Toto was always more than the ubiquitous “Africa” from Toto IV. In fact, as this list of Top 10 Toto songs illustrates, that may not even be their best work.
Of course, Toto will always be associated with their fourth LP, which closed with “Africa.” That’s what happens when a single disc spins off three Top 10 hit singles, goes four-times platinum and earns six Grammys – including album of the year. This was also a redemption story. Toto had slipped out of the Top 40 before the arrival of their 1982 blockbuster.
“IV left the biggest mark, for obvious reasons,” Toto’s Steve Lukather said during a 2012 interview. “We were almost thrown off the record label before we delivered that one. We were trying to find out why. It took us a while to realize we just had to be ourselves. When we did that, when we did what we wanted to do, it went well.”
READ MORE: The Ongoing Legacy of Toto’s ‘Africa’
Perhaps inevitably, the following countdown is dominated by this era. But Toto would have an impressive resume even without “Africa” and its gaudy diamond-certified sales. (The song, written by David Paich with a key rhythm contribution from the late Jeff Porcaro, is also their only chart-topper.)
Toto had notable hit singles before (1978’s three-million-selling Top 5 song “Hold the Line”) and after Toto IV (1986’s gold-certified No. 11 song “I’ll Be Over You”), while also reaching platinum heights with their self-titled debut. Four other LPs went gold on either side of their best-known album, including 1979’s Hydra, 1981’s Turn Back, 1984’s Isolation and 1986’s Fahrenheit.
In keeping, the following list of Top 10 Toto songs includes plenty of favorites from Toto IV while also dipping into key moments from the group’s other sometimes-overlooked eras. A few of them, in a twist, move far afield of the ballads that always seem to lift Toto toward the top of the charts. They were always more than the sum of their soft rock, too.
“The pop hits, if you listen to the whole album, they would take a single off of it — and it would be the ballad, or a softer song,” according to Lukather. “But there was always rock stuff on all of the albums. … We’ll morph from style to style. That was the thing that was confusing about us, and it maybe pissed off the critics. But it gained us a lot of other people who actually buy records.”
No. 10. “Georgy Porgy”
From: Toto (1978)
Sung by Lukather but composed by Paich, the smooth-grooving “Georgy Porgy” was a bust on the pop charts, stalling at a paltry No. 48. But then Toto found themselves soaring into the Billboard R&B Top 20. Maybe that shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering the influences that shaped its creation: “‘Georgy Porgy’ was inspired, first of all, from growing up around a father who played jazz,” Paich said in 2014, “but when I heard Leon Ware’s song for Marvin Gaye called ‘I Want You,’ it was a big influence on my life. At the time, Quincy Jones had done The Dude and different instrumental albums. Throw in a little bit of Barry White, too, on the drum riff,” he added with a laugh, “and you have that song basically.”
No. 9. “St. George and the Dragon”
From: Hydra (1979)
In a sign of things to come, this Top 40 album’s sales were driven primarily by the hit ballad “99.” But Hydra actually starts off with a surprisingly proggy theme. Toto follows St. George (but from the perspective of the beast he’s trying to defeat) across the layered title track and into “St. George and the Dragon.” “I listen to that album, and I think, ‘How high were we?,” Lukather said with a laugh. “You can hear the youth in it but at the same time, we were trying to find our way. We were just experimenting, and we didn’t care what anybody thought. They already hated us! It’s fun to listen to and think: ‘Wow, that was really cool!’ And also: ‘That lyric, whoa. Are you kidding me?’ We have a really good sense of humor about all of it.”
No. 8. “Make Believe”
From: Toto IV (1982)
This Paich-written, Bobby Kimball-sung rocker wasn’t a huge hit, but it illustrated something – with every tough Lukather riff – that’s often lost in the ballad-driven public persona of Toto. The truth is, they could rock. (Toto was just as adept at crunchy pop, world music, funky shuffles and even free-form prog, too.) Yet the simmering slow jams seemed to lodge most completely in the public’s consciousness. Their sensitive side translated into hits for others like Boz Scaggs (“Miss Sun”) and Michael Jackson (“Human Nature”), too. Even “99,” which only climbed to No. 26 in 1980, gets played more than the similarly charting but more uptempo “Make Believe.” Still, that takes nothing away from its power.
No. 7. “I’ll Be Over You”
From: Fahrenheit (1986)
With his soaring background vocals, Michael McDonald would seem to be the key collaborator here. But it’s actually co-writer Randy Goodrum. He’s contributed to a number of hits for others, including Chicago (“If She Would Have Been Faithful”) and Journey‘s Steve Perry (“Oh Sherrie,” “Foolish Heart”), while working on Lukather solo albums dating back to his 1989 self-titled LP. “He’s really good at what he does. That sounds like a throwaway line, but he’s a brilliant musician,” Lukather later argued. “Randy’s sense and knowledge of music, of not doing the cliché thing, is there. When you co-write with people, there is a certain chemistry that has to be there.” It showed again on “I’ll Be Over You.”
No. 6. “Good For You”
From: Toto IV (1982)
“Good for You” is another of this project’s drum-tight lesser-known gems. Co-written by Lukather and Kimball, this song boasts a Cuisinart-y blend of genre feels and styles. There’s a crunchy synth riff (think Keith Emerson in the Emerson Lake and Powell era), an unforgettably ear-wormy chorus, a dream-sequence middle-eight and, finally, a scorching solo from Lukather at the fade. And, through it all, they never let go of this relentless R&B-infused groove. Then there’s Bobby Kimball. He matches the lyric’s unvarnished carnal desire, performing with a reckless, edgy abandon. (Unfortunately, that approach likely contributed to the reedy texture of Kimball’s voice in later years.)
No. 5. “I Won’t Hold You Back”
From: Toto IV (1982)
Written and sung by Lukather, “I Won’t Hold You Back” shot up the charts in 1983 with a chorus assist from Timothy B. Schmit, the honey-voiced singer from Poco and the Eagles. The song seemed custom-built to fill the ballad spot on Toto IV, but “I Won’t Hold You Back” instead dated back to Toto’s previous album. “I actually wrote that during the Turn Back sessions,” Lukather said in 2011, “but I thought, since we were trying to make more of a harder-edged record, that it didn’t fit. We were coming to do Toto IV and a lot of people were bringing other types of songs to the party. It became more of a band-written record. That was when the band came into its own.”
No. 4. “99”
From: Hydra (1979)
This David Paich lyric pays tribute to George Lucas’ directing debut, THX 1138, set in a totalitarian 25th century where people are simply numbered drones. Toto’s futuristic video was even fashioned after one of the film’s scenes. Yet Lukather sings “99” so sweetly that the song resonates anyway. Too bad he struggled so mightily with its goofy past. At one point, Lukather went on record as saying he hated the song and “99” even disappeared from the set list. “That’s an example of talking out of the side of your mouth,” he finally admitted. “People still ask me about it. It’s an example of how the Internet is so viral. At first, I did think it was a cheesy lyric. But we played it on the last tour – just to prove that I was just kidding.”
No. 3. “Africa”
From: Toto IV (1982)
“Africa” provided a key early roadmap for the emerging “world music” genre. “It’s funny, Sting always says the record is just a blueprint for what actually will take place later on – and I believe that,” Paich said in 2013. Credit Porcaro’s ageless rhythm, but there’s also Paich’s deeply involving keyboard figure. He fooled around on an early Yamaha synth until he achieved a sound that resembles a kalimba. “We were searching, trying to break some new ground,” Paich added. “That was typical Toto. We not only used that, but also an instrument called a flapamba, which you’ve heard on Steely Dan‘s ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.’ It was an exotic wooden African instrument, from the xylophone or marimba family. It was really fun to experiment.”
No. 2. “Rosanna”
From: Toto IV (1982)
Jeff Porcaro created a canny update of Bernard Purdie’s legendary half-time shuffle, then Toto played along while everyone assumed the utterly lovestruck lyric was about actress Rosanna Arquette. (She’d been dating Porcaro’s sibling bandmate, keyboardist Steve Porcaro.) A rocket-ride key change probably required that vocal handoff from Lukather to Bobby Kimball, who still possessed a stratospheric tenor. But Steve Porcaro’s outburst of a solo remains the song’s lasting wonder. Porcaro and Paich carefully created it after dabbling with a Yamaha CS-80s, a GS1, a Minimoog and several other keyboards. Through it all, “Rosanna” somehow got stuck at No. 2, behind the Human League‘s “Don’t You Want Me” and Survivor‘s “Eye of the Tiger.”
No. 1. “Hold the Line”
From: Toto (1978)
Powered by a sharp riff from the very big-haired, still-teenaged Lukather, Paich’s “Hold the Line” completes Toto’s argument as a rock band. The video, with its old-school picture-in-picture editing, is just as gritty and tough. “Hold the Line” came on TV years later when he was at the house of a movie-star friend and his much younger girlfriend, Lukather recalled in 2012. Nobody recognized Lukather – but the song still resonated. “This girl is laughing, saying: ‘Yeah, I know that song. I wasn’t born then.’ They don’t know it’s me, but they know the music. It’s timeless. … You feel almost weird when you’re somewhere, and they’re always playing old classic rock, but I’ve embraced that. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
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