Turn back is the most unpopular Toto album. The band is clearly searching for their own distinctive sound. Steve Lukather presented for the first time his own written song Live for today. He only succeeded this twice with I won't hold you back on IV and How does it feel on Isolation. On the rest of the "Lukather" songs in the Toto repertoire Luke appears as a co-writer. Read more on this subject in the essay on this website.
Lukather: "Turn back was our attempt at "arena rock" as we were starting to be pissed off that the Sony were putting out all the ballads and the softer side of us, like 99 etc... *I* did NOT want this to happen, unfortunatly it did anyway. We worked with Geoff Workman who was Roy Thomas Bakers engineer (Queen-Journey-the Cars etc...) and at THAT time... THAT was what was happening. It was an experiment. I think that there are some great tunes on the record, it sounds a bit strange and VERY different from our other records but I have very fond memories doing it."
