They're considered the most prolific session musicians of all time, and combined have performed on over five thousand albums for other artists which have sold over five hundred million copies. When they're not crafting other's music, they're focusing on their own. If you haven't heard of Toto, it's because you haven't existed since 1978, or were just born.
Turn Back was the band's first foray into the 80's, and the last album I picked up from them. It wasn't on my want list, and candidly, I only picked it up because it was the last from the decade that I didn't have. Even then, it took me quite some time to do so, because I wasn't willing to pay the $20.00 price tag that most people were asking for it. Mainly because I didn't know anything on it and therefore wasn't going to drop a bunch of cash on an album which was frankly going to be either a hidden gem, or a waste of money.
My first listening session of Toto goes all the way back to 2019, where I played through IV. I then wouldn't come back around to them until 2022 for Isolation, an album I also knew nothing from initially. That one garnered the hidden gem, Endless, and I was hoping to come across something like that with Turn Back.
I'm a bit skeptical though. Despite yielding the band's first hit in Japan, Goodbye Elenore, it failed to chart any singles elsewhere. As a whole, the album would eventually reach gold but be considered a failure for underperforming based on expectations.
Steve Lukather himself would say of it;
We wanted to prove we were an arena rock band. It’s probably the weirdest record we’ve done, certainly sonically, but we were really proud of it when it came out. It didn't really catch on -- over the years, it's sold, and now it's kind of a cult favorite with fans, but at the time it was kind of a stiff. And then we panicked -- we never even went on the road for that one. The record company was like, "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."
I don't know why I have a tendency to favor the underdogs. I think Turn Back is pretty solid. No, it doesn't contain your finely tuned Africa or Rosanna, nor is it as polished in comparison to the opus, IV. However, there are quite a few enjoyable solid rock tracks here. For me, those include; English Eyes, A Million Miles Away, Goodbye Elenore, and the first Toto track penned by Lukather, Live For Today.
Frankly, I'm glad I bought this one. It definitely qualifies as a hidden gem. Picking this one up also put Toto back on my radar in general, and I went backwards to pick up Hydra, the gap I was missing between their 1978 self-titled debut and this one. I now have their complete run of records (okay, CD's) through 1988's The Seventh One. Do I need any of their albums from the 90's? I mean, maybe. I'm certainly going to look and see what I might be missing out on.
Both IV, and Isolation followed Turn Back, 1982, and 1984, respectively. Fahrenheit was then released in 1986, which is where I'll pick up tomorrow. In review of the tracks, it appears I know less of Toto then I know. A quick glance yielded only one tucked in my memory, I'll Be Over You. However, based on today's listening session, this serves to only excite me a bit of all the treasures to be found.
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