| CD REVIEW Todd Rundgren |
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Band : Todd Rundgren Aaààcchhh, Todd Rundgren…what wonderful memories I have from this now 60 year-old musician’s music over the years! Granted, I’d lost him out of sight in the last 10 years, but on the other hand I díd get some of his earliest material in that interim as well! Back to current day: I had no idea of how to start this review. Having listened to the album a couple of times before I even looked into the info I’d gathered, I’d already come to the conclusion that the album deserved a song-by-song review. But then when I looked over the info, I realized there’s really too much to say about the guy to combine that into an article of a still decent length. However, I found a rather in-depth introduction to the album on the MySpace page Todd had opened only this year, so I’ll simply direct you thadda way for more info on the album, concentrating on the man’s career in stead. After having cut his teeth in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band styled Woody’s Truck Stop, Rundgren made his first records with his Garage Rock band Nazz (3 albums between 1968 and 1970, the two first of which I was able to find thanks to their re-issue on CD). Leaving Nazz in 1969, Rundgren alternated production work for other bands (the most noted in Hard Rock circles being New York Dolls, Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, The Tubes, and even Bad Religion – the bulk of his producer work however was situated in a more pop oriented field) with his career as a recording artist, first forming Runt (often considered a solo outing) with which he recorded two albums (both were re-issued during the same decade with the same titles and cover art, but bearing the artist credit “Todd Rundgren”). By 1972 the Runt persona was dropped, and that year’s Something/ Anything was simply credited to Todd Rundgren. 3 out of 4 sides of this double-LP album were written, played, sang and produced by Rundgren alone, and contained music which would later be classified as an early form of Power Pop, music which was mostly influenced by Soul and ‘60s Pop/ Rock, but also showed interests in Hard Rock and Experimental music. More progressive elements came to join the popular music influences (which were never abandoned), first noticed in the transitional 1973 A Wizard, A True Star, and that same year Rundgren started Utopia, who released their debut with 1974’s Todd Rundgren’s Utopia. To make a long story short(er), with Utopia delivering albums on a regular basis (with slightly changing musical directions) until 1986’s Trivia (the act was disbanded the following year), Rundgren would continue to bring solo albums (which saw a return to a more Pop/ Rock direction) as well. 1986 would be otherwise important for Rundgren, as he scored 4 episodes for the ravenously popular children’s show Pee Wee’s Playhouse (he would go on to make background cues for several other TV shows, and even got to make music for a couple of movies: 1987’s Undercover and 1994’s Dumb And Dumber). In the mid ‘90s Rundgren recorded for a while under the TR-I pseudonym (Todd Rundgren interactive) for the albums No World Order (1993) and The Individualist (1995). The first of these two consisted of hundreds of snippets which could be combined in various ways to suit the listener (the music, by the way, was somewhat untypical for Rundgren, with a Dance/ Techno feel and Rundgren doin’ a lot of rapping). The 2nd featured interactive video content…in essence, it was a simple video game…to come with the music, which was more Rock oriented than the first TR-I album. Time to talk about Rundgren as a man who’s long been at the cutting edge of music and video technologies. His first experiences with computer graphics date back to 1981, when he developed one of the first computer paint programs. Rundgren’s music video for the song “Time Heals” was among the first to be aired on MTV. In the ‘90s, he swiftly adopted the NewTek Video Toaster, making several videos with it, and even set up a company to make 3D animation with the apparatus. In the mid ‘90s Rundgren started Patronet, which can be considered the first pay-for-download medium available. Offering access to his works in progress and new unreleased studio tracks in exchange for a subscription fee, he successfully cut out record companies. Although Rundgren thus cut himself off from the major labels, he would still release albums through independent labels. Including the 3 Nazz albums, the 2 Runt outings, and the 11 Utopia releases, the count of Todd Rundgren’s catalogue currently stands at 35 articles in all! Well, that ain’t quite correct…because in late 2005 Rundgren got involved in a “reincarnation” of popular Pop Rock act The Cars. What with only two of the original members (guitarist Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes) involved in the project, a decision was made to call the project The New Cars. Joining the trio would be longtime Utopia and Rundgren bassist Kasim Sulton and The Tubes bassist Prairie Prince. This line-up, having played a couple of shows in early 2006, hit the road during the ensuing Summer for a tour with the freshly reformed Blondie. But before that (gotta come back to the Rundgren catalogue) The New Cars released the Not Tonight single in March and the The New Cars: It’s Alive album (containing live recordings and 3 new studio songs) in June 2006. The adventure was cut short when Easton broke his collar bone. Coming back to Arena (making for an outro here), you’d best know that musically, it is a great combination of Arena Rock (hence the title) with Rundgren’s own take on Progressive Blues-based Rock. As I’ve told you, you can read more song-by-song info at myspace.com/toddrundgrenmusic, where you’ll also be able to listen to two songs off the album! The material is of the “timeless” kind of stuff that gets under your skin from the first listening session, and for me personally, it’s grown to one of my favourite albums of the year. Even after…how màny times have I had the CD spinning in the cd-player now…so many sessions…I still get equally as excited with each song as the first time I heard it. And for one like me who gets confronted with so many types of music every week, that is a huge compliment to the composer/ musician/ singer (Rundgren did everything on his own again on this album)! Apparently, there’s a live album and DVD coming up pretty soon, as well as a tribute EP to the late Blues great Robert Johnson…goodies to look out for, for sure! 98/100 Tony. |