Top 100 Favorite CDs- Numbers 34 and 33

Toto - the only rock band to truly sport the High School Chess Club look. I think they're running because they've spotted a Rubik's Cube.

I'll actually knock out number 33 fairly quickly-

Asia - Asia (1982)

I've covered Asia enough over the past month or so that it's hard to think of something different to say, particularly since this was the debut album and it was played in it's entirety when I saw them live (and couldn't be happier about it). So what's left to say? It's one of those ultimate Mr Mike albums, I'm surprised I didn't rank this higher but I wrote this list out like 2 years ago when there wasn't much happening with this band. The only thing left to add is I consider this album to have Steve Howe's most aggressive guitar playing in his career, he really makes a statement here.

Number 34 I'll write a little more about-

Toto - Toto IV (1982)

Another classic from the same year, a brother from another mother if you will. This album made it the year of Toto, they had three Top 10 hits including a #1 smash single, won like a gagillion Grammy awards and for a brief moment made studio musicians seem cool. Toto was down in the dumps career wise before IV, their debut album was a big seller but the two albums that followed stiffed. For IV, Toto made a move towards the Adult Contemporary and AOR markets simultaneously by pooling their experience backing just about every L.A. solo musician and translating it into savvy arrangements.

"Rosanna" was the lead single and went all the way to #2 on Billboard and won the Grammy for Song of the Year. The bouncy bit of pop rock with swinging horns and an impressive multitracked synthesizer solo was a winner on Pop, Rock and Soft Rock radio. The second single, "Make Believe", is a personal favorite that should have been a shoo-in for Soft Rock radio but found resistance instead. The third single was "Africa" which became a huge #1 smash at the start of '83 and forever ingrained that hook "I bless the rains down in Africa" in the minds of anyone near my age. Fourth was the power ballad "I Won't Hold You Back" which followed the momentum of "Africa" into the Top 10.

These hits showed a Toto that was on top of their game, each song embedded with a monster hook, expert playing and a layered approach that rocked somewhat hard but still remained soft enough for mass consumption. Other great tracks include the R&Bish "Waiting For Your Love" and the straight up AOR of "Afraid Of Love". The band's hot streak bled over to their session work, as Michael Jackson's Top 10 hit "Human Nature" was written by a band member.

It would be obvious to include "Rosanna" and since I'm obvious it's here in it's entirety. The most well known trivia is that the song is about actress Rosanna Arquette who was dating a member of the band at the time. But the song wasn't written by the person dating Rosanna but a different band member. Can a guy stoop any lower than writing a love song to his friend's girl? I'm sure if there was any tension it was resolved with Platinum records and Grammys but that's still pretty weird. Additional trivia, the dancer in the video is Cynthia Rhodes who was a singer / actress who had a hit as the replacement singer in Animotion with "Room to Move", appeared in the films Dirty Dancing and Staying Alive and married pop rocker Richard Marx.

In addition to "Rosanna" is an amusing bit called Yacht Rock that I came across on another blog I can't recall right now. Anyway, it tells the fictional story of how "Rosanna" was written.

Toto "Rosanna" and Yacht Rock