Toto - Toto

Toto is the debut studio album by American rock band Toto, originally released in October 1978 via Columbia Records.

Toto is an American rock band formed in 1977 in Los Angeles. Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard rock, R&B, blues, and jazz.

David Paich and Jeff Porcaro had played together as session musicians on several albums and decided to form a band. David Hungate, Steve Lukather, Steve Porcaro and Bobby Kimball were recruited before their first album release. The band enjoyed great commercial success in the late 1970s and 1980s, beginning with the band's eponymous debut released in 1978. With the release of the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Toto IV (1982), Toto became one of the best-selling music groups of their era. They are best known for the Top 5 hits "Hold the Line", "Rosanna", and "Africa". Several changes to the line-up have been made over the years.

It's easy to see why radio listeners loved Toto. Their rock-studio chops allowed them to play any current pop style at the drop of a hi-hat: one minute prog rock, the next hard rock, the next funky R&B. It all sounded great.

Of course Toto's timing couldn't have been much worse. They rode in during the middle of punk/new wave with its D.I.Y. aesthetic, and their sheer competence was an affront. Of course, there's always been an alternate history of popular music not available to rock critics (it's written in record stores and concert halls and on the radio), and in that story, Toto was a smash.

To the chagrin of the populist critics singles made the charts, and "Hold The Line" hit the Top Ten and went gold.

The members of Toto had already influenced the course of '70s popular music by playing on half the albums that came out of L.A. All they were doing with this album was going public.

For the debut album Toto, the band were:

• Bobby Kimball          lead and backing vocals
• Steve Lukather         guitars, lead and backing vocals
• David Paich              keyboards, lead and backing vocals
• Steve Porcaro          keyboards, lead vocals on "Takin' It Back"
• David Hungate         bass
• Jeff Porcaro              drums, percussion

This album is a 2020 reissue on standard black vinyl with reproduced artwork and remastered audio by Toto and Elliot Scheiner, pressed in Europe via Columbia Records.