You've certainly got "Todd Fever," Ellen. I remember how much we--"we" being my rock critic colleagues and I--loved "Something/Anything," and many still do. I haven't played it for a few years, and its beauty and diversity stands up well, though my nostalgia-avoidance is deeply challenged when I hear it. When he went on to the (prog) of Utopia, I never understood that: His pop songwriting chops were so outstanding that I thought he was wasting his talent. But he loved technology and gadgets, long before we knew where that tech was going to lead.
Greetings, Wayne. Loved your last piece on Zach Bryan.
Re Todd, it's interesting to hear that you and other rock critics loved Something/Anything. I've just played it all the way through for the first time and I'm blown away by, as you say, its beauty and diversity. It feels like a loss to me too that he didn't continue to write pop songs.
I think you're right that his fascination with tech led him in new directions, and I also think what he calls his undiagnosed ADHD plays a part. It's a diagnosis I would dispute -- I think he has a very low boredom threshold combined with an ability to learn and master things very quickly, as well as a high energy level. (It's not an illness, it's a gift!) What many might call genius. But don't get me started!
All of these posts about Todd are being driven by having just finished his autobiography, spurred by a subscriber asking for a post on The Nazz. So it'll be about two weeks of what one reader referred to as the Todd Godd, to my delight as I have indeed been infected with Todd Fever. It seems to be contagious judging by how many people love his artistry and his work!
"Something/Anything" was certainly a critical favorite when it came out, and I went out and bought it purely on the basis of reading the review in Rolling Stone (I think it was by Ben Edmonds?). I was not disappointed.
Have to respectfully disagree with you on the prog direction with Utopia - I've always been impressed with how much he jumps around with genres, and for me the first Utopia album remains one of my favorites. He did go back to pop material [somewhat] similar to S/A with "Faithful," "Hermit," "Tortured Artist" and "Nearly Human," he just doesn't like to repeat himself and earned the freedom to go off on tangents with his own material by producing big hits for other people. Some of the later Utopia albums are great pop too, like "Deface The Music." He is one eclectic artist though, no doubt about that, and completely unafraid of alienating fans. How about "Rundaans" or "State"? Yow!
Todd has said in many interviews that he's not a genre artist, and as you point out he still wrote and produced pop material. I think what Wayne and I are both bemoaning is that he was bored with writing pop songs that would chart and his last one in my opinion was "Can We Still Be Friends." It seems that once he learned the 'formula' for writing a pop song and did it over and over again for Something/Anything and got two big pop hits off it, he was bored and ready to move on to new pastures. But we loved his pop songs and wanted more! He could have been Prince or Stevie Wonder rather than both being influenced by him, and like them have been remarkably innovative, but he chose a different path. We can't begrudge him making the music he wanted to make and not becoming beholden to commercial audiences, but I think we're allowed to imagine Todd the Pop/rock God who could have been a white Prince (if I'm allowed to say that). But woulda coulda shoulda -- he produced a body of incredible music. Can't complain!
But please do keep respectfully disagreeing and giving your opinions, Hugh, as you have a lot of knowledge and perspectives which I find valuable to consider.
I discovered this album recently. My generation has largely made fun of Rundgren through memes about “Hello It’s Me”, but after listening to this album I don’t understand why. He’s an amazing songwriter and if anything his self-reliance and inventiveness should make him more relevant to young generations today.
Thanks for sharing that perspective, Dave, and kudos to you for giving the album a proper listen and actually getting to know his work. I think you can see why those of us who grew up with Todd's music revere him, and some even consider him a rock/pop music god.
As a psychologist I suspect that memes might be a way for a disenfranchised generation to feel some sense of control over a world that's gone crazy and also engage or participate in a form of personal creativity. Memes can be very clever and funny and they are a fairly safe way to challenge the powers-that-be. The lords and gods must accept being made fun of! Todd is quite witty and I imagine his kids are properly irreverent, as he was, so I'm guessing if he were young now he would be a major meme-maker himself and doing his best to offend everyone. But their loss if these meme-makers don't take the time to explore his music!!!
Dave, did you feel like you had been invited by Todd to an in-studio party while listening to the album? I was 17 when it dropped, and I had it upon release. It was my first real intro to Todd, and that's how it made me feel! I had "Runt," I think, by then, but I quickly did a record store and rock press search for what he had released previously (like Nazz). He quickly became, to me, like a "hip/glitter" James Taylor.....Todd went well with the glam of the day, like Bowie, Bolan and Roy Wood'n'Wizzard!
You put your finger on it! -- his songs feel intimate, like they're meant for you or a small party of cool people.
His Midnight Special costume and makeup were perfect glam, but I'm not aware of him doing that again. Are you? It was par for the course for British rockers, but not sure it was so readily accepted in the US.
No, I never saw Todd made up like that ever again....but, the interview with him I found (somewhere above) explains why! Another reason "Something/Anything" felt like a party was that open mic/don't-cut-it feel....we heard several between-song patters, where we'd hear Todd talk or count down more than once, etc! I just loved playing the whole record when I was supposed to be doing my high school math!!
Yes, I liked the open mic too and it does make you feel like you're there. Smart move on his part as he feels like a real dude, not an untouchable rock star.
Great song that has gotten better with time. I was disappointed though when Rundgren only played this as part of a 70s hits medley at a recent concert in Chicago. I know it's 50 years old, but it's timeless!
I hear you, Dan! My take is that he has an extremely low boredom threshold and doesn't like to repeat things. He only includes his old hits because the fans expect it, but he admits that they're often disappointed he doesn't spend much (if any) time in concerts on his early hits.
I think it's timeless too. I absolutely love it and consider it a wonderful gift. I'm thinking I need to get the album so I always have it! What if it disappears?!
The switchboard says we got a call from an Ellen from Endwell, and it's her request to know more about the "Man-Eating Peacock" costume from his "Midnight Special" appearance! Well, Ellen, you asked for it, so here it is, direct from Todd himself, from a 2019 interview with OnMilwaukee.com (https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/todd-rundgren-interview):
"I looked like a bird with Mary Tyler Moore hair! I didn’t have any input into that at all. There was a guy backstage in charge of the costumes. He did the eye makeup and stuck a bunch of feathers on me right before I went on. I never saw the end result, just went out and played. It freaked everybody out. (Laughs) "Oh, he’s coming out of the closet on The Midnight Special!" But that appearance made me really big in Japan. The audiences there love costumes and makeup that looks like it came out of a comic book. KISS could play in Japan every night if they wanted to!"
I tend to believe Todd's story.....Just from my memories (I saw the original NBC telecast, and was glued to the set.....I was watching intently, too!), I was stunned to see that, but thought it was so well done, albeit somewhat out of character! While he was able to pull it off, it really didn't look like he was all that comfortable....but, as he says, he was probably able to perform unselfconsciously simply because he had no idea what he looked like!
I also read plenty of rock mags of the day and the Warner Bros. in-house, weekly, promo "Circular," and I don't recall any reported blow-back from the label (Bearsville was distributed by WB) about the costume. And, if there had been, if we can believe Todd's story (and, I have no reason to doubt him), any finger-pointing from Paul Fishkin/Bearsville or Mo Ostin/WB would've been quickly dispensed with once they heard the story! And, as they say on TV, "knowing's half the battle"!
Thank you so much for finding this! A really interesting and fun interview. ("Like a bird with Mary Tyler Moore hair!") I love how chill he is.
The costume and makeup seemed so out of character, and it also seems outrageous that the Midnight Special guy would decide to dress him up like that. Probably for ratings!
It has produced an iconic set of photos for Todd, so it seems to have paid off for him. Plus it gives him glam rock cred, not a bad thing at all.
Thanks again, Brad -- your research skills are quite impressive. I don't know how you find these things. I put a link to your tune tag in tomorrow's post as soon as I saw the Todd tunes. Again, where do you find these things?!!!
Thanks, Ellen, for the Tune Tag boost tomorrow! As for research, I think I picked up some tips when I wrote about the Houston Astros for The Runner Sports all-sports blog site from '15-2020. Granted, a whole different set of references to regularly visit, but I think I learned creative Googlery then, and I just carried that over to my rock writing! My brother was a private investigator, too, so some of his poking around skills may have rubbed off!
You've certainly got "Todd Fever," Ellen. I remember how much we--"we" being my rock critic colleagues and I--loved "Something/Anything," and many still do. I haven't played it for a few years, and its beauty and diversity stands up well, though my nostalgia-avoidance is deeply challenged when I hear it. When he went on to the (prog) of Utopia, I never understood that: His pop songwriting chops were so outstanding that I thought he was wasting his talent. But he loved technology and gadgets, long before we knew where that tech was going to lead.
Greetings, Wayne. Loved your last piece on Zach Bryan.
Re Todd, it's interesting to hear that you and other rock critics loved Something/Anything. I've just played it all the way through for the first time and I'm blown away by, as you say, its beauty and diversity. It feels like a loss to me too that he didn't continue to write pop songs.
I think you're right that his fascination with tech led him in new directions, and I also think what he calls his undiagnosed ADHD plays a part. It's a diagnosis I would dispute -- I think he has a very low boredom threshold combined with an ability to learn and master things very quickly, as well as a high energy level. (It's not an illness, it's a gift!) What many might call genius. But don't get me started!
All of these posts about Todd are being driven by having just finished his autobiography, spurred by a subscriber asking for a post on The Nazz. So it'll be about two weeks of what one reader referred to as the Todd Godd, to my delight as I have indeed been infected with Todd Fever. It seems to be contagious judging by how many people love his artistry and his work!
"Something/Anything" was certainly a critical favorite when it came out, and I went out and bought it purely on the basis of reading the review in Rolling Stone (I think it was by Ben Edmonds?). I was not disappointed.
Have to respectfully disagree with you on the prog direction with Utopia - I've always been impressed with how much he jumps around with genres, and for me the first Utopia album remains one of my favorites. He did go back to pop material [somewhat] similar to S/A with "Faithful," "Hermit," "Tortured Artist" and "Nearly Human," he just doesn't like to repeat himself and earned the freedom to go off on tangents with his own material by producing big hits for other people. Some of the later Utopia albums are great pop too, like "Deface The Music." He is one eclectic artist though, no doubt about that, and completely unafraid of alienating fans. How about "Rundaans" or "State"? Yow!
Todd has said in many interviews that he's not a genre artist, and as you point out he still wrote and produced pop material. I think what Wayne and I are both bemoaning is that he was bored with writing pop songs that would chart and his last one in my opinion was "Can We Still Be Friends." It seems that once he learned the 'formula' for writing a pop song and did it over and over again for Something/Anything and got two big pop hits off it, he was bored and ready to move on to new pastures. But we loved his pop songs and wanted more! He could have been Prince or Stevie Wonder rather than both being influenced by him, and like them have been remarkably innovative, but he chose a different path. We can't begrudge him making the music he wanted to make and not becoming beholden to commercial audiences, but I think we're allowed to imagine Todd the Pop/rock God who could have been a white Prince (if I'm allowed to say that). But woulda coulda shoulda -- he produced a body of incredible music. Can't complain!
But please do keep respectfully disagreeing and giving your opinions, Hugh, as you have a lot of knowledge and perspectives which I find valuable to consider.
I discovered this album recently. My generation has largely made fun of Rundgren through memes about “Hello It’s Me”, but after listening to this album I don’t understand why. He’s an amazing songwriter and if anything his self-reliance and inventiveness should make him more relevant to young generations today.
Thanks for sharing that perspective, Dave, and kudos to you for giving the album a proper listen and actually getting to know his work. I think you can see why those of us who grew up with Todd's music revere him, and some even consider him a rock/pop music god.
As a psychologist I suspect that memes might be a way for a disenfranchised generation to feel some sense of control over a world that's gone crazy and also engage or participate in a form of personal creativity. Memes can be very clever and funny and they are a fairly safe way to challenge the powers-that-be. The lords and gods must accept being made fun of! Todd is quite witty and I imagine his kids are properly irreverent, as he was, so I'm guessing if he were young now he would be a major meme-maker himself and doing his best to offend everyone. But their loss if these meme-makers don't take the time to explore his music!!!
That’s a fun thought! Hopefully the Rundgren family has good fun with the memes, whatever is motivating them!
Dave, did you feel like you had been invited by Todd to an in-studio party while listening to the album? I was 17 when it dropped, and I had it upon release. It was my first real intro to Todd, and that's how it made me feel! I had "Runt," I think, by then, but I quickly did a record store and rock press search for what he had released previously (like Nazz). He quickly became, to me, like a "hip/glitter" James Taylor.....Todd went well with the glam of the day, like Bowie, Bolan and Roy Wood'n'Wizzard!
You put your finger on it! -- his songs feel intimate, like they're meant for you or a small party of cool people.
His Midnight Special costume and makeup were perfect glam, but I'm not aware of him doing that again. Are you? It was par for the course for British rockers, but not sure it was so readily accepted in the US.
No, I never saw Todd made up like that ever again....but, the interview with him I found (somewhere above) explains why! Another reason "Something/Anything" felt like a party was that open mic/don't-cut-it feel....we heard several between-song patters, where we'd hear Todd talk or count down more than once, etc! I just loved playing the whole record when I was supposed to be doing my high school math!!
Yes, I liked the open mic too and it does make you feel like you're there. Smart move on his part as he feels like a real dude, not an untouchable rock star.
Great song that has gotten better with time. I was disappointed though when Rundgren only played this as part of a 70s hits medley at a recent concert in Chicago. I know it's 50 years old, but it's timeless!
I hear you, Dan! My take is that he has an extremely low boredom threshold and doesn't like to repeat things. He only includes his old hits because the fans expect it, but he admits that they're often disappointed he doesn't spend much (if any) time in concerts on his early hits.
I think it's timeless too. I absolutely love it and consider it a wonderful gift. I'm thinking I need to get the album so I always have it! What if it disappears?!
I’m putting in a plug for “Piece of my heart” by Janis Joplin to be on your review list
I would be delighted to do that, right after I finish this Todd Rundgren series. Thanks for suggesting it, Beth!
Great stuff, Ellen! Todd's the man!
The switchboard says we got a call from an Ellen from Endwell, and it's her request to know more about the "Man-Eating Peacock" costume from his "Midnight Special" appearance! Well, Ellen, you asked for it, so here it is, direct from Todd himself, from a 2019 interview with OnMilwaukee.com (https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/todd-rundgren-interview):
"I looked like a bird with Mary Tyler Moore hair! I didn’t have any input into that at all. There was a guy backstage in charge of the costumes. He did the eye makeup and stuck a bunch of feathers on me right before I went on. I never saw the end result, just went out and played. It freaked everybody out. (Laughs) "Oh, he’s coming out of the closet on The Midnight Special!" But that appearance made me really big in Japan. The audiences there love costumes and makeup that looks like it came out of a comic book. KISS could play in Japan every night if they wanted to!"
I tend to believe Todd's story.....Just from my memories (I saw the original NBC telecast, and was glued to the set.....I was watching intently, too!), I was stunned to see that, but thought it was so well done, albeit somewhat out of character! While he was able to pull it off, it really didn't look like he was all that comfortable....but, as he says, he was probably able to perform unselfconsciously simply because he had no idea what he looked like!
I also read plenty of rock mags of the day and the Warner Bros. in-house, weekly, promo "Circular," and I don't recall any reported blow-back from the label (Bearsville was distributed by WB) about the costume. And, if there had been, if we can believe Todd's story (and, I have no reason to doubt him), any finger-pointing from Paul Fishkin/Bearsville or Mo Ostin/WB would've been quickly dispensed with once they heard the story! And, as they say on TV, "knowing's half the battle"!
Thank you so much for finding this! A really interesting and fun interview. ("Like a bird with Mary Tyler Moore hair!") I love how chill he is.
The costume and makeup seemed so out of character, and it also seems outrageous that the Midnight Special guy would decide to dress him up like that. Probably for ratings!
It has produced an iconic set of photos for Todd, so it seems to have paid off for him. Plus it gives him glam rock cred, not a bad thing at all.
Thanks again, Brad -- your research skills are quite impressive. I don't know how you find these things. I put a link to your tune tag in tomorrow's post as soon as I saw the Todd tunes. Again, where do you find these things?!!!
Thanks, Ellen, for the Tune Tag boost tomorrow! As for research, I think I picked up some tips when I wrote about the Houston Astros for The Runner Sports all-sports blog site from '15-2020. Granted, a whole different set of references to regularly visit, but I think I learned creative Googlery then, and I just carried that over to my rock writing! My brother was a private investigator, too, so some of his poking around skills may have rubbed off!