TOTO

[JKL2000]

Frumious B just opened a can of Toto whupass...

[jlneudorf]

IV, Hydra, debut, Falling In Between and Kingdom are all excellent. Fantastic playing with chops galore, awesome vocals, great hooks and some fine all around songwriting. Sterile...no way (IMO). Great, great band and severely underrated.

Regards,
Jon

[JJ88]

I see some validity in what Frumious B is saying, and don't see why he should be flamed for suggesting it. I can't see how anybody can deny the slickness of their music, it's sometimes offputting to me. 'Raw emotion' isn't a quality I see much in Toto's work, to be honest...and I enjoy the 'IV' album. Now and again they do come up with something that does connect like 'Hold The Line', 'I Won't Hold You Back', 'Africa'...

[Kim Olesen]

To me Toto is a band that is technically above most pop bands that ever was. I can apreciate them for the awesome musicians they are. But apart from a few songs they simply do not reach my heart.

I used to play in a Toto tribute band though and as guitarist i can say it was great fun playing.

[JIF]

Inspired by this thread, I spun Toto IV today. It gets better every time I listen to it. Too bad more bands can't combine rock, pop, soul, disco, prog, r&b, and funk.

[Vic2012]

Never cared for them. Hold The Line has a nice hook but whatever other hits I've heard (like Rosanna) do nothing for me.

[iguana]

Inspired by this thread, I spun Toto IV today. It gets better every time I listen to it. Too bad more bands can't combine rock, pop, soul, disco, prog, r&b, and funk.

that, in a nutshell, is the reason, why this band is held in such low esteem by critics. they are difficult to grasp and to pigeonhole. too much expertise in denial of “traditional” rock values, if you will. which is ridiculous argumentation, of course.

[Frumious B]

that, in a nutshell, is the reason, why this band is held in such low esteem by critics. they are difficult to grasp and to pigeonhole. too much expertise in denial of “traditional” rock values, if you will. which is ridiculous argumentation, of course.

And just like clockwork, out comes the "Toto is just too smart and sophisticated for lowly commoners to truly appreciate." card.

[Frumious B]

Inspired by this thread, I spun Toto IV today. It gets better every time I listen to it. Too bad more bands can't combine rock, pop, soul, disco, prog, r&b, and funk.

I think that in order to be truly accurate in regards to Toto, the phrase " watered down" should be placed in front of each of those genres.

[Scott Bails]

Toto is sort of the textbook example of what I call Respected Player's Syndrome or RPS. Simply put, RPS refers to a certain class of musician, usually very trained, who consistently draws accolades from muso types and wannabe muso types for being such a great player, but whose actual music is usually either sterile technowank or slick corporate schlock. However, you're evidently supposed to listen to it very seriously and nod your head in earnest approval because it involves a high caliber of musicianship and the dude's on the cover of this here musicianly magazine and gets to write a monthly column about harmonic minor scales, chord inversions and whatnot. In Toto you've got a whole freakin' band made up RPSers and the results are pretty much what you'd expect. I can't say I care for'em one bit.

I see some validity in what Frumious B is saying, and don't see why he should be flamed for suggesting it. I can't see how anybody can deny the slickness of their music, it's sometimes offputting to me. 'Raw emotion' isn't a quality I see much in Toto's work, to be honest...and I enjoy the 'IV' album. Now and again they do come up with something that does connect like 'Hold The Line', 'I Won't Hold You Back', 'Africa'...

I can completely understand these comments, as much of their catalog falls into this slot, however, anyone who has "dug deeper" knows this isn't the case across the board.

[iguana]

And just like clockwork, out comes the "Toto is just too smart and sophisticated for lowly commoners to truly appreciate." card.

substitute “smart” and “sophisticated” by “ambitious” and arrive at what exercises most music journos heavily, not just in regards to toto ...

[Kai]

I like their soundtrack to Dune.

Same here. "Desert Theme", which barely registers in the actual film, is a particularly nice showcase for gorgeous and fluid melody lines between guitar and their trademark synths. That album is quite different from the bulk of their works and seems to be little known.

It's a shame they passed the opportunity to rework one of Toto's biggest hits into a closing song for the film. I mean, they just needed to adjust the chorus lyrics a bit:

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred worms or more could ever do
I wish it rained down in Arrakis...

And the first verse had a perfect opening for: "I stopped a fat man floating by..."

[Scott Bails]

"Georgy Porgy" is indeed an embarrassment.

[Yodelgoat]

Been a fan of Toto for many years, as of late, they have slipped out of my list of regular players. Not for anything they've done, its just that I can only handle so much power-pop. I'll probably pick them back up in a few years again. My tastes kind of morph over time, so who knows. Toto is a great band and they are one of the best at writing as well. As I recall, they did most of the session work for the Completion backwards principle by the Tubes and from what I heard, there was ALOT of session work on that album -it was almost a toto album with Fee Waybil singing. If I'm not remembering that right, speak up.

[No Pride]

I see some validity in what Frumious B is saying, and don't see why he should be flamed for suggesting it. I can't see how anybody can deny the slickness of their music, it's sometimes offputting to me. 'Raw emotion' isn't a quality I see much in Toto's work, to be honest...and I enjoy the 'IV' album.

I wasn't exactly "flaming" him, or if I was, it wasn't my intent. It's just that the word "muso" is a trigger for me. It was invented as a derrogatory word for a musician who has honed their craft to the point where he or she has sturdy chops and a strong sense of time, understands music theory, can play in a variety of styles and can read and write music, as if those are undesirable qualities. We don't accept fallibility from our athletes, doctors or most other walks of life, but somehow it's okay and even "hip" for musicians, at least in some circles. Frumious used the phrase "Respected Player Syndrome" as if earning respect is an unsavory thing... I just don't get that. "Slickness" is another thing that's often maligned here as well, but I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing either. Steely Dan is slick; that's a big part of their sound and what their fans love about them. I can't take a steady diet of music that is slick, but there's plenty of stuff in that category that I think is pretty darn cool!

As for Toto, I said I wasn't a hardcore fan and I'm not. I had four of their albums when I had a vinyl collection; now that I have only CDs, I have "Live in Amsterdam" and "Falling In Between." There's things I dig about them and things I don't. I think they were capable of making more substantial music in general, but they wanted to be a pop/rock band that sold a lot of records first and foremost. And of course, they did. But being the "musos" that they were (), a lot of high quality playing, arranging and yes, even writing slipped out of the cracks. And when you heard them live, they let more of the cat out of the bag. The biggest attraction for me was Lukather and (first Jeff Porcaro, then) Simon Phillips, a couple of my favorite players on their respective instruments.

[trurl]

^^^^^^^^^^
Sums up my feelings pretty well

[Frumious B]

I wasn't exactly "flaming" him, or if I was, it wasn't my intent. It's just that the word "muso" is a trigger for me. It was invented as a derrogatory word for a musician who has honed their craft to the point where he or she has sturdy chops and a strong sense of time, understands music theory, can play in a variety of styles and can read and write music, as if those are undesirable qualities. We don't accept fallibility from our athletes, doctors or most other walks of life, but somehow it's okay and even "hip" for musicians, at least in some circles. Frumious used the phrase "Respected Player Syndrome" as if earning respect is an unsavory thing... I just don't get that. "Slickness" is another thing that's often maligned here as well, but I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing either. Steely Dan is slick; that's a big part of their sound and what their fans love about them. I can't take a steady diet of music that is slick, but there's plenty of stuff in that category that I think is pretty darn cool!

As for Toto, I said I wasn't a hardcore fan and I'm not. I had four of their albums when I had a vinyl collection; now that I have only CDs, I have "Live in Amsterdam" and "Falling In Between." There's things I dig about them and things I don't. I think they were capable of making more substantial music in general, but they wanted to be a pop/rock band that sold a lot of records first and foremost. And of course, they did. But being the "musos" that they were (), a lot of high quality playing, arranging and yes, even writing slipped out of the cracks. And when you heard them live, they let more of the cat out of the bag. The biggest attraction for me was Lukather and (first Jeff Porcaro, then) Simon Phillips, a couple of my favorite players on their respective instruments.

Well IMHO Steely Dan has much better songs plus a twisted, subversive edge that elevates them far above anything you're gonna hear on a Toto record. But look, I'm sure that there are guys out there who record hold music who have absolutely monster chops, know a ton of music theory and all that, yet I still have zero interest in listening to hold music. RPS comes into play when you have certain folks, all very polished and professional caliber players, but ones who would never, ever be classed as boat rocker, free spirited, iconoclastic types, who end up with this sort of musicians cult following, get write ups in all the specialty publications for their respective instruments but who never seem to have any impact or make any kind of substantial and sweeping musical statement outside of that limited sphere. The high water mark for the sort of thing I'm talking about was the late 70s and most of the 80s.

[ItalProgRules]

Toto is sort of the textbook example of what I call Respected Player's Syndrome or RPS. Simply put, RPS refers to a certain class of musician, usually very trained, who consistently draws accolades from muso types and wannabe muso types for being such a great player, but whose actual music is usually either sterile technowank or slick corporate schlock. However, you're evidently supposed to listen to it very seriously and nod your head in earnest approval because it involves a high caliber of musicianship and the dude's on the cover of this here musicianly magazine and gets to write a monthly column about harmonic minor scales, chord inversions and whatnot. In Toto you've got a whole freakin' band made up RPSers and the results are pretty much what you'd expect. I can't say I care for'em one bit.

I don't care one way or the other for TOTO, but you're going to take some shit for this post and I wanted to give my support. There's a whole lot of truth in there.

[trurl]

For sure- it's so subjective who fits that category though. For Frum it's Toto, for me it would be, I dunno, 70's Al Di Miola.

[No Pride]

Well IMHO Steely Dan has much better songs plus a twisted, subversive edge that elevates them far above anything you're gonna hear on a Toto record.

You'll get no argument from me on that. SD may have toned their thing down at first just so they could get their foot in the door, but after a few big hits like "Reelin' In The Years" and "Ricky Don't Lose That Number," they figured they were big enough to do whatever they wanted to and they were right! Besides, Fagen and Becker had a lot to say in their lyrics, while I get the impression that Toto wrote lyrics for no other reason than they HAD to if they were going to be a viable commercial product. I'd like to say that Toto couldn't compose musical content like that either, but I'd be wrong; I think they just didn't want to risk it. On Lukather's "Ever Changing Times" album, he wrote a tune called "Stab in the Back" that was intended as a tribute to SD... and I'll be damned if it doesn't sound just like something they would've written!

As for guys who have monster chops who record hold music... hell, it's a business where you can't say "no" to any gig, not if you want to survive sans dayjob. There's a bunch of incredible musicians who are playing Broadway shows full time. It's almost like Einstein teaching high school math, but that's the way it goes; nobody promised life would be fair.

Regarding the "musician's cult following thing," I could write a long post on that, but I'll spare you. The short version is that I believe all musicians would like their music to be loved and appreciated by musicians and non-musicians alike, but often there's a line that gets crossed where one can learn too much about music to be able to effectively communicate with a majority of non-musicians. It's not all black and white like that; there are plenty of gray areas; non-musicians who are avid jazz or classical music fans on the one hand and very accomplished musicians who are able to get across to non-musicians on the other (solo acoustic guitar player Tommy Emmanuel comes to mind, although that's probably a bad reference that only a musician like myself would come up with). But at the very least, I know there's certain musical things that will make non-musicians go, "wow!" while those same things will make musicians groan.

Well if I'm not rambling yet, I'm on the verge of it, so I'll end this post now.

[No Pride]

For sure- it's so subjective who fits that category though. For Frum it's Toto, for me it would be, I dunno, 70's Al Di Miola.

Are you my long lost twin brother?!

[Frumious B]

I think it boils down to a quote most people here should know: "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end."

What that means to me in the context of this discussion is that chops and training mean nothing without a compelling vision to share. They are tools that can help one realize a vision, but they cannot substitute for vision or generate a creative spirit where none existed previously.

So I tend to focus on that creative spirit first and foremost and if the music in question also happens to have stellar musicianship then I regard it as a bonus.

[No Pride]

I think it boils down to a quote most people here should know: "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end."

What that means to me in the context of this discussion is that chops and training mean nothing without a compelling vision to share. They are tools that can help one realize a vision, but they cannot substitute for vision or generate a creative spirit where none existed previously.

Makes complete sense to me! But... a lack of the necessary tools can stifle the potential of a creative spirit. What good are the sounds in one's head if that person doesn't have the ability to identify and utilize them? Discipline and creativity are not exclusive, hopefully, they work together. The object of discipline is to knock down obstacles to creativity (which is not to say there aren't musician/composers who don't get stifled by an obssession with discipline). For me, the acquisition of musical knowledge and ability is for the purpose of creative freedom. The proccess can be drudgery at first, but the point is that it all hopefully becomes second nature; stuff that you don't have to think about anymore. Just as a limited grasp of language can impair the ability to express complex thoughts and emotions verbally, the same is true with musical ability. That's all I'm saying!

[JKL2000]

To me Toto is a band that is technically above most pop bands that ever was. I can apreciate them for the awesome musicians they are. But apart from a few songs they simply do not reach my heart.

Do *I* reach your heart?

[iguana]

I think it boils down to a quote most people here should know: "Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end."

What that means to me in the context of this discussion is that chops and training mean nothing without a compelling vision to share. They are tools that can help one realize a vision, but they cannot substitute for vision or generate a creative spirit where none existed previously.

So I tend to focus on that creative spirit first and foremost and if the music in question also happens to have stellar musicianship then I regard it as a bonus.

i don’t disagree. the special case with toto may be that their records at times reek of professional blandness, however, their live shows stand in stark juxtaposition to that, where they really tear it up. check out some of their recent outings in europe on youtube, the band is as good as ever. a big plus is that they actually seem to have fun on stage.

RPS is a great term ;-) never heard that before.