After the ballad-deprived
Isolation failed to meet the marketplace like its predecessor,
Toto IV,
Toto returned to making lush, mid-tempo tunes of romantic despair on
Fahrenheit, enlisting their third lead singer,
Joseph Williams, and calling in chips all over L.A. to score cameos from the likes of
Michael McDonald,
Don Henley,
David Sanborn, and even
Miles Davis, who had the closing track, "Don't Stop Me Now," pretty much to himself.
Williams was a slightly grittier and more identifiable vocalist than
Bobby Kimball or
Fergie Frederiksen. But while the return to power ballads had the intended effect on the pop and adult contemporary charts (both "I'll Be over You" and "Without Your Love" scored), the album had a relatively low chart peak and failed to go gold. That kind of disconnection always indicates that the radio audience is failing to identify the songs with the group that made them, and it always means a career in trouble. ~ William Ruhlmann