Starter offers introductions to artists, scenes, styles, or labels of the past, plus a playlist.
When Nine Inch Nails released Hesitation Marks in September, they tacked on remixes from three studio visionaries: Oneohtrix Point Never, Genesis P-Orridge, and Todd Rundgren. While the music of Oneohtrix's Daniel Lopatin and P-Orridge is synonymous with abstract sounds and experimentalism, Rundgren wrote and recorded hits. In the 1970s, he was a dreamboat with windswept hair who recorded moon-eyed, piano-centric ballads. His 1983 song "Bang the Drum All Day" is the soundtrack to cruise commercials. And as a producer, he helmed records that were huge, like Grand Funk Railroad's "We're An American Band". He did an album with Hall & Oates. He gave Patti Smith radio-friendly sheen and polish on 1979's Wave. He was the lead singer of the Cars for a minute. He worked on all three of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell albums, including singing backup vocals on "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)".
But for all the evidence of Rundgren as a hitmaker, there's just as much to show that he has a deserved place among the avant garde, the experimentalists, the weirdos. He was never satisfied with only being a singer/songwriter who produces hits, so while he was charting, he was also messing around in the studio on his own psychedelic albums, and making a name as an adventurous producer for others. Rundgren is the sort of studio wizard who made it a personal challenge to cover Beatles and Beach Boys songs as faithfully as possible. He made an entire album with his voice as the only instrument. For Meat Loaf, he made a convincing revving motorcycle sound using only his guitar. His production for the Tubes in the 80s had him going full robot. He was a pioneer in computer software and music videos. His most recent album, State, was partially recorded using iPads.
He's often called a genius by the people who work with him, but he's also been described as a sarcastic and bull-headed collaborator. (In Paul Myers' great Rundgren biography A Wizard, A True Star, the Band's Robbie Robertson tells a story where the producer was chased and threatened by Levon Helm during the making of 1970's Stage Fright after he made some snide comments about Garth Hudson.)
His name still pops up in contemporary music every now and then. Charli XCX's track "So Far Away" samples "A Dream Goes on Forever" from 1974's Todd. His song "Izzat Love" is the backbone of Neon Indian's "Deadbeat Summer". His "sounds of the studio" spoken word vocal from 1972's Something/Anything? appears in songs by Hot Chip and Com Truise. He remixed Tame Impala's "Elephant", and has traded remixes with Lindstrøm, too. He's been sampled by Dilla and Madlib. Earl Sweatshirt once tweeted, "i got this here todd rundgren record im finna find me some food/kush and call it a sunday."
In 1968, for a jokey bio written as a member of his early group Nazz, Rundgren wrote, "My ambitions, although not specific, are rather involved and would probably appear to most people to be within the realm of fantasy. I guess I'll just wait around and find out." After that, he went solo, started working as a producer, built a studio, and crowded his discography with pop gems, sudden left turns, elaborate studio experiments, and technological innovations. An artist and producer who sang beautifully, could effortlessly write a hit song, and was a sonic explorer; it makes sense why people are still invoking his work. Listen to selected tracks below with this Spotify playlist.
Nazz: "Open My Eyes" (1968)
In the late 60s, Rundgren was in a band called Woody's Truck Stop, which eventually dissolved when his bandmates started subscribing to the acid-dropping Haight-Ashbury movement. As a response, he helped put together a group of Philadelphia musicians that were mostly inspired by British bands like the Who, the Beatles, and the Yardbirds. Though Nazz were never an especially popular outfit, "Open My Eyes" is one of Rundgren's catchiest songs. With its huge riff and phase-shifted psychedelia, the song rightly earned a spot on the legendary Nuggets compilation.
Halfnelson: "Roger" (1971)
When Rundgren heard the Mael brothers' first demos, he immediately knew he wanted to produce their first album. Then, they called themselves Halfnelson; now they're called Sparks. One of the first tracks Rundgren heard was "Roger", a vibrantly manic song where the central hook is a series of neon-lit arpeggios. "'Roger' was so outside," Rundgren told author Paul Myers. "I thought, 'Nobody's doing this,' which is exactly why I had to do it!" There are tons of details in the mix, like the persistent, tinny percussion that's turned down and shoved to one side. The track's balance constantly tics from the left speaker to the right—it's hard to know where exactly to focus.
Todd Rundgren: "Hello It's Me" (1972)
On his first solo album, 1970's Runt, Rundgren established himself as a piano playing singer/songwriter. But the double LP Something/Anything? started his drift away from pop hits and piano ballads. He was discontent with the idea of being seen purely as a singer/songwriter, and he grew more and more comfortable tracking every vocal and instrument himself. He told Myers that he gained complete focus with Ritalin, which led him to quickly churn out hit songs like "I Saw the Light".
But it was "Hello It's Me", a reworked and fleshed out version of a Nazz song, that made the biggest impact. Rundgren's written a lot of ultra-catchy, relatable pop songs before (and since), but this one was easily his most iconic. It's the kind of thing that shows up on random classic rock compilations. (John Legend called it his favorite song in a Gap commercial.) Rundgren's view of the track is more cynical: "Maybe I could finally get it out of my system, all these songs about some fucking girl who dumped me in high school."
Todd Rundgren: "International Feel" (1973)
Rundgren took his "Hello It's Me" money and built his own studio called Secret Sound. He also started taking psychedelics. And while he was on peyote and wiring his studio, he began work on A Wizard, A True Star. At this point, he was done with short pop songs, so the result is a trippy, constantly moving album that's as psychedelically detailed as it is (intentionally) creepy—not unlike the Sparks record he had recently helmed. It's glitteringly weird enough to merit the admiration of fellow mind-expanders Tame Impala, yet still features Rundgren's soaring vocals and bursts of pop melody, as on "International Feel", which was prominently featured in Daft Punk's suitably bizarre 2006 art film Electroma.
New York Dolls: "Frankenstein" (1973)
While Rundgren's ears were starting to lean more toward prog, he was hanging around New York City seeing bands like the Dolls. When he got hired on to produce their debut LP, his job was to match the energy of their live show and showcase their reputation as the city's cartoon version of the Stones. So while he made the guitar solos loud and encouraged David Johansen to deliver over-the-top vocals, Rundgren also injected atmosphere, especially with his Moog synth on "Frankenstein".
Utopia: "The Ikon" (1974)
Wizard was weird, but Rundgren could go even further out there with Utopia, his prog rock group. And on their first album, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, they went astral. This was not music for people who loved Rundgren's past hits. This was a band that could jam for a good long time. In concert, "The Ikon" would take over an hour to perform. On the album, it clocks in at 30 minutes. It's a true prog odyssey: constantly moving, sometimes cornball, funky, impressive.
Meat Loaf: "Bat Out of Hell" (1977)
Bat Out of Hell is where Rundgren's lifelong love of 19th-century musical dramatists Gilbert and Sullivan came in handy. For Meat Loaf's debut LP, composer and lyricist Jim Steinman wrote a Springsteen-ian rock opera, and Rundgren was brought in to add muscle to the album's awesomely campy melodrama. The opening piano line of the first track evokes ragtime on speed and steroids. Then Rundgren comes in with an enormous, arena-filling, iconic guitar solo. (Apparently, musicians he works with still ask for the "Bat Out of Hell" guitar sound.) And it's a song with emotional peaks and valleys, so Rundgren knows when to keep things delicate (when Meat Loaf sees his heart fly out of his body) and when to turn up the volume (when Meat Loaf burns in the flames of hell).
Psychedelic Furs: "Love My Way" (1982)
Art rocking Brits Psychedelic Furs tapped Rundgren to produce Forever Now, looking for the weirdo studio wizard who worked with Patti Smith and the New York Dolls—not the Meat Loaf dude. But it was Rundgren's ear for radio hits that aided them the most. On "Love My Way", the central melody comes courtesy of Rundgren, who played it on marimbas. Frontman Richard Butler delivered his first vocal take in his traditionally sarcastic tone, but Rundgren advised him to sing it straight—it could be a hit. Sure enough, "Love My Way" got them traction in America.
Todd Rundgren: "Blue Orpheus" (1985)
Doing a vocals-only album runs the risk of hollow gimmickry, but A Cappella wasn't some vapid precursor to "The Sing-Off". (Actually, it's more like a substantive precursor to Björk's Medulla.) A lot of Rundgren's early work featured multi-track vocal layering, and A Cappella followed that process to its most extreme conclusion. He used an early sampler to turn his voice into percussive elements and bits of atmosphere. And while the album features more straightforward pop songs, "Blue Orpheus" introduces it by showing just how dense and complex an LP purely comprised of Todd Rundgren vocals can be.
XTC: "The Meeting Place" (1986)
XTC were notoriously controlling when it came to their work. But since they hadn't "made it" in the U.S. by 1986, their label forced them to team up with an American hitmaker. On the provided lists of acceptable producers, Rundgren's name was the only one they considered; XTC saw him as an Anglophile who wouldn't try to over-Americanize their sound. Even though it was a forced collaboration, Rundgren and the band made a good team—Skylarking is an impeccably sequenced LP stuffed with sonic details. Rundgren told the band to find visual representations for each song to help give them more personality. Thus, the twinkling chorus of "The Meeting Place" is complemented by industrial noise, like steam, factory whistles, and clopping hooves, giving the song its own world.
Further listening (solo):"We Gotta Get You a Woman", "Wailing Wall", "I Saw the Light", "A Dream Goes on Forever", "Real Man", "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire", "Hideaway", "Something to Fall Back On"
Further listening (production):Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band", Patti Smith's "Frederick", Cheap Trick's "I Can't Take It", the Tubes' "Turn Me On", Hall & Oates' "Better Watch Your Back"