Todd Rundgren—Something/Anything?

Todd Rundgren—Something/Anything?

Something/Anything?—A double album of pop music is almost a contradiction in terms. In the 1960s, an album was more of a brand than it was a work of art. Record companies teased the public with a 7" single and the promise that if they bought the album, they could expect more of the same. Many acts found that they could not produce enough quality music at one time to fill a long-player, a format which, at least initially, was more commonly used to compile existing recordings, such as that of an musical, live performance, or studio odds and ends. It wasn't until 1955 that multi-track recording was developed and 1957 that the mass production of stereo LPs became viable. That opened the door for technophiles like Todd Rundgren to enter the studio and have more complete control over the specifics that made it onto a record.

By the time Rundgren started recording Something/Anything? in 1971, he could do these things from the comfort of his home. He was afforded this luxury by his previous success as part of the bands Nazz and Runt, the latter of which was so heavily under his leadership that its two LPs (Runt and The Ballad of Todd Rundgren) are retroactively considered Rundgren solo albums. But when the term "solo album" is used, it usually means there were other musicians involved in the recording, if not the songwriting; Something/Anything? is the real deal, with Rundgren playing every instrument and producing the album himself—apart from side four, which was recorded with pick-up bands and features some covers.

Todd Rundgren is not someone who submits to ego concerns, admitting to being "pretty overbearing to deal with"¹ and prefers to mastermind his releases, though he would go back to using session musicians on many later efforts. He also lets his influences be known, as on the first song and premier single "I Saw the Light," echoing the previous year's "It's Too Late"/"I Feel the Earth Move" from Carole King's Tapestry. Recorded by Rundgren in "all of 20 minutes,"² it shows this in its simplicity but somehow transcends this in its humble arrangement, not daring the listener to find fault with it. "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference" is more nuanced in its chord changes and is a sparkling ballad that also impresses with its irregular vocal patterns. "Wolfman Jack" is an exhilarating tribute to the disc jockey of the same name, which upon its release as a single more than two years later was remixed with Wolfman Jack himself performing the opening lines. "Cold Morning Light" takes it down several notches to a pretty AM radio-flavored pop tune that could have fit alongside "The Ballad (Denny & Jean)." "It Takes Two to Tango (This Is for the Girls)" speaks for itself: a self-empowering seventh-chord anthem: typical musically for Rundgren. Side one—which it should be known the liner notes say is "A bouquet of ear-catching melodies"—closes out with the saccharine, downtempo organ crawl of "Sweeter Memories."

The second side ("This is the cerebral side") has arguably the most experimental material of the four. It is easy to miss the humor of "Intro" on first listen as Rundgren speaks about audible problems that arise during the processing of an album, challenging the listener to "find the sounds on the record." The following "Breathless" makes use of of these noises to create an instrumental jingle backed ironically with a breath track. "The Night the Carousel Burned Down" teeters on the possibility of being a real story ("My first movie score. Unfortunately, there is no movie to go with it."). "Saving Grace" and "Marlene" are more traditional than the rest of the side while the latter was probably most notable as the B-side to "I Saw the Light." "Song of the Viking" is a strange but welcome inclusion that is a faithful shanty possibly with some degree of metaphor. "I Went to the Mirror" closing out the first LP is the most drug-like song here, but also an interesting observation on fixating on smaller details ("In fact the last song is so cerebral it's almost embarrassing.").

"Black Maria" is one of the heavier and more involved songs in the set, with an almost-Led Zeppelin blues-rock sound to it (Side three: "The kid gets heavy."). "One More Day (No Word)" is a gem, styled like a romancero with an excellent arrangement ("... about people with all the time in the world. What a drag"). "Couldn't I Just Tell You" has been rightfully hailed as a power-pop classic, and Rundgren knew it ("The hits just keep on coming."). "Torch Song" is everything it purports to be. "Little Red Lights" is perhaps the least immediately appealing song cut for the album, but it is interesting in its method of construction meant to resemble a car changing gears.

Side four is "A Pop Operetta," "a series of songs with sing along choruses" designed to be spontaneous (if that makes sense). However, "Overture – My Roots: Money (That's What I Want)/Messin' with the Kid)" is actually a pair of 1966 live recordings by pre-Nazz Rundgren groups Money ("Performed by a group of the same name") and Woody's Truck Stop respectively. "Dust in the Wind" is future Utopia member Moogy Klingman's song and a solid one that stands tall with Rundgren's. "Piss Aaron" works despite its strange subject matter: high school students pissing in the halls and puking over egg sandwiches. "Hello It's Me," the most enduring song from Rundgren's catalog, dates back to Nazz when it was recorded as a stripped-down psychedelic tune. Here it's delivered with fuller instrumentation and female backing vocals, giving it new life.

On "Some Folks Is Even Whiter than Me" "the kid waxes jive and breaks into a message song a la New Tempts" and somehow comes out smelling like a rose: Rundgren's studied and earnest delivery offsets his overstepping his boundaries as always. "You Left Me Sore" is made better by the note from the booklet: "The company's new president [...] has convinced the kid to write a public service kind of message song to hip people to the dangers of V.D." A possible candidate for best song in the whole collection is "Slut," featuring Eddie Olmos on backing vocals; though demeaning at first blush, it is a first-rate horned-out rocker that channels the Rolling Stones without borrowing from them.

Something/Anything? is, at the very least, an assemblage of songs that's worth owning on quality alone. It is a rare double album with no bad cuts—some better or more striking than others, but dynamics are a good thing. But it's also a studio triumph, more impressing in its production than many modern records, and a fascinating piece of music history for its quirks. Todd Rundgren made plenty of music at this level or higher before and after, but this is his seminal work.

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1 Liner notes of The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, 1999 CD reissue^↩
2 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/todd-rundgren-nothing-but-the-truth-6165625.html^↩