David Paich (and to a lesser extent the other members of the band) are featured on thousands of records. Through this they learnt incredible studio discipline and to become musical chameleons. Toto’s first album was criticised for not really having a sound of its own, but the truth was that Toto’s sound was already all over the charts before the band released a single song.
Toto really can do almost any style convincingly, and this versatility is one of their great strengths. Pretty much any Toto album is a fusion of several different genres, and not always the same ones. They’re able to sound like a couple different bands at once, and it’s awesome.
I like to divide Toto’s career in a few distinct eras, and I love them equally1. A large part of their constant evolution was driven by misfortune. They went through lead singers at a ridiculous rate (Kimball, Frederiksen, Williams, Byron, Lukather, Kimball again, Williams again….) and tragically have lost a number of their core members, particularly founding member Jeff Porcaro in 1992. But this determination to continue and their reinvention is another one of the things I love.
All of Toto’s regular studio albums ranked
#1 Toto IV (1982)
My all time favourite album. I could go on for a while about how much I love it so I will simply say that it’s the perfect example of Toto’s musical shapeshifting.
#2 Tambu (1995)
Tambu stands out from the rest of Toto's discography in my opinion as their one really different album. Defined by the tragedy of losing Jeff Porcaro it's moody and introspective. I really love it.
#3 The Seventh One (1988)
The Seventh One feels a bit like a knock-off of Toto IV but it's also comfortably one of their strongest albums from the 80s.
#4 Toto (1978)
It's difficult to beat Toto's debut album. Toto laid out the formula and almost none of their albums that stray from it are better.
#5 Kingdom of Desire (1992)
This is really my personal favourite punching above its weight. It's Toto's real hard rock album and I think it rules. Events would take them in a different direction for the next album but I really wish we'd got more.
#6 Hydra (1979)
Hydra is Toto's most prog-rock album and I think it's awesome.
#7 Old Is New (2018)
A surprisingly strong swansong for the band. I rated a bit highly in my review, but I think that shows how it surprised me.
#8 Toto XIV (2015)
Toto XIV exists because the band sort of had to make it, and it's kind of surprisingly good. I like it for its heavy sound, but it's bottom half.
#9 Isolation (1984)
Isolation has a couple of stand out songs which I really love, but that's really all there is.
#10 Falling in Between (2006)
In the words of another reviewer, Falling in Between sounds like "a band trying to find itself in a midlife crisis" and I agree. It's not bad, but it's a bit lost.
#11 Fahrenheit (1986)
Another album where Toto is trying to find itself and not really succeeding. It has a couple of good songs but that's it.
#12 Turn Back (1981)
Turn Back didn't really achieve its aim of establishing Toto as an arena rock band, not least because they didn't even go on tour to support it. It's a bit lackluster. Even the cover's album art isn't thrilled - a glum face made out of the band's name.
#13 Mindfields (1999)
In my review I said that Mindfields probably wasn't Toto's worst album, but in retrospect I'm putting it at the bottom of the list. It lacks focus and returning lead singer Bobby Kimball doesn't quite fit in. I don’t like it.
The Toto Playlist
As before, I’ve made a playlist of all of the songs I think are worth it from Toto.
Since the album is not on Spotify, the album lacks a number of songs I’d like to include from their covers album Through the Looking Glass. From that album I’d include Bodhisattva, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Living for the City, Burn Down the Mission, and House of the Rising Sun. I don’t think Through the Looking Glass is a very good album, but I love those songs, and I quite like Toto’s versions of them as well.
DrunkPukeko’s Top 10 Toto Songs
#1 Rosanna (Toto IV, 1982)
How can it not be? From the drum beat that’s known as the Rosanna shuffle, to Steve Porcaro’s synthesiser solo and Lukather’s guitar solo. It’s a song so could you can forgive the jam session they left on the end (and many love it for it).
#2 Hold the Line (Toto, 1978)
The thunderous piano and roaring guitar makes this song instantly recognisable. And it’s awesome.
#3 Africa (Toto IV, 1982)
Africa has received it’s fair share of ridicule over the years. It used to be my favourite song. It doesn’t quite hold that same honour these days, but I still love it. Its ridiculousness is saved by its sincerity and naivety.
#4 I Won't Hold You Back (Toto IV, 1982)
Toto’s best ballad. Lukather is easily Toto’s best singer and on tracks like this is voice is perfect. It’s also one of his first tracks written for the band.
#5 The Road Goes On (Tambu, 1995)
It’s not quite the final track on Tambu, though I think it should be. One of Toto’s more contemplative and melancholy songs. It’s a song about saying goodbye. It can make me cry.
#6 Endless (Isolation, 1984)
Endless might just be Toto’s most 80s song, which, for an extremely 80s band, is quite an achievement. It’s cheesy last chorus key change is one of the reasons I love it. I can’t sing that high, but I try.
#7 2 Hearts (Kingdom of Desire, 1992)
Possibly my most niche pick for this list. Toto are really good at power ballads and 2 Hearts is probably their most grizzled hard rock power ballad. It also helps that it’s perfectly within my vocal range and I love singing along with it.
#8 99 (Hydra, 1979)
99 didn’t do so well because the song is inspired by the film THX 1138 (hence the name of the girl which is the title). This reference was a bit too obscure for most listeners and it certainly went over my head. I like to interpret the song a bit differently — rather than being a person in a society where people have numbers as names, “99” could just be someone whose name you don’t know — and make it about a fleeting crush, but I like it all the same.
#9 Kingdom of Desire (Kingdom of Desire, 1992)
It’s a 7-minute hard rock epic, what’s not to love? Probably a lot, but I love it.
#10 Bodhisattva (Through the Looking Glass, 2002)
This a song Toto didn’t actually write. Originally by Steely Dan from their 1973 album Countdown to Ecstasy, Toto covered it and put it on their covers album Through the Looking Glass. It’s comfortably my favourite song on that album and I really think Toto do it justice. Lukather tends to overdo the guitar solos on Through the Looking Glass (one of that album’s many sins) but on Bodhisattva, they’re perfect. In particular I just love singing along to them, which in my opinion is the mark of a truly great guitar solo.
And some honourable mentions: Afraid of Love/Lovers in the Night, Georgy Porgy, Home of the Brave, and The Turning Point.
This is a lie, their post-2000 era is comfortably the third favourite, but I forgive them.