Having multiple singers at one time ruined Toto the most.

[TotoFan77]

Luke has always said that mainstream never gave them the real chance. Honestly, that's not entirely true. The band is responsible to a large degree for that. During the band's early years, they had THREE LEAD SINGERS and that ruined them more than anything because it made it impossible for radio listeners to be able to identify the songs. Look at Hydra for example, 3 singles were released to radio, St George and the Dragon, 99, and All Us Boys and they were ALL sung by a DIFFERENT lead singer! How on Earth were casual fans supposed to know that all 3 of those songs were by the same band? That was a big reason why the band was accused of being faceless. It was a stupid decision and it's one that THEY made, not the record company.

I'm a big fan of Toto but it's always pissed me off that the band never accepted any responsbilty whatsoever for their lack of success in the States and they simply claim that the record company was out to get them and nothing more.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Didn't prevent Styx from achieving more mainstream success. The occasional Luke-sung ballad single would've been fine, but the rotating door of Bobby, Fergie, Joe, and Jean was just too much. Prolly should've stuck with Bobby after IV swept the Grammys.

[WalrusOct9]

I don't think it's what killed the band in the U.S., but it certainly didn't help, especially in the video age, which I think put extra emphasis on frontmen.

Chicago managed to do the same thing and be very successful, but they also were artistically bankrupt, using other people's songs and eliminating their trademark horns for the most part. I'm glad Toto didn't go down the Chicago/Heart/"The Flame" route just to generate hits.

Isolation has become one of my favorite Toto albums, but I don't think there's a song on it that would've had serious U.S. hit potential as a follow up to IV, whether Bobby had stayed or not. It's a killer album from start to finish, but there isn't a great single on it that would've been up there with "Rosanna," "Africa" or later "Pamela" or "Stop Loving You." If The Seventh One had been the follow-up (regardless of lead vocalist), I think the story might've been a little different. But who knows.

[Sundet]

Multiple lead singers didn't ruin it for the Beatles, nor Chicago. Besides, Rosanna and Africa were sung by different singers and were huge hits anyway.

[DracIsBack]

that ruined them more than anything because it made it impossible for radio listeners to be able to identify the songs.

The Beatles, the Eagles and Chicago were all able to sell over 100 million records with multiple lead singers.

[TotoFan77]

In Styx's glory years, a majority of the singles were still sung by Dennis. There was still that recognizable voice.

With The Beatles, Chicago etc, yeah they had more than one singer but they had their own unique sound that could still be heard regardless of who was singing. Toto didn't have that. The records were bipolar in a way because almost every song sounded like a different band which is fine but it's important that because of that, a recognizable voice was very crucial to the listener which the band didn't have.

You could listen to "Can't Buy Me Love" and "A Hard Day's Night" and tell they were the same band but you could listen to "Hold The Line" and "99" and it'd be much harder to tell. Again, Hydra had 3 singles, 3 different genres and 3 different singers. Way too much for the casual fan to ever tell there were the same band.

[TotoStu]

Aha, but isn't a bit of variety a good thing?