'80s Pop Hits is a three-disc set from Sony with a heavy emphasis on ballads, many of which continue to be played on adult contemporary radio stations across the U.S. The relatively upbeat material -- like Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," Toto's "Rosanna," Luther Vandross' "Stop for Love," and Deniece Williams' "Let's Hear It for the Boy" -- ...
While there have been a bunch of Toto budget-line compilations over the years, 2003's The Essential Toto is the first high-profile hits collection since 1990's Past to Present 1977-1990. At 14 songs, The Essential is one track longer than that compilation, but it shares eight cuts with Past to Present, which, of course, are all the big hits: ...
It was do or die for Toto on the group's fourth album, and they rose to the challenge. Largely dispensing with the anonymous studio rock that had characterized their first three releases, the band worked harder on its melodies, made sure its simple lyrics treated romantic subjects, augmented Bobby Kimball's vocals by having other group members ...
At this point in their career, Steve Lukather and Toto really have nothing to prove to anyone in the rock & roll community. They've accumulated more Top Ten hits with their ballads alone than most bands have in their entire career, to say nothing of rock anthems that became cornerstones of arena rock during the '70s and '80s. And while it's been ...
If Toto's musical advantage was that, since its members continued to play on many of the successful records made in L.A., its own music was popular almost by definition, its disadvantage was that it made little attempt to seek an individual musical signature -- a particular style, say, or a distinctive singer (Bobby Kimball was not it) who could ...
It's as easy to see why radio listeners loved Toto as it is to see why critics hated them. Toto's 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, but it also implied that music-making took craft rather than inspiration and that ...
After the ballad-deprived Isolation failed to meet the marketplace like its predecessor, Toto IV, Toto returned to making lush, mid-tempo tunes of romantic despair on Fahrenheit, enlisting their third lead singer, Joseph Williams, and calling in chips all over L.A. to score cameos from the likes of Michael McDonald, Don Henley, David Sanborn, and ...
Billboard Top Hits: 1982 gathers the year's most popular singles, including Hall & Oates' "Maneater," the J. Geils Band's "Centerfold," Journey's "Open Arms," and Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?" Laura Branigan's "Gloria," the Alan Parsons Project's "Eye in the Sky," and Toto's "Rosanna" are some of the other highlights of this fun pop ...
By the late '90s Sony had begun to introduce budget sets that raided their vaults and often arbitrarily grouped songs together for mass consumption. Hits of the 80s, Vol. 1 and Forever Soul were two of the worst offenders. By 2001, the label decided to make better use of the CD time constraints by extending the running time of each disc. Make no ...
Dune was never going to be an easy film to score. Dense, overreaching, and confusing, David Lynch's interpretation of the canon of Frank Herbert surely didn't leave many stylistic decisions strolling in through the front door. Yet despite the soft rock pabulum of its past, Toto constructed a luxuriant and peculiar soundtrack that injects Dune with ...
There's a subtle but important difference between music you can dance to and music that makes you want to dance, and Texas indie electronic demons the Octopus Project thankfully understand the distinction. Their third album, Hello, Avalanche, is full to bursting with the friendly beeps and blurps of vintage analog synthesizers and the clatter of ...
This entry into Billboard's continuing series reveals 1983 to be a year of one-hit wonders -- Michael Sembello ("Maniac"), the Greg Kihn Band ("Jeopardy"), Eddy Grant ("Electric Avenue"), and Spandau Ballet ("True") are among the many who failed to recapture their chart success in the years to follow. Among the other selections: Bonnie Tyler's ...
Sony Special Products' Hits Of series follows a pretty set script. The discs are short at only ten tracks and contain a mix of big hits, middling hits, and totally forgotten songs by pretty well-known artists. It is a unique strategy that brings some interesting songs to light and makes for good listening. The biggies on Hits of 1984 are the ...
One of three entries in Time Life's Sounds of the Eighties series (distinct from the larger series available through the company's television offer), Sounds of the Eighties: 80's Pop Classics is a pretty good selection of pop/rock, soft rock, and funky R&B/dance hits. Although there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to why songs were ...
Club Columbia - A Collection of Classic Dance Mixes contains extended versions of disco hits; SOS Band, Shalamar, and others. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music Guide
While Isolation didn't have as many memorable songs as the blockbuster Toto IV, it was an effective continuation of the band's trademark sound, especially the hit "Stranger in Town." ~ David Jehnzen, All Music Guide
Sony/BMG's Special Markets 2007 release I'll Supply the Love is a good budget-priced collection of Toto's classic Columbia recordings. While not all of these ten tracks are radio staples, it's pretty heavy on hits, containing "Hold the Line," "99," "Rosanna," "Africa," and "I Won't Hold You Back," which is enough to makes this a good budget-line ...
Living in the '80s features a selection of ten random songs from the Columbia/Epic vaults. "'80s" doesn't necessarily mean new wave, although there is some new wave here, albeit usually in some smoothed-over, arena rock incarnation. It also doesn't mean just the early or mid-'80s, even though that's where it concentrates. Instead, it's just a ...
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