Classic Album Review: Toto's Grammy Award winning 1982 materpiece "Toto IV"

Toto IV is the fourth studio album by Toto, & undoubtedly their magnum opus. The album won the band multiple Grammy Awards (in the days when Grammies were actually prestigious!) & reached No 4 in the USA Billboard charts as well as UK Charts. It also achieved worldwide commercial success including a No 1 position in the Australian ARIA Charts.

Toto IV is a masterfully produced album (Grammy winner for production) & a collection of songs which are a rich fusion of rock, pop & jazz. In many ways Toto reached their peak too early with this album & it was inevitable that they would never again reach the commercial & critical success they achieved with Toto IV.

There are two main aspects that make this album one of the finest pop albums of all time:

a) By the time Toto recorded this album, all band members were amongst the most sought after "Studio Musicians" around the world. ie Toto in its own way was a band of highly skilled super musicians & the chemistry produced an album much bigger than the sum of the parts.

b) "Africa" & "Rosanna" are generally acknowledged as two of the greatest pop songs ever written, with the pop culture stories of Rosanna's subject matter being the actress Rosanna Arquette who had at the time broken up with Steve Porcaro.

However, the high calibre of the above two songs resulted in plenty of rather jealous & unwarranted criticism of the rest of the songs in album over the years. AS I mentioned the criticism is totally unwarranted as the rest of the songs are a great fusion of pop, jazz & rock songs & sit comfortably well with the two above mentioned masterpieces.
Th songs generally combine David Paich & Steve Porcaro's brilliant keyboard with Steve Lukather's masterful guitar riffs & (the late) Jeff Porcaro's jazz influenced drumming. The icing in the cake is Bobby Kimball's soulful voice (both lead & backing vocals) complimenting David Piach & Steve Lukather's vocals.

For example, Steve Lukather's "I won't hold you back now" the third Billboard Top 10 hit from the album is a classic love ballad worthy of its enduring popularity nearly 30 years later. whilst my other favourites are the highly underrated "Make Believe", "It's a Feeling" & "Lovers in the Night" all of which are a display of a band at the absolute height of its musical creativity.

Toto never reached the dizzy heights of Toto IV again. The lukewarm reception to their more pop influenced subsequent albums in the 80s & the tragic death of Jeff Porcaro in early 1990s opened up the inevitable "change in personnel" floodgates & the musical confusion that usually follows as a result.

This album however still sounds crisp & relevant nearly 30 years after its release in the USA & is a must in any rock/pop collection.
My Rating: 5/5

"Classic Overlooked Albums Review" Albert Hammond's "Your World & My World"

This has to be the easiest album review I have ever done for two simple reasons:

1. Check any of the reviews of this album on the net & you are most likely to read a 5 star rating

2. Unfortunately, this album, although reissued in the 90s, is hard to come by even on the Internet.

Having said that, if you are a fan of the late 70s, early 80s genres which have been variously described as "Soft Pop", "Adult Rock" etc, this album will blow you away.

Albert Hammond, whose most well known song is "When I need you", and his claim to fame in recent years is being the father of the Strokes' guitarist Albert Hammond Jr, has in my view written a once in a life time set of songs with gorgeous tunes and heart felt lyrics in this album which are simply hard to replicate. And listening to the rest of his work proves this.

"Your World & My World" was released in 1980 with little international success & only cult college following in the USA. Amazingly, the cult following continues as the album turns 30 in 2010 simply because both the songs and the lyrics are still fresh, and more importantly the crisp production & Albert Hammond's voice remain as fresh as ever.

If you are curious enough and have broadband, leave me your email in the comments section at the bottom of this review & as a promotional gesture I will email you one or two of the songs.

My rating: 10/10, one of the greatest soft pop albums of all time

Concert Review: Icehouse and Hall & Oates Feb 2012 Sydney Entertainment Centre

I must qualify this review by stating that whilst I have many favourite classic rock Aussie bands, from Chisel to Midnight Oil to Oz Crawl, Iva Davies & Icehouse have always been my most favourite Aussie band of all time, and in my view "Great Southern Land" tops the many fantastic songs written about Australia, its landscape & its native aborigines, by many fine acts.

It was therefore unbelievably exciting when I found out Iva Davies had put a band together & was touring Australia as Icehouse again (I had seen them live 3 times in the 80s). The fact that they were going to tour with their great mates Darryl Hall & John Oates (the most successful pop duo of all time) made the occasion even more special.

And Iva & his band did not disappoint! Iva, who's always been known for his mastery of digital & computerised technology from his early 80s days, has used his time away to produce a much sharper & crisper sound for the band, has fine tuned the fans' favourite live songs, and most importantly has preserved his divine voice over the years.

The fans were overjoyed by the end of the set & if anything, the band could have stayed on stage & continued with their other big hits such as 1) no promises 2) paradise 3) Street Cafe 4) Baby you're so strange 5) Mr Big 6) Touch the fire etc etc....except that they had to make way for Hall & Oates instead

The ultimate compliment to the band came in scores of fans who simply left after the Icehouse set & did not bother to stay to see the great Hall & Oates! A young couple next to me asked me who the band after Icehouse was!!! & left satisfied.

The icing on the cake for a great night of entertainment could only be a legendary pop act such as Hall & Oates, the most successful pop duo of all time! And they did not disappoint either. Their band was great & their songs so familiar to the crowd.

They showed their confidence by starting their set with their most successful chart topping song of their unbelievable careers, "Maneater". Not many acts would start their set with one of their all time greatest hits, But Hall & Oates did, and afterwards did not disappoint with the

rest of their set either!

All in all most fans left the night fully entertained & feeling they had got full value for their money.