Todd Rundgren

God help me, one of my favorite Todd songs to this day

 

One of my favorite songs period, Todd or otherwise. A great analogy for the creative process.

 

This is what got me to pick up his Greatest Hits.

 

The Japanese verion has a much better cover, and has separate songs, not cross-faded.

 

Gave The Nazz a spin the other day, Hello It's Me is still a beautiful song.

 

What is remarkable is that song was the very first one he ever wrote. No footlocker filled with juvenile, derivative lyrics, no embarrassing cassettes with hours of strumming and bar chords to be discovered after he's gone.

At some risk of babbling like a besotted FanBoi, his talent emerged full-grown. As Pitchfork pointed out, he'd figured out how to create the perfect pop song by the time he was 23 and he stopped doing that because it was simply too easy.

 

Yep, a wizard a true star indeed.

 

It doesn't list the timings on the back cover? I doubt I would have pulled out the vinyl to look at the label...unless maybe there was nothing listed on the back at all. Don't have the vinyl any more to check.

Hmm...and while looking for images of that, I very oddly stumbled on a weird graphic which led to a page of "TODD RUNDGREN/UTOPIA NIMBUS THITHERWARD finally on the beach in London 1976" which is from the Hammersmith Odeon* (I wasn't aware there was a beach nearby ha ha). It is commented by "TAKRL" which I must presume is the same person who was singing in Ambrosia for at least a post-David Pack while.
(*I presume this boot is now superseded by the official release by now FYI)

 

Bumping this thread because I just found this - the Ed Palermo Big Band presenting an evening devoted to Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren:

 

...and part 2:

 

Note to 'boomers: this is why they hate us...

 

Eh, I can't blame anyone but Todd for that. He's shot himself in the foot so often it's a wonder he can walk.

I have thought about making a "Young Person's Guide To Todd Rundgren" for YouTube, to familiarize them with him in five minutes.

 

Sorry Chris, missed my reference there, sorry for not being clear. I'm saying sure, go ahead and tell us who's 40 years into their career, and isn't ignored by the mainstream. And go ahead, Class of 1973, tell us why "these kids today" should understand the importance and significance of such an artist, having been raised on cultural leading lights such as Justin Bieber and Chainsmokers. Ozmosis?

 

Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne - too many to list. I'm just annoyed that Todd isn't in that group, especially as he's been working his butt off trying to understand current music and work in current styles. And I really can't blame anyone but Todd himself.

Todd's been the Zelig of rock. Things I've been thinking of including in the "Young Person's Guide..."

He played the marimbas on "Love My Way." And the motorcycle guitar on "Bat Out of Hell." And probably the cowbell on "We're An American Band."

 

Chris, Chris, your affinity for young musicians learning Daddy's record collection to get out of study hall is touching, but, in the eyes of today's non-scholarly music fan, those names are just t-shirts (no, don't point at your kid, or anybody else's whose parents take an active role in schooling their kids in artists who won't get them out of a Boys' Room whuppin'); I'm talking about kids who learn from each other, just as we did, not at Gram'pa's knee.

(Really? McCartney? Sure - let's head on over to the lunch room for a good ol' fashioned discussion about whether Chaos & Creation had more of a cultural impact on the nations' psyche than Flowers In The Dirt)("Daaaad, you're embarrassing me....")

(Floyd? Ozzy? Howabout we just take a survey of turntables playing those tonight, and check the average age of the thumbs setting that cartridge down into that groove...)

No - my point being, the reason I singled out the OP's point of 4-decade artists not getting the respect they deserve, is because, umm...to kids looking for artists they can relate to...ya just don't start with the 4-decade artists (hey, remember that great rave back in the '90s? Wow, we danced to Fleetwood Mac and ELO all night, those were the days...)(that's nothin - I remember that Motown Night at the juice bar, when we crashed the place and spun Glenn Miller all night - it was sick!)..

 

As a kid in the 80s I related to, and couldn't get enough of, the Beatles, Stones, Jimi, Doors, Todd...all old bands (I still like them) as opposed to the new stuff at the time...

 

Vickie and I have never been to Lollapalooza, but it's pretty much impossible to ignore in Chicago when it's happening. We were on the train heading downtown a couple of years ago, and there was a bunch of twenty-somethings obviously heading down to Lolla, and we got to talking. I asked who most impressed them of the shows they had seen, and the consensuses was Paul McCartney. I really don't think they were humoring the grey-hairs - why would they bother?

I'll confess, as virtually all of the hundreds of teenagers I know are musicians, I have a unique and probably slightly distorted view of young people and music. But the gist of it is they like old stuff AND new stuff. They can like Jimi Hendrix AND Kanye, Pink Floyd AND Pink (and probably Aerial Pink as well.)

Say what you will about the Spotify Generation, it's abolished barriers in music. They agree with Duke Ellington (whether they know him or not) that there is only two kinds of music - good music and the other kind.

 

Let young people have their own music in their own time zone.

 

What? The guy who put out 'Swing to the Right' as an album isn't a fan? Say it isn't so.

 

I was impressed enough by Todd's opening set for Yes recently to buy `White Knight'. I
like the album very much....but why on earth he would have Robyn (of all artists) sing
`That Could Have Been Me' by herself is beyond my comprehension. Just Todd being
Todd, I guess. He certainly has earned the right to infuriate his fan base.

 

Did Todd sing with YES?

 

I thought she did a lovely job. I'm totally unfamiliar with her other work, or how she is viewed in the pop world, but I thought the idea was to sell a few copies to her fans.

 

Apparently not. I could easily see Todd doing a great job on a few classic Yes tracks.

 

He's a big fan I know that.