Kingdom of Desire is the eighth studio album by Toto, released internationally in September 1992. It is the first album on which guitarist Steve Lukather assumed sole lead vocal duties and the final album to feature drummer Jeff Porcaro, who died during rehearsals for the tour promoting this album, and the last album which involved all the Porcaro brothers together (although Steve was featured as a session musician at the time). The album was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and dedicated to Jeff in his memory. The album was released in May 1993 in the United States.
Background and recording
During the tour for The Seventh One, lead singer Joseph Williams was fired from Toto. In between The Seventh One and Kingdom of Desire, the band released Past to Present, a compilation album which contained four new tracks. Multiple vocalists were considered to replace Williams for the new tracks, including original singer Bobby Kimball (although not included on Past to Present, Kimball's contribution "Goin' Home" would ultimately be released on Toto XX). At the suggestion of Columbia director of A&R, the band ultimately auditioned South African singer Jean-Michael Byron.
Kingdom of Desire has an AllMusic User rating of four stars and AllMusic Rating of two stars.
Track listing
- Absent on the initial European LP release of the album
Personnel
Toto
- Steve Lukather – guitars, lead and backing vocals
- David Paich – pianos, organ, synthesizers, backing vocals
- Mike Porcaro – bass
- Jeff Porcaro – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
- Steve Porcaro – synthesizers
- John Jessel – synthesizer programming
- C. J. Vanston – synthesizers (8)
- Lenny Castro – percussion (3, 7)
- Jim Keltner – percussion (8)
- Chris Trujillo – percussion (8, 12)
- Joe Porcaro – percussion (9, 12)
- Gary Herbig – saxophone (3)
- Don Menza – saxophone (3)
- Chuck Findley – trumpet (3)
- John Elefante – backing vocals (1)
- Alex Brown – backing vocals (2, 11)
- Phillip Ingram – backing vocals (2, 8, 11)
- Angel Rogers – backing vocals (2)
- Fred White – backing vocals (2)
- Steve George – backing vocals (4)
- Richard Page – backing vocals (4,–6, 10)
- Bobby Womack – backing vocals (7)
- John Fogerty – backing vocals (7) (uncredited)
- Kevin Dorsey – backing vocals (8, 11)
- Arnold McCuller – backing vocals (8, 11)
- Billy Sherwood – backing vocals (8)
- Stan Lynch – backing vocals (10)
- Jenny Douglas-McRae – backing vocals (11)
- Jackie McGhee – backing vocals (11)
- Phil Perry – backing vocals (11)
Production
- Produced by Toto (Tracks #1–9, 11 & 12) and Danny Kortchmar (Track #10).
- Production Coordination – Jess Sutcliffe
- Engineers – Niko Bolas, John Jessel, Greg Ladanyi and Jess Sutcliffe.
- Recorded by Anas Allaf, Mike Arvold, Shawn Berman, Kyle Bess, Ken Deranteriasian, Bob Edwards, Jeff Graham, Rob Jaczko, Dick Kaneshiro, Fred Kelly Jr., Ed Korengo, Keith Kresge, Tim Larber, Randy Long, Jeff Lorenzen, Rick Plant, Chris Rich, Rail Rogut, Thom Russo, Darian Sahanaja, M.T. Silva, Mick Stern, Bart Stevens and Randy Wine.
- Mixed by Bob Clearmountain at Record Plant and A&M Studios (Los Angeles, CA).
- Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Masterdisk (New York, NY).
- Art Direction – Nancy Donald
- Illustration and Logo Design – Rick Patrick
- Photography – Dennis Keeley
Additional notes
Catalogue: Relativity 1181
An interesting fact is that the lyrics printed on the cassette liner or in the CD booklet have the second chorus of each song translated into a foreign language - German (track 1), Japanese (track 2), Italian (track 3), Swedish (track 4), French (track 5), Dutch (tracks 6 and 9), Danish (track 7), Spanish (track 8), Portuguese (track 10) and Russian (track 11, in the latter case as poetry of decent quality).
Certifications
Release history
{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
!scope="col"|Region
!scope="col"|Date
!scope="col"|
|-
!scope="row"|Europe
|September 7, 1992
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!scope="row"|Japan
|September 18, 1992
|
|-
!scope="row"|United States
|May 11, 1993
|
|}