Missed Masterpieces: Todd Rundgren

"The Authorities” reassured us there were no connections. Yeah, right. Anybody who wasn’t too naive to breathe could believe that.

I was an 11-year-old paperboy at the time, and scared shitless, too young to know this guy probably wasn’t interested in males.

Anyhow, as a whistle-by-the-graveyard thing, I duct-taped and chicken-wired a fairly high-quality transistor radio to the front on my bike and played it cranked. Why? I always played things cranked, and it just might scare off the boogie man. Also, every good ride needs a great sound system—everyone knows that.

A very popular song I heard every morning (and I mean every morning) was Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me.”

A couple of decades later, I picked up Rungren’s album Something/Anything? because I’d read it was good, and we also had a history together.

I found the double album was a masterpiece—eclectic, melodic, and just damned good. I know many religious music fanatics have a problem with melody, but if you pay any attention, all the best of all genres -- even punk, hardcore and grunge -- are melodic (e.g. The Clash, The Replacements and Nirvana).

And does somebody/anybody know this is a one -man album? Rundgren played every instrument, produced and engineered it. He’s not the first guy to do that, but may be the best.

Rundgren is mostly known as a producer, but with this masterpiece, he did it all. Buy it.