Summary

The article discusses the underappreciated Toto album "Turn Back," highlighting its quality despite its initial commercial failure and lack of mainstream recognition.

Abstract

The "Turn Back" album by Toto, released in 1981 between the band's hit albums "Toto" and "Toto IV," is often overshadowed by the band's more popular songs like "Hold The Line," "Roseanna," and "Africa." Despite being considered a commercial flop at the time of its release, many fans and the author of the article regard "Turn Back" as a fantastic album that contains both memorable ballads and rocking tracks. The album did not produce any Top 40 singles in the U.S., although "Goodbye Elenore" was a hit in Japan. The article emphasizes the album's merits, sharing personal reflections on favorite tracks and noting the exceptional vocal performances by Bobby Kimball and Steve Lukather. The author encourages readers to listen to the album and points to a podcast episode where "Turn Back" is discussed in detail.

Opinions

The author believes that "Turn Back" is an excellent album that has been unfairly overlooked.
"Gift with a Golden Gun" is praised for its rocking music and Bobby Kimball's impressive vocal performance.
Steve Lukather's songwriting and vocal talents are highlighted, particularly in the song "Live For Today."
"Million Miles Away" is considered one of Bobby Kimball's best vocal performances.
"Goodbye Elenore" is noted for its success in Japan and its energetic rock sound, along with the effective use of background vocals.
The author ranks "Turn Back" among their top three favorite Toto albums and recommends it highly to readers.
The article suggests that the album's lack of commercial success does not reflect its quality, implying that it deserves a second listen from fans and new listeners alike.

Turn Back: A Great ‘Lost’ Toto Album You Should Hear

Right before “Roseanna” and “Africa,” there was ‘Turn Back’

Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment

I don’t think I’d be too out of line here to suggest that the band Toto’s three most popular songs are probably “Hold The Line,” “Roseanna,” and “Africa.” Not only were each of them very popular when they were released, but they each still today get a lot of play on ‘oldies’ radio stations and satellite stations.

Also, they’re each incredibly popular on streaming platforms. For example, a search on Spotify just now showed me that “Africa” has had over 1.6 billion plays on the platform. “Hold The Line” has had over 700 million and “Roseanna” has had over 300 million.

“Hold The Line” came from Toto’s eponymously titled 1978 debut album and the other two songs were from their 1982 multi-Grammy award-winning album Toto IV. In between those albums, the band also scored a hit single with the song “99” from their second album, Hydra from 1979.

Unfortunately, though, the band didn’t have as much luck with their third album, Turn Back, which came out in 1981 — just a mere 13 months before Toto IV was released. While the album eventually sold enough copies over the years to get certified Gold, Turn Back was considered to be a commercial failure when it was released. It was the first of the band’s albums to not reach the Billboard Top 40 in the United States and also the first to produce no Top 40 singles in the U.S. — although the single for the song “Goodbye Elenore,” was a huge hit in Japan.

The album’s initial poor sales caused the band to not tour to support the album, as they had with their first two albums.

However, just because an album isn’t a financial success, doesn’t mean it isn’t any good. A lot of Toto fans, myself very much included, think that the Turn Back album is fantastic. Not only does it have some very nice ballads on it, but it also contains some truly great rocking songs.

I bought Turn Back on vinyl right after it was released and I instantly fell in love with it. When compact discs became ‘the big thing’ nearly a decade later, Turn Back was one of the first albums I bought a CD copy of.

Because there were no huge worldwide hits from the album, most people are likely unfamiliar with the songs on it. I’d like to help change that at least a little bit, so I’m going to share four of my favorite songs from the album here.

For a little variety, I’m including both YouTube videos of each of the songs from the band’s official YouTube channel and also Spotify clips of each of the songs.

Turn up the volume and enjoy!

Gift with a Golden Gun

On the first four Toto albums, the lead vocals were usually split up between keyboardist David Paich, guitarist Steve Lukather, keyboardist Steve Porcaro, and singer Bobby Kimball. On the eight songs on the Turn Back album, all the lead vocals were done by Kimball and Lukather, with Kimball singing four of them, Lukather singing three, and both singers sharing the lead vocals on another.

“Gift with a Golden Gun” was sung by Bobby Kimball. It was the opening song on Turn Back and I think it was a wonderful choice to start the album with. The music in it rocks and Kimball’s voice sounds fantastic on it.

Honestly, I’ve never quite understood what the title of the song means (unless maybe it was some kind of nod to the title of the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun), but I’ve never really cared too much about it. To me, the song rocks and that’s all that matters to me!

Live For Today

This song is very notable in the history of Toto for being the first Toto song that band member Steve Lukather received sole songwriting credit for.

Lukather has very deservedly gotten a lot of credit over the years for being an outstanding guitarist, but I’ve always thought that he should get more credit for also being a great singer. He does a fantastic job singing lead on this one.

“Live For Today” was released as a single, but I don’t recall ever hearing it on the radio back then. I think Toto’s record label should have done a much better job promoting the single because I think it could have been a huge hit for the band.

Million Miles Away

This is my favorite of the slower songs on the album. Bobby Kimball sings lead here and, as always, he sounded amazing. Personally, I think it’s one of his best vocal performances ever.

Goodbye Elenore

This is the aforementioned big hit for the band in Japan. It’s an awesome rocking song! Kimball and Lukather share the lead vocals on this one and I think they both sound great.

I also love the background vocals in “Goodbye Elenore,” especially the “no, no, no, no, no” parts, which remind me a little bit of some of the background vocals in some of the earliest hit songs by The Beatles.

To this day, I love the Turn Back album and still listen to it regularly. Personally, I’d rank it among my Top 3 favorite albums by Toto. If you’ve never heard it, I highly encourage you to seek it out and give the entire album a listen.

On a very related note…

Toto was the main topic during the first half of the most recent episode of my GOTTA POP podcast. My guest John Beaudin (from the popular YouTube channel ROCK HISTORY MUSIC) and I talked about multiple albums we love by Toto, including Turn Back.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to connect with me outside of Medium, you can also find me on X, YouTube, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Goodreads. I’m also the host of the GOTTA POP podcast. Links to all of those things can be found here.