Artist: Todd Rundgren Genre(s):
Other
Discography:
Todd Year: 1989
Tracks: 17
Todd Rundgren's best-known songs -- the Carole King pastiche "I Saw the Light," the ballads "Howdy, It's Me" and "Prat We Still Be Friends," and the goofy trinket "Bang on the Drum All Day" -- intimate that he is a gifted pop craftsman, simply cipher more than than that. On one level, that perception is truthful since he is doubtless a talented pop songster, only at his essence Rundgren is a john Rock & roll rebel. Once he had a discernment of success with his 1972 masterwork,
Something/Anything?, Rundgren chose to empty stardom and, with it, conventional pop medical specialty. He began a trend of action through uncharted melodious territory, decorous a pioneer non only in electronic medicine and prog sway, just in music television, electronic computer software system package, and Internet music delivery as comfortably.
As his career injury into its third gear 10, Rundgren concentrated on behind-the-scenes innovations, but during the '70s and '80s he retained a relentless work schedule. He released up to two albums a year either as a solo creative person or with his band Utopia, piece producing acclaimed, successful records for artists as diverse as Badfinger, Meat Loaf, Grand Funk Railroad, the New York Dolls, and XTC. Given such an all-inclusive catalogue, it's not surprising that there's a huge change of styles within Rundgren's music -- which is either rewarding or frustrating, depending on the album. Also, more often than non, the singles from each record do non proffer an exact indication of what the remainder of the album sounds like. Such an approach severely curtailed his masses attract, simply it helped him cultivate a fiercely consecrate cultus hearing.
During the '70s, his records were underground favorites, and his albums continued to chart until 1991, near 20 geezerhood after his commercial heyday. In those 20 eld, Rundgren crataegus laevigata have existed mostly on the fringes of pop medicine, only he produced a body of work that ranks as peerless of the most challenging in sway & undulate. A native of Upper Darby, PA -- a suburban area of Philadelphia -- Rundgren learned how to play guitar as a child, instruction himself afterwards his initial stave of lessons ceased. As a teenager, he absorbed pop euphony from Motown to Liverpool and formed Money, his first striation, when he was 16. Following his high commencement exercise, he touched to the resort townspeople of Wildwood, NJ, where he regularly sabbatum in with a identification number of bands. Eventually, he became a member of the blue devils grouping Woody's Truck Stop, which presently became based in Philadelphia.
Rundgren stayed with the band for several months, simply when the grouping began to actuate toward hipster psychedelia, he and Carson Van Osten bailed to form the Nazz in 1967. Taking their list from an isolated Yardbirds song and elysian by a mixture of British Invasion groups, from the omnipresent Beatles to the religious cult favorites the Move, the Nazz were arguably the low Anglophiles in rock history. There had been many groups that john Drew inspiration from the Beatles and the Stones, just none had been so self-consciously reverent as the Nazz. Playing lead guitar and basso, severally, Rundgren and Van Osten were joined by drummer Thom Mooney (at one time of the Munchkins) and lead vocalist/keyboardist Stewkey (born Robert Antoni). By September 1967, the chemical group received some financial reinforcement from local record memory board Bartoff & Warfield, world Health Organization too pose them in touch with John Kurland, a record promoter wHO was looking for for a guitar pop band. Kurland took a shine to the Nazz and signed on as their manager.
Kurland and his associate, Michael Friedman, had the Nazz sign with SGC Records -- an offshoot of Atlantic Records and Columbia-Screen Gems -- in the summer of 1968. Their debut album,
Nazz, appeared in October, supported by the single "Hullo It's Me." Although the song would later become a major hit for Rundgren as a solo creative person, the dirgey original version barely scraped the national charts. Despite the want of success, the record -- specially the Nazz's self-production of "Open My Eyes" and "Hi It's Me" -- attracted some salutary notices. Taking these as a discriminative stimulus, the mathematical group began work on an challenging, self-produced duple record album, named Fungo Bat. By the time it was released in April 1969, it was trimmed to a single record album,
Nazz Nazz. In the process of redaction, a great deal of Rundgren's newer, Laura Nyro-influenced corporeal -- which he had song dynasty himself -- was left hand on the shelves. Neither the management nor his bandmates gave Rundgren often encouragement to sing, nor was his new introverted direction heartily received by his colleagues. Faced with a no-win situation, Rundgren left the mathematical group non long after their summer 1969 spell. Stewkey took control of the Nazz, erased Rundgren's vocals from the album sitting in the vaults, and replaced them with his own. The final result was released as
Nazz 3 in 1970, simply it stiffed.
Rundgren, meanwhile, became an in-house producer and locomotive engineer for former Bob Dylan coach Albert Grossman's fledgeling studio and label, Bearsville Records. Around the same time, Rundgren formed a band called Runt. In reality, Runt was slight more than a front for his burgeoning solo life history. He played all of the instruments take out drums and bass, which were normally handled by brothers Hunt and Tony Sales.
Half-pint -- either Runt's low album or Rundgren's low solo album, depending on your point of aspect -- was released on Ampex Records in the come down of 1970. The album lento earned an interview, with the single "We Gotta Get You a Woman" climb into the Top 20 in early 1971. His modest success was sufficiency to convince Grossman to sign Rundgren to a long-run get with Bearsville.
Asunder from a re-release of
Peewee, the first Rundgren album to appear on Bearsville was Runt's last record,
The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, a disk that was remindful of such melodic singer/songwriter peers as King and Nyro, however it had a subtly freaky aesthesia and far-out sensation of humour that gave it a classifiable character. As he chased his solo life history, Rundgren quickly earned a reputation as a talented producer/engineer. His low production was for American Dream, simply he speedily graduated to the full-grown leagues thanks to his association with Grossman. In 1970, he engineered the Band's
Point Fright and Jesse Winchester's acclaimed eponymic debut. These two productions typeset the leg for Rundgren to take the production seat that George Harrison left wing vacant; the resolution was Badfinger's
Square Up, which gave him a brobdingnagian strike with "Baby Blue." It wasn't long until Rundgren had a brobdingnagian strike of his possess. He abandoned the Runt concept before beginning his third album, deciding to book the entire record himself.
The resultant role was
Something/Anything?, a double-album set that cemented Rundgren's report as a near-genius manufacturer and gifted ballad maker. Apart from the fourth side, which was constructed as a tongue-in-cheek operetta around a bar band, he played every musical instrument, american ginseng every part, and the tally album. Hailed in the john Rock press as some sort of masterpiece upon its early 1972 firing, it also south Korean won Rundgren a wide interview. The King tribute "I Saw the Light" reached number 16, and spell its followup (the terrific mightiness pop classic "Couldn't I Just Tell You") stiffed, the third individual, a superior re-recording of the Nazz's semi-hit "Hullo, It's Me," climbed all the path to number v. In all,
Something/Anything? reached number 29 and went gold, expenditure well a full yr on the charts. Stardom was handed to him with
Something/Anything?, only Rundgren jilted it. He would later state that he had mastered pop songcraft and had no stake to simply accept over himself through dateless recyclings of "I Saw the Light" or "Hullo, It's Me." That's sure as shooting not what he delivered with
A Wizard, a True Star, his 1973 review to
Something/Anything? A weird sonic collage circumferent everything from psychedelia and Philly mortal to Disney express tunes and music hall, the record crataegus laevigata non feature been an knowing cue to spill his mainstream audience, simply that was the ultimate force.
As the legions of listeners world Health Organization loved "Hi, It's Me" bygone, Rundgren's cult following -- the fans wHO did count him "a Wizard, a True Star" -- intensified. Rundgren played the function to the hilt, dyeing his fuzz in a rainbow of colours and turn in overweening concert performances. His appearance may have flirted with glam or sparkle, just his music was getting more and more progressive. His following album, 1974's
Sweeney Todd, english hawthorn have had the occasional fully fledged pop strain, such as the near-hit "A Dream Goes on Forever," merely it had more than its percentage of extended experimental instrumentals. This was the guidance he distinct to follow up on and he distinct he needful a fully fledged band to serve him continue in the progressive direction. And so Utopia were born. Initially, the group consisted of trinity keyboardists (Moogy Klingman, Ralph Shuckett, and Roger Powell), a bassist (John the Divine Siegler), a percussionist (Kevin Elliman), and a drummer (John the Divine "Willie" Wilcox).
Reconciliation Utopia with his solo calling, Rundgren became one of the about fertile artists of the 10. Released merely months after
Sweeney Todd,
Todd Rundgren's Utopia consisted of only quatern tracks, all of which were principally instrumental, none of which were less than tenner proceedings. Rundgren continued in that direction on his next solo record album,
Creation, which was released in the spring of 1975. Its radio-play strike, "Veridical Man," became one of his concert staples, merely the truthful inwardness of the album set in the half-hour-long synth experiment to which the entire irregular side of meat was devoted. Mere months after, Utopia released
Another Live, a fantastic live album devoted to long synth-driven instrumentals.
Some other Live proved to be the apogee of the synth experiments and, in some shipway, the stretch of wilfully difficult records Rundgren made during the mid-'70s.
He kicked off 1976 with
Faithful, an album that rip into original pop material and re-creations of '60s chestnuts from the Yardbirds, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beach Boys. His christ's Resurrection of "Good Vibrations" brought him his first Top 40 strike in trinity age. That twelvemonth, he besides revamped Utopia, denudation away two of the keyboardists (Klingman and Shuckett), as Elliman and Siegler leftfield. Kasim Sulton joined as the new bassist. Although the new Utopia's first album,
Ra, was a prog rock'n'roll album by whatever bar, it was less overtly experimental and heavier than in front.
Ra was released early in February 1977 and was followed septenary months later by
Oops! Wrong Planet, a record that establish the quaternity abandoning progressive medicine for aerodynamic pop/rock, with a mainstream difficult rock knack. By the metre
The Hermit of Mink Hollow was released in April 1978, it had been two days 'tween Rundgren's solo albums, yet it had been six years since he had delivered an record album as unabashedly pop and accessible as
Hermit. On the effectiveness of the Top 30 success of the ballad "Canful We Still Be Friends," the record became a bad hit, outgo 26 weeks on the charts and peaking at number 36. He followed the record with the double-live album
Back to the Bars, which was split between Utopia and solo material.
As his solo career received a stab in the arm, his production calling reached a pinnacle of commercial-grade success with Meat Loaf's
Cricket bat Out of Hell. The shamelessly tumid record became an unexpected blockbuster, due in no minuscule component to Rundgren's cinematic yield. Not only did it harvest financial rewards, simply it also opened the doors for a variety of production gigs; over the following year, he unbroken inordinately busy, working with everyone from old friend Patti Smith (
Wave) to new wave taphouse rocker Tom Robinson (
TRB Two), as substantially as sports stadium rock goofs the Tubes (
Remote Control). Given that Rundgren had been releasing records at such a rapid rate end-to-end the '70s, it comes as a shock to note that neither he nor Utopia released an album during 1979. That's non to say he wasn't busy. Not only did he have his product work, but during 1979, Rundgren opened Utopia Video Studios, a cutting edge video product endeavour. Utopia Video Studios' number 1 design was a version of Gustav Holst's The Planets, a demonstration disc for dVD by RCA SelectaVision. It was a precursor.
End-to-end the side by side x, Rundgren began to devote more than time to technological developments than his have music. Nevertheless, the early '80s were a robust time for Rundgren -- his last great period of commercial success. He came back vacillation in 1980, cathartic two albums with Utopia: the shiny pop/rock opus
Adventures in Utopia and the cutting Beatles takeoff
Blemish the Music. He as well released "Time Heals," the number 1 music video to combine computing machine graphics and unrecorded natural action; it would afterwards be the second video played on MTV. The following year, he released his first solo record album in trey years, the spiritually inclined
Healing. By this head, his relationship with Bearsville Records had suit more and more rocky. Utopia delivered one last album for the label, 1982's
Swing to the Right, before departing for the starter Network label, releasing
Utopia that same twelvemonth. After completing a groundbreaking ceremony solo circuit in 1982, which alternated acoustic sets with sets featuring taped backings and video backdrops, he released
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. Despite the front of a lead knickknack gain with "Bang the Drum All Day," the album didn't eclipse
Healing on the charts.
As he attempted to pass on Bearsville, Rundgren institute himself in farther record company difficulties when Network folded. Utopia then touched to Passport, as yet some other new record label. In 1983, after he devoted some time off to do technical work, he reconvened Utopia, which leased
Oblivion in 1984.
Limbo did respectably on the charts, peaking at 74, just now the following year's follow-up,
POV, tanked -- it reached only 161. Part of the problem was that Utopia's sound had so changed, just it was no thirster contemporary. Following
POV, Rundgren in effect pulled the stopple on the chemical mathematical group, although he would later on reunify the lot for an occasional circumference. Rundgren's face by side solo album,
A Cappella, featured zip merely his voice, albeit multi-tracked and sometimes processed beyond recognition. Negotiations with Bearsville held up the release of
A Cappella for months. Once the deals were completed, Rundgren was at long last-place disengage of Bearsville and he sign to its new parent company, Warner, which released
A Cappella in September 1985. It did clean well on the charts, just it was treated more than as a knickknack than a in full fledged record by both critics and fans.
Rundgren spent the next few old age working on computers, as well producing. In 1986, he was hired to make the cult British pop band XTC. Over the course of the transcription roger Sessions, tensions grew between Rundgren and the group's main songster, Andy Partridge, eventually spilling over into instantaneously aggression. Nevertheless, the resulting record album,
Skylarking, revitalised XTC's vocation and Rundgren's producing vocation. Although he had a few high profile gigs after -- such as with Bourgeois Tagg and the Psychedelic Furs -- he decided to continue with his have technical and musical endeavors. In 1989, he finally released
Nigh Human, his soul-spiked review to 1985's
A Cappella. Staying on the charts for 11 weeks, it was Rundgren's net record album to come close up to a mainstream strike, thanks to the wireless single "The Want of a Nail." Several songs on
Nearly Human were too ill-used in his musical score for the off-Broadway product of Joe Orton's Up Against It, which was earlier the hand for the unfilmed third Beatles film.
A aggregation of new material recorded live,
2d Wind, appeared in 1991. It was his last record for Warner and the net track record he would make for a major label. The following twelvemonth, he reunited Utopia for a tour of duty of Japan, then he set to lick on his start base record album for Rhino's newfangled medicine division, Forward. Released under the moniker TR-I -- from this point on, he ill-used TR-I to differentiate his technologically advanced exercise --
No World Order was an ambitious protrude. Not only when was it released as a established CD, it was likewise released as an interactive CD-ROM through and through Philips and Electronic Arts. It certain enough earned him press, only the reviews didn't tether to sales. Frustrated, he left hand Rhino, releasing
The Individualist on ION in November 1995. Like its predecessor, the record record album was intentional as a groundbreaking technological foundation -- this fourth dimension, however, it was an enhanced CD.
The Individualist earned punter reviews than
No World Order, especially among computer-based publications.
During this time, he also worked as a DJ on the acclaimed syndicated wireless program
The Difference with Todd Rundgren. The bear witness was nominative for several awards, only its production was ceased in November 1996 due to an neutered read format. He too did several tv set and film soundtracks, including the hit Farrelly Brothers film
Dim and Dumber. In 1997, the starter Angel Records offset Guardian Records offered Rundgren a significant sum of money of money to re-record many of his hits and craze favorites as a bossa nova track record. Clearly, Guardian was attempting to capitalise on the couch cult of the mid-'90s, only Rundgren took the bait, supporting the resulting record book,
With a Twist, with a fully fledged spell. Prior to striking the route in the U.S., he was one of the first-class honours degree Western artists to perform for the Chinese during the summertime Shanghai Festival. That year saw the first handout of his Up Against It songs through the Japanese judge Pony Canyon. He besides inked a handle to horde a weekly online wireless program called
Music Nexus for the EnterMedia network.
In fact, the Internet became the chief focus of Rundgren's career by the final stage of the '90s. In 1996, Rundgren launched Waking Dreams, a corporate that developed creative ideas in marketable commodities. Perhaps more importantly to the music industry, Rundgren besides founded PatroNet, an innovative device that lets users sign to music offered flat from his website -- with no record company middlemen at all. During all this, Rundgren continued to work on new music -- intending to distribute his new material a song at a time through PatroNet -- as well as write his much-delayed autobiography (despite short previews on his official site, it's yet to be promulgated). The late '90s sawing machine Rundgren return to the road for several different tours -- both as a solo performer and as part of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band, as he besides continued to produce other acts (Splender's
Halfway Down the Sky, Bad Religion's
The New America, etc.).
The emergence of numerous archival projects began to surface in the early-21st century, such as
The King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents in Concert and a skid of Japanese-only rarity sets as part of the ongoing
Todd Archive Series (by mid-2001, 11 different sets had been issued -- comprised of outtakes, demos, and full concerts over the years featuring Rundgren solo, Utopia, and even the Nazz), as well as a compilation of tracks that has but been available antecedently on his PatroNet servicing, titled
One Long Year. In the summer of 2001, Rundgren participated in the A Walk Down Abbey Road: A Tribute to the Beatles tour, which besides included Ann Wilson (Heart), John Entwistle (the Who), and Alan Parsons (the Alan Parsons Project). Three old age later, Rundgren issued his first base rock album in over a tenner.
Liars, a political-heavy conception record, was issued on Sanctuary in spring 2004.
Scratch and The Upsetters
