Toto - Toto (Yeah, they probably don't like you either)

Toto, the band people love to shit on. For me, I've been a fan since first hearing "Hold the Line" and I make no apologies for loving these guys. Heck I remember when Hydra was released and I eagerly went to the record store to get it. The store used to copy reviews and place them with albums as a sales tool. I guess clipping out a scathing review and taping it to the record seemed like a good idea to someone. Anyways, I getting ahead of myself.

I can't remember if this is the same "review" but it's pretty close in tone:

Max Bell, New Musical Express, 17 March 1979

WILL THESE people never learn? In the time-honoured Hollywood tradition of foisting ambitious super-sessioners upon that large portion of the American public bereft of a brain, taste or the ability to decide for itself comes Toto, a six piece composed of former Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan (you know the rest) side men.

Admittedly I'm not a big Boz fan, but those Steely Dan dudes had some awesome stuff. I was hooked.

Their debut album dropped in the fall of 1978. I've probably purchased it at least four times, but the last time it was only a buck. The time before it was a part of their 2019 box set where all of the Columbia releases were remastered and the CDs packaged to look like mini records. Yeah, it was expensive, but so, so good. I mean, I really don't know why I wanted to get another pops and clicks LP when I have a sonically unbelievable copy in the other room that can melt faces. Oh right ... I found it for a dollar. How can you say no to that?

I actually didn't get this one right away when it was released. I liked the songs on the radio, and I really liked songs I'd heard from Hydra but I was still a kid with limited resources. It was the summer of 1981 and I was playing baseball and from a nearby house someone had cranked up their stereo and was blaring out "Georgy Porgy" (a song I never really liked) and then suddenly "Manuela Run" is echoing across the field. I don't know what it was about the song, but it got me in the feels.

Shortly after I went out and bought the album. Now at the time Toto was viewed as these studio musicians who wanted to be in a band, and the grief they got was unbelievable. You forget when you look at these guys that they were just kids. Steve Lukather was in his early 20s and some of the other guys weren't that much older. Good lord, the level of maturity in their arrangements and playing was and remains mind boggling.

There was a brief moment where they got their due, and then almost right after their being moment, here in North America they were sort of swept to the back burner. However, a good chunk of the world never fell off the band wagon.

I suppose I'll have to dig out Turn Back next ... now THAT album really was something special.

Look at that, I went all the way to the end and didn't make any we're not in Kansas or toilet jokes, and didn't mention "Africa" - even in passing, unless you count this one, but really it shouldn't count. I'm kind of proud of myself.