He who laughs last ... again a great success!

When I heard the announcement after the last tour that the guys want again to the studio, the 14-year-old boy has been looking forward to me as Bolle! Knowing that even a mediocre Toto album would make my personal 2015 better than a year without a new Toto album (of which there were last at least 9) were thoroughly honest teenage emotions space. I was 15 when I could see for the first time in CCH as the Americans showed the hamburgers where the frog has the curls ... A lot more enthusiastic you could not imagine - the next day in a sobering NDR Radio criticism - " ... these are all sterile studio musicians who can not play live! " Sorry? What was the uncle of the press as seen for a concert - I was, where?
So was already clear to me as a teenager that the music press the really good not like ... mainstream, sterile overproduced music for adults ... me imposes itself of my life the suspicion that most music writers probably victims of a failed self test are - which ultimately witness the many three- to five-string guitar in the decorated with Neil Young and Van Morrison posters 'labor rooms'.
So Toto have been loved (very many of them musicians themselves) and hated by the press for a complete career long of million music lovers.
I also had some time lost the weather - in my most intense prog phase Toto went not - but who can be as evade forever albums like Hydra or songs like Rosanna? That can not be - Mainstream or not - for the stuff is just too good! Since Tambu I'm back on the ball and look forward again as the 14-year-old, the 'Turn Back' from the casing pulls the first time - at least since the first songs to stream from XIV were!

Now the album: Toto XIV is in my opinion a great success! What this record, makes great in all other aspects, for me, is the musical quality of the songs. It is not difficult to see that it is the focus of the album - elsewhere was written here, more Toto does not go, and that's the point! Everything this band has made so great, is played on this album:
Diversity, musicality, craftsmanship and the rediscovered eighties Credo 'The song rules'! And that's fun - a lot of fun! On this album all Toto trademarks are merged into a single whole. The roller coaster of emotions that the format album has at that time elevated to an art form! The anthemic choruses are there (Orphan, Burn, Holy War), it grooved (21st Century Blues), it rocks (Running out of Time), it is sometimes subtle, as with Porcaros Michael Jackson Tribute 'The Little Things', sometimes cocky as the pseudo-Progsong 'Great Expectations' and sometimes the guys bring everything together, as in 'Chinatown' - a song that can make just a band on this planet so! Everyone is in this album have a different favorite song, and that's what makes a really good album for me.
One or the other that is perhaps all too diverse - for me that's what this band is, and what I have always loved them!

A downer for me there but then: Production is not this band yet this album justice. So muddy and smelly sounded no Toto album. What is there at present only in the studio going? I buy a lot of current productions and am again and again really stunned how bad current albums are produced. . If you before this CD for fun times eg the 'Mindfields' listen, we believe in the XIV inserting that local speakers have just adopted ... that's a shame - this music deserves a better sound!

Postscript: Since the artwork of productions has shrunk to Mäusekino format, it has quite naturally become less important, but the cover of Toto XIV me simply skin off your feet! Playing with the Storm Thorgerson league! When you hold the record in hand, will be one again suddenly realized how much art gone through the CD in the music culture lost ...