Hydra is the second studio album by American rock band Toto, released in 1979. It reached No. 37 on the Billboard Pop Albums. While most of the album's singles failed to make any impact in the charts, "99", a song inspired by the 1971 science fiction movie THX 1138, reached No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album received television promotion through Musikmarkt Hitparade series. In 1980, CBS had also created a 24-minute four-song video that was filmed over the course of three days. The video, which cost $500,000 to make, included a recreation of a New York sewer to emulate the imagery found on the cover of Hydra.
In 2013, Toto's guitarist Steve Lukather said of the album: <blockquote>You get successful with something, itâÂÂs always the whole thing where you donâÂÂt want to repeat it. So we tried something a little different with Hydra, and it sold well, although it might have been a little bit rushed for us. And here's some irony for you -- Rolling Stone beat up on the first album, and then when they reviewed Hydra, the opening line of the review is something like, "It doesnâÂÂt have the magic of the first album." We're immediately pissing ourselves on the floor with laughter. Who are these cats? Do they think we have amnesia? We were just following our muses, man. We were following our own rules and we didn't want to listen to anybody.</blockquote>
Though a commercial success, Hydra was a far less popular album than the band's top-selling debut. Record World felt that that the album possessed "an even broader range" than their debut album with "some prime pop and rock material". Cashbox described it as "more adventuresome than the first album" with "some fine excursions into progressive rock." Billboard said that the album had a "professional yet energetic, rock sound" and highlighted Lukather's guitar playing as "breathtaking".
Robin Smith of Record Mirror referred to Hydra as "another fine album" from Toto, adding that the song was "big on everything" with "escapism into a storybook world of knights and dragons". Record Business thought that Hydra demonstrated the band's ability to make "superb music", which they said was best showcased on "St. George and the Dragon", "All Us Boys", and the title track.
In a retrospective review AllMusic suggested this was due to Toto's failure to establish a distinctive, recognizable sound on either Hydra or their debut, which would have allowed listeners to immediately identify Toto's major hits with the band themselves.
Toto
Additional musicians
Production