Deep Album Cuts Vol. 226: Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren is one of the 2021 Rock And Roll Hall of Fame nominees, along with Jay-Z, Foo Fighters, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, The Go-Go's, Rage Against The Machine, and New York Dolls, among others. And it's interesting to realize that Rundgren has gotten the nod 3 years in a row now, after over 20 years of being eligible and never nominated. So I guess there's some building momentum there. So I decided to finally dive into his big and intimidating catalog, and I'm glad I did.
2. Forget All About It
3. Broke Down And Busted
4. Devil's Bite
5. Chain Letter
6. It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
7. Little Red Lights
7. Little Red Lights
8. Dust In The Wind
9. Just One Victory
10. Zen Archer
11. Useless Begging
12. Freedom Fighters
13. The Death Of Rock 'N' Roll
14. Black And White
15. Determination
16. Bread
17. The Very Last Time
18. Pulse
19. Influenza
Track 1 from Nazz by Nazz (1968)
Track 1 from Nazz by Nazz (1968)
Track 2 from Nazz Nazz by Nazz (1969)
I incorporated the output of Rundgren's bands Nazz, Runt, and Utopia into this playlist, since they all had Hot 100 hits and they're all tangled up with Rundgren's solo catalog in different ways. The psych rock garage band Nazz's highest charting song, "Hello, It's Me," was later re-recorded and also became Rundgren's biggest solo hit. Then he made two albums with the trio Runt that were sort of a soft launch for his solo career, and both albums were later re-released under his name and are often officially considered part of his solo discography. And Utopia, a prog band comprised of people who played on a lot of his solo albums, was initially billed as Todd Rundgren's Utopia, although all members of the band wrote and sang, and bassist Kasim Sulton sang the band's biggest hit, "Set Me Free." Utopia has a ton of albums and are a popular touring act in their own right, but I just included a couple of tracks from their most famous albums.
Tracks 3 and 4 from Runt by Runt (1970)
Track 5 from Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren by Runt (1971)
Tracks 6, 7 and 8 from Something/Anything? (1972)
Tracks 9 and 10 from A Wizard, A True Star (1973)
Track 11 from Todd (1974)
Track 12 from Todd Rundgren's Utopia by Utopia (1974)
Track 13 from Initiation (1975)
Track 14 from Faithful (1976)
Tracks 15 and 16 from Hermit Of Mink Hollow (1978)
Track 17 from Adventures In Utopia by Utopia (1979)
Track 18 from Healing (1981)
Track 19 from The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
When I was 7, I remember my dad was pretty excited to pick up the new Todd Rundgren album, 1989's Nearly Human, and him telling me, maybe then but probably years later, about how Rundgren was this really eccentric but brilliant guy. And when I revisited that album this week, I was surprised by how familiar most of its songs were to me, so my dad must have played that one around the house quite a lot. But I grew up not really knowing Rundgren's most songs well, or simply not knowing that he was the guy that did "Hello It's Me" and "Bang the Drum All Day," or even having the faintest idea that those 2 songs were by the same artist. So it's been interesting to get into him and realize he was a pretty big deal in the '70s, even if he kind of pointedly sabotaged his commercial potential at various points throughout his career so future generations would only be vaguely aware of his work.
After the breakup of Nazz, Todd Rundgren was hired as a producer/engineer at Bearsville Studios, a place outside Woodstock owned by Bob Dylan manager Albert Grossman. Rundgren wound up recording for Bearsville Records imprint distributed by Warner Bros., and I think that really allowed him to have the career he had: he was Bearsville's most consistent seller besides Foghat, and incredibly prolific, so they released over a dozen albums by his various projects in the '70s. He was one of the first major rock artists who often produced and played every instrument on his records, and wound up being a role model for Prince, to say nothing of a couple generations of more niche artists. And he's produced a pretty impressive range of classic albums for other artists, including Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, the New York Dolls' debut, XTC's Skylarking.
For better or worse, Todd Rundgren's enormous talent and creative freedom meant that he really didn't have to edit himself much, and released a lot of odd, inessential stuff alongside the classics. He released 3 double albums in a row, and then the next one, Initiation, was one of the longest single LP albums ever released, sacrificing sound quality, volume and the durability of the record itself in order to cram 67 minutes of music onto its two sides.
Still, those first two double albums represent his creative pinnacle. Something/Anything? is one of the best albums of the '70s, a compellingly messy sprawl of pop craftmanship and experimentation that appeals pretty strongly to someone like me whose favorite Beatles record is The White Album. The followup A Wizard, A True Star is notable for being a far less commercial album that Rundgren released at the height of his fame. No singles were promoted from the album, but it remains one of his most celebrated and influential records. Frank Ocean sampled "Flamingo" on "Solo," "International Feel" was featured in Daft Punk's film Electroma, "Rock & Roll Pussy" kicked off a few years of Rundgren feuding with John Lennon, and "Just One Victory" is one of Rundgren's longtime live staples.
After Rundgren kind of deliberately swerved away from pop stardom and became more of a cult artist, he continued to make some pretty excellent records and occasional hit singles. The most well regarded album of this period also birthed one of my favorite "30 Rock" jokes, from an episode where Liz hears someone call her a cunt ("He called me the worst name ever...the one that rhymes with your favorite Todd Rundgren album." "It rhymes with Hermit of Mink Hollow?").
Faithful is an odd record that's got extremely accurate note-for-note recreations of '60s classics by the Beatles, Dylan and others (i.e. 'faithful' covers) on one side, but the flipside features a handful of his best original songs. The spirituality-themed album Healing is one of his most earnest and sincere records, which is a little refreshing after all the weird jokey tangents. And the Utopia albums have some pretty top shelf Rundgren songs on them. I continued the playlist up through 1982, the year of his enduring novelty hit "Bang the Drum All Day," which was on his final album for Bearsville.
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