Todd Rundgren

Todd Rundgren was one of the first and greatest sorcerers of rock. A sorcerer in the sense that, right from the start, he conceived of a universal music. A music that had no business locking itself behind barriers, but instead had to become an irreverent vehicle - and, more than that, a means of identifying and unleashing his own obsessive manias, channeled into an unparalleled creative development. Rundgren's music is a web of orchestrated sounds, where labyrinthine paths unfold, some of them invisible. A musical body dense with influences from the music of the past that, rather than dwelling on itself, finds inspiration to live a new life in a new reality.

Todd Rundgren was head over heels in love with the Beatles and the Beach Boys: from these two bands he learned the art and the pleasure of musical arrangement, the drive to innovate with new sounds that would generate a melody always a step ahead of the times, the urge to venture into ever-changing scenarios, where a simple record is no longer defined by a series of numbered songs, but by conceptual works that feed off each other, just like a novel whose chapters connect and follow one another, bound together by a precise narrative thread. Burt Bacharach and George Gershwin are the other two guiding lights for our man; from these two composers he drew heavily to recreate certain atmospheres of "Old America" and of a music hall that was romantic and nostalgic at once. From the union of a certain "new music" (rock) and certain classical echoes, Rundgren set off to create a personal music, developed by chasing after the newest forms of avant-garde experimentation. And it's an involuted music, at the same time, because right in the middle of a proto-punk suite it turns to reflect on itself, indulging and blending into a sudden break dominated by soft piano notes and the atmosphere of a romantic dance beneath the stars.

Rundgren anticipated punk by a few years, poked fun at hard-rock through songs steeped in parody and mock haughtiness, while at the same time delivering resounding stylistic lessons to the genre's standard-bearers. With him, surf music, after ten years in oblivion, took flight again on the crest of the waves. And he was on first-name terms with glam. Progressive music, which had always been mainly a British affair, took on new forms thanks to him, and above all new functions, futuristic relevance. In Rundgren's hands, ornamentation and baroque flourishes are pushed aside in favor of a sound that probes the future without the syrupy overdose of romanticism that, at times, tips over into excess. The purest, most melodic pop, thanks to his compositional talent, was elevated to an art form free of the usual disposable purpose of music meant to be absorbed on first listen and forgotten within a month. Cabaret theatrics found new life and proved able to blend well with rock, renewing itself as if in a performance from a new Hollywood.

All of this is "Something/Anything?", an epoch-making, monstrous, inhuman album, and whatever other superlative you care to add... For Rundgren it represents the dream of a lifetime: that of shaping and merging genres, subgenres, styles and past fashions into a single whole. A record in which the artist ranges across the full 360 degrees, and what's most astonishing is that he shows an almost embarrassing ability to slip into the role of soul singer one moment, and be an old-school hard-rocker the next, to attempt electronic experiments worthy of a fringe theater and immediately after plunge into one of those powerful big ballads with a series of brilliant arrangements, only to set off again with new ideas. The album is split into four parts: three of these are produced, written, arranged and played (on every instrument) by Rundgren himself, while on the fourth part the American composer enlists the help of outside artists.

The record takes flight immediately with "I Saw The Light", an elegant pop song inspired by the Fab Four, with a catchy melody that never grows tiresome; note too the use of guitar, with those "bends" so reminiscent of George Harrison. The backing vocals and countermelodies, on the other hand, recall the atmosphere of the '50s, through that deliberately "sugary" and naive setting.

"It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference" is the second song, and this too is a classic. A soul ballad, it finds Rundgren thoroughly inspired by Motown singing and its exquisite ability to communicate emotion, with a rhythm section that's little more than a heartbeat, yet still incisive, and a piano that's a volcano of sparkling, sweet counterpoint. "Wolfman Jack" is a song "stuffed" with horns that turns its original blueprint into an r&b number driven by a gritty, cheeky vocal, while "Cold Morning Light" is an exquisite example of a romantic ballad introduced by a spirited melodic line; the central section of the song, the chorus, is dominated by a shift in rhythm halfway between blues and the sacredness of soul, especially in its timbres. "It Takes Two To Tango (This Is For The Girls)" once again smells of the Beatles - the early-'60s Beatles - with moments of disenchanted beat music in which, once again, it's the piano that provides the backbone of the song's melodic body.

Just as our ears are still full of these catchy melodies, Rundgren proves himself a magician at surprising us with a pure, spiritual soul song: austere synthesizers, a splendid vocal and a filtered electric guitar, alongside a powerful rhythm section, make "Sweeter Memories" a song that any soul singer would be proud to have in their repertoire.

"Breathless" is one of those typically bizarre "electronic experiments" mentioned above: outdated and futuristic at once, in that constant interweaving and layering of electric sounds dominated by synthetic notes; only the artist catches us off guard toward the end of the track, when he twists Valens' Latin classic "La Bamba" and gives it a whole new perspective. This example is crucial, because it would have taken nothing at all to slip into the most lethal kind of kitsch. Rundgren, through a masterful use of sounds balanced against one another, manages to make the impossible coexist with the possible.

"The Night The Carousel Burnt Down" is a genuine carousel of circus theatrics and '30s dance-hall cabaret, deeply nostalgic and, here too, dominated by a masterful use of synthesizers and electric pianos. "Saving Grace", introduced by a cybernetic voice and dominated by a honky-tonk piano, is another hymn to the purest melody, artfully polished, with guitar arrangements in the background, while "Marlene" is a touching example of very retro, elegant minimalism. The arrangements here too show a striking state of health: nothing is overdone, the song could have become a tear-jerking ballad that would grow cloying over time, but Rundgren, a true craftsman of music, knows the limits and knows exactly how far he's allowed to push.

"Song For The Viking" continues in the same vein as the previous track, but here the piano has a classical, rhythmic bent: it's a small suite where the tempos change abruptly within the space of a few seconds. "I Went To The Mirror" reveals a tormented soul within the artist: a dark blues at the outset, with a voice that's barely more than a mournful whisper, and noise elements in the mix that give the song's soul an urban setting, until, in the final 45 seconds, the tempo picks up and the guitars begin to roar, transforming everything. But it's only a moment, and it all fades away... "Black Maria" is an unsettling ballad with heavy, harsh tones, punctuated by sudden tempo changes, where the guitar tears through the soundscape with flashes loaded with feedback; the mood is dark, though in this case the drums come across as perhaps too spartan and basic, limiting themselves to simply "keeping" time, when a more substantial and imaginative rhythmic line would have given the song greater personality.

"One More Day (No World)" overflows with Latin flavors: the sun is dazzling among the piano keys and those notes all played "off the beat"; the vocal is a romantic serenade. "Couldn't I Just Tell You" is introduced by biting acoustic guitar notes and an urgent, incisive rhythm; the vocal is pitched high for almost its entire length, and the flavor is very much early-'60s British. Next comes "Torch Song", with rarefied notes that take on a liquid quality through a nostalgic melody steeped in poignant feeling. In "Little Red Lights", on the other hand, the more full-blooded side of Rundgren the musician comes to the fore: inhibitions are cast aside and a slide guitar with echoes of Hendrix erupts into genuine bursts of electricity. The rhythm is off-kilter at times, creating a more multifaceted song, the backing vocals are pure bubblegum, and the lead vocal is like a claw to the listener's heart: it's hard to believe it's the same artist behind some of the earlier, more romantic tracks. Intelligent, colorful, imaginative hard-rock, a genuine hotbed of ideas, with a closing solo that shows once again, if there were any need, that Rundgren is also a "guitar hero", a master of controlling feedback, vibrato and echo.

"Overture – My roots: money (that's what i want)/messin' with the kid", as the title suggests, is a fun change of pace from everything heard so far: these are just very old recordings of a still-primordial and amateurish Rundgren, drawing on certain blues and boogie styles - the roots of a genius yet to blossom. This track closes out the third part of "Something/Anything?", and everything heard up to this point has been entirely Rundgren's own work... Astonishing, given the sheer wealth of material and the high number of classics, the songwriting level across these three parts never once dips, but fortunately the party continues with another handful of good songs where Rundgren, besides his usual role as lead singer, also carves out space purely as keyboardist; the rest is the work of session men, including an already excellent Rick Derringer on lead guitar. The empty spaces between the tracks are stitched together by playful sounds produced by the musicians, creating a joyful in-studio jam feel.

"Dust in the wind" is a power ballad laced with a subtle but very visible soul streak; here too the chorus is propped up by a hearty use of horns and well supported by gospel choirs, and then there's the solo territory: an electric guitar that slips away in solitude, sketching faint lines toward the sky - soul and heart communicating through a string of metal wires, before giving way to a nocturnal, forgotten sax and its lonely "singing". Spine-tingling stuff. With "Piss Aaron" the scenery changes completely: a bold, cheerful swing dominates the picture, with effective pedal-steel-driven arrangements. "Two, three... one, two, three...": amusing test-run intros marked by an underlying cheerfulness set the stage for "Hello it's me" to take flight, another masterpiece track on this record: an elegant, exquisitely refined pop song steeped in romanticism; a piano, a flute and a tenor sax take turns peeking through here and there; the vocals, this time and for the first time, are subdued. Perhaps the artist's soul finds peace in these melodies, letting itself be lulled by the swaying rhythm.

"Some folks is even whiter than me" throws us into dusty-saloon boogie atmospheres built on neurotic rockabilly: biting guitars fight for the upper hand in dawn duels with sax and piano that simply refuse to yield the spotlight to one another. "You left me sore", on the other hand, is a black-and-white track with bowler hat and umbrella: fleeting old times conjured through ancient cabaret-style melodies, steeped in nostalgia. The final track of this work is "Slut": an orgy of driving, torrid blues, spiced with boogie and raucously screamed rock'n'roll, propped up by female choruses set against the lead vocal, a "sonic chaos" on the last note among all the instruments that, in the track's closing section, merge together as if wanting to bid farewell all at once in a single phrase: ladies and gentlemen, the party's over and the grand ball ends here, we hope you had fun... Goodnight!

The years have gone by and Rundgren hasn't changed. He has kept following his own path, one strewn with a genuine hunger for new discoveries. His records haven't always lived up to expectations - at times certain albums seemed excessive right from the start due to their overly ambitious drive for innovation, to the point of becoming eccentric works, if not outright caricatures of themselves. Still, this constant search for new sources has always allowed Rundgren the artist to reinvent himself. Even after his worst missteps, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he has managed to bounce back, stirring up a buzz thanks to that aura of novelty that has always accompanied his name.

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08/11/2006