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The Perennial Joys of “Godd” Rundgren
This one’s for Steeno (aka Rob Steen): Sometimes one just has to come out and say it – TODD IS GODD. The years roll by and still I find myself returning to the cornucopia of melodic riches on Todd’s stunning run of albums from RUNT to, well, at least HERMIT OF MINK HOLLOW… and then picking up intermittently on e.g. NEARLY HUMAN. Though I hate blowing my own trompeta, you could do worse than peruse my ginormous MOJO piece on Rundgren in the RBP library – along with all the other encomia (?) to the man’s genius that we have in our vaults. How many times must I have listened to those limpid, lilting, swooningly blue-eyed-soulful ballads on THE BALLAD and on SOMETHING/ANYTHING?… ‘Sweeter Memories’ indeed. I think I’m more loyal to Todd than to any other single artist; I just keep coming back for more and more. Please discover the rabbit-toothed magus of rock if you haven’t already done so.
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No arguments from me there, Barney – Todd is the Goddlike one. And that run from Runt to Hermit, from 1970-1978, is surely the most flawless of all the great solo artists, including Bowie, Prince and Stevie. Actually, if you start at 1968 and include Nazz and Utopia – and auteur side-projects like Hall & Oates’ War Babies – you’re surely talking about the greatest and most varied oeuvre of any single musician before or since. Always love the ballads and the white soul and the pop, but I’m more and more drawn to the brainiac prog-metal-whatever that was the first Utopia album from ’74. I believe Mark David Chapman was a bit of a fan of that one as well. Not sure what means…
Let’s not conjecture. And hey, I love “Utopia” too, don’t get me wrong. What I SHOULD have mentioned, of course, is that your GO AHEAD! IGNORE ME! comp is an everpresent in the family charabanc… maybe it was putting that ballad/white soul/pop-heavy anthology together that eventually pushed you towards the pomp ‘n’ glory!
Thanks for the dedication, Hoskynso! And I can only echo Barney’s thanks to you, Paul, for Go Ahead Ignore Me – not so much because it’s a family charabanc staple – I don’t have a charabanc, for one thing – but because of the number of friends I have pointed in its direction as the definitive Tood primer, lacking only “Intro/Prana” and “Healing Pt III” in the How-Could-He-Leave-THAT-Out? stakes.
Like you Barneyo, I turn to Todd more often than anyone, and for a wide variety of reasons. No other musician suits so many differing moods, nor hits so many spots with such unerring musical and emotional accuracy, nor chronicles (and anticipates) the history of popular music over the past half-century (and more). In Liars, moreover, he managed to create my favourite album of the Noughties (ahead of Rickie Lee’s Evening Of My Best Day, Fleet Foxes and June and the Exit Wounds’ A Little More Haven Hamilton, Please (the greatest record Todd never made): an all-too rare case of an artist re-peaking in their late middle-age.
So, in the spirit of the post, here are my Ten Most Cherished Toddities (order utterly random):
Hello It’s Me
I Don’t Want To Tie You Down
A Dream Goes On Forever
Real Man
Intro/Prana
Cliche
Fade Away
Influenza
Fidelity
The Wondering
Love n peace
Cliche and Fidelity would almost certainly make mine… I also have a strangely soft spot for “Love is the Answer” (the acceptable “We Are the World”, anyone??)
[...] and was reminded of this long-intended mission by reading Barney Hoskyns’ RBP blog entitled “The Perennial Joys of “Godd” Rundgren, wherein he writ, “I think I’m more loyal to Todd than to any other single artist; I just keep [...]