The Ballot of TODD RUNDGREN: ILM ARTIST POLL #107 Nominations Thread

http://brooklynbowl-2015.ticketfly.com/files/2016/05/pasted-image-0-1-1024x707.png

Are there really 106 artists more talented than Todd? I’m not sure. But I *am* pretty convinced that there aren’t 107, so I’m gonna try it: my first Artist Poll, for Philadelphia’s own, Todd Harry (Harry?!?) Rundgren. 

Here are the rules as I set them (or actually, as I ripped off WilliamC)

Three Parts:

1. Rank your top 30 Todd tracks. What's eligible is work under Rundgren’s name as solo artist and artists that include Todd as a member of a group (Nazz, Utopia or New Cars, which we all know is gonna take this). Normal scoring: 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12, 21:11, 22:10, 23:9, 24:8, 25:7, 26:6, 27:5, 28:4, 29:3, 30:

2. Albums. Rank your top TEN albums of Todd’s. Same rules as tracks — solo artist, co-artist and groups where he’s a member.

3. Productions. Rank your top TEN albums that are listed as produced or co-produced by Todd. Note that this section is for albums, not tracks. You CAN include Todd or Utopia albums though I encourage you to pick ones by other artists.

Send your ballots to me at matthew DOT weiner AT gmail DOT com. Deadline is midnight Eastern Daylight Time on Sunday, March 14th, 2021. I’ll bump this out a few more days if necessary.

Todd’s page at discogs.com: https://www.discogs.com/artist/138572-Todd-Rundgren

Woot! Let’s do this.

Per Wikipedia, here is a not complete but very extensive discography:

Solo albums

Runt (1970)
Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren (1971)
Something/Anything? (1972)
A Wizard, a True Star (1973)
Todd (1974)
Initiation (1975)
Faithful (1976)
Hermit of Mink Hollow (1978)
Healing (1981)
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
A Cappella (1985)
Nearly Human (1989)
2nd Wind (1991)
No World Order (1993) (TR-I)
The Individualist (1995) (TR-I)
With a Twist... (1997) (remakes album)
One Long Year (2000)
Liars (2004)
Arena (2008)
Todd Rundgren's Johnson (2011)
(re)Production (2011) (covers album)
State (2013)
Global (2015)
White Knight (2017)
Space Force (2021)

Nazz

Nazz (1968)
Nazz Nazz (1969)
Nazz III (1971)

Utopia

Todd Rundgren's Utopia (1974)
Ra (1977)
Oops! Wrong Planet (1977)
Adventures in Utopia (1979)
Deface the Music (1980)
Swing to the Right (1982)
Utopia (1982)
Oblivion (1984)
POV (1985)

Other albums

Up Against It! (1997)
(1980s demos for the musical of the same name)
Disco Jets (2001)
(Utopia album recorded 1976)
It's Alive! (2006)
(The New Cars)
Runddans (2015) (with Lindstrom and Emil Nikolaisen)

Selected productions

Straight Up (1971) – Badfinger
Halfnelson (1971) – Halfnelson
New York Dolls (1973) – New York Dolls
We're an American Band (1973) – Grand Funk Railroad
Shinin' On (1974) – Grand Funk Railroad
War Babies (1974) – Hall & Oates
Bat Out of Hell (1977) – Meat Loaf
Remote Control (1979) – The Tubes
Forever Now (1982) – The Psychedelic Furs
Next Position Please (1983) – Cheap Trick
Love Bomb (1985) – The Tubes
Skylarking (1986) – XTC
The New America (2000) – Bad Religion
Separation Anxieties (2000) – 12 Rods
Cause I Sez So (2009) – New York Dolls

I rate him higher as a producer than as a performer, TBH.

I keep trying to get into him & I find the records are all head and no ass. Like, technically wonderful but eliciting zero emotional response.

I realize this isn’t a CorD thread, but.

Oh hell yeah, I didn't know this was coming up. Any way you could extend the deadline a week so we have two weeks after voting is done for the metal poll? Idk if anyone else is voting in both tbh but it's not impossible.

More complete list of production credits:

Ass - Badfinger
Bad For Good - Jim Steinman
Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf
Cause I Sez So - New York Dolls
Dreams of Ordinary Men - Dragon
Felix Cavaliere (s/t)
Forever Now - Psychedelic Furs
Great Speckled Bird (Ian & Sylvia)
Halfway Down The Sky - Splender
Is Nothing Sacred? - Lords of the New Church
L - Steve Hillage
Love Bomb - The Tubes
Love Junk - The Pursuit of Happiness
Mother's Spiritual - Laura Nyro
The New America - Bad Religion
New York Dolls (s/t)
Next Position Please - Cheap Trick
One Sided Story - The Pursuit of Happiness
Party of Two - the Rubinoos
Remote Control - the Tubes
Separation Anxieties - 12 Rods
Shinin' On - Grand Funk Railroad
Skylarking - XTC
Sparks (s/t)
Straight Up - Badfinger
Things Here Are Different - Jill Sobule
War Babies - Hall & Oates
Wasp - Shaun Cassidy
Watch Dog - Jules Shear
Wave - Patti Smith Group
We're an American Band - Grand Funk Railroad
The World's Most Dangerous Party - Paul Shaffer

Whoop - missed

TRB2 - Tom Robinson Band

Ha, I forgot he worked with TPOH.

Thanks for doing this! I would like to note that this should probably count as a "real album", since it is mostly original material:

Another Live (1975) - Utopia

Also, there is no producer credited on the record, but his work was extensive enough to deserve at least a shared credit:

Stage Fright (1970) - The Band

Bourgeois Tagg

Jesse Winchester

for those of you who have merely listened to 10 albums or so I'd like to recommend the following tunes: "Forget All About It" from the 2nd Nazz album, and "God Said" from Liars

whoa! I will be voting for sure

Yeah, “forget about it” is a super cool jazz jam!

Ok who wants to point me to how to do this?

I rate him higher as a producer than as a performer, TBH.

I keep trying to get into him & I find the records are all head and no ass. Like, technically wonderful but eliciting zero emotional response.

I realize this isn’t a CorD thread, but.

Assign points to each song with a VLOOKUP then use a pivot table to get your results.

With the pivot table, drag the song titles to the rows and the points to the value, make sure the value is set to Sum and not Count

Will votes for International Feel and Le Feel Internacionale be combined? I'm sure no-one's likely to vote for the latter so probably irrelevant. Going on a one-Todd-album-per-day kick to stop myself just voting for all of A Wizard, A True Star (minus the soul medley).

Initiation title track will rank highly for me--The psych/prog mysticism that dominated his mid-70s work distilled into 7 high-energy minutes (with Bernard Purdie AND Rick Marotta on drums if you care about that kind of thing)

NTI, I never could comprehend pivot tables so I did it a harder way, but still easier than pen and paper. LMK if you want to look at my working spreadsheets for Enopoll.

Am I missing anything vital, not having heard these records:

Swing to the Right (1982)
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
2nd Wind (1991)

I know "Hideaway", "Bang the Drum" and "Change Myself" from compilations.

Tortured Artist Effect is a great collection of synthy pop songs almost all the way through, except for a couple novelty songs on side 2 (one of which is "Bang the Drum," obviously iconic in its own way).

I haven't heard Swing to the Right in a long time, but I remember it being similar to Tortured Artist Effect, maybe a bit heavier. "Lysistrata" is a classic.

Never heard 2nd Wind but will probably check it out for this poll...

2nd Wind was kind of received poorly when it came out, as kind of a lesser Nearly Human. I need to give it some time as well.

Agreed about Tortured Artist Effect -- I was listening to it last night and thought the same thing.

WmC -- I would absolutely take you up on best practices. I probably have an uncommon amount of anxiety about this, but also am not great with Excel, so any tips would be mightily appreciated.

Am absolutely digging the title track to Initiation right now. Bernard Purdie! Roger Powell's sitar-y synth solo interludes on this are incredible.

Will "Healing" pts 1-3 count as one track or separate?

Am I missing anything vital, not having heard these records:

Swing to the Right (1982)
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
2nd Wind (1991)

I know "Hideaway", "Bang the Drum" and "Change Myself" from compilations.

shinola

I like "Shinola" a lot. 2nd Wind has "If I Have to be Alone" which is real nice, though I think that's actually from the unreleased musical Up Against It

"Healing" should probably count as one track, it doesn't really make sense otherwise

I remember your nice post about your father's relationship to Rundgren's music. You should get to submit two ballots, one for you and one for him.

:) yeah there are still a bunch of songs in his catalogue which don't sound right because my dad played them different

That’s so awesome. I feel confident the judges would allow a proxy ballot for your dad, if you so chose.

I’ve been thinking about Healing. I think the second part is different enough that some people might vote for it distinctly from 1 or 3. But I’m not sure what to do if people vote for the suite regardless of guidance.

xp I also think Healing makes more sense as one track

These four productions would definitely make my ballot:
Skylarking (1986) – XTC
New York Dolls (1973) – New York Dolls
Forever Now (1982) – The Psychedelic Furs
War Babies (1974) – Hall & Oates

The Dolls album is my favorite of the four, but I'll probably put Skylarking at #1 simply because the Dolls didn't need Rundgren to make a great album. (The studio demos for the same songs "produced" by Paul Nelson are a great LP in itself - they can even be preferable.) Skylarking benefitted from his work immensely, and he was crucial in making it their greatest album IMHO.

War Babies is a must-hear for Rundgren fans (I like some of their other records, but I can't speak for Hall and Oates fans). Some very unusual songs and dramatic performances. In his memoirs, John Oates basically says, "that was Daryl and Todd's thing, don't ask me what it was about".

Halfnelson AKA Sparks is a classic that might appeal to people who don't like their glam or new-wave records.

The Steve Hillage album has some good playing from Utopia under the corny hippie concepts.

I've always thought that GFR's "Shinin' On" (the song) was basically a Todd pastiche, I'll take this chance to hear those two records he produced.

NTI, original spreadsheet provided by user finefinemusic: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-6UZjUc-eioPify1wTOMXe_dSsjOQ6pBu0ZjT0I7CCQ/edit#gid=1

My Eno worksheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HgN0GBtxMq9rIW7SH3bONd9uBTtkROc2ahrjL8rQwrc/edit#gid=0

Save a copy of the first one, or even the second one, to use for your Todd work if you'd like. Copy and paste/repeat the rank (1-30) and score (40-2) columns as many times as you need depending on the number of ballots, then slap ballots into the Tracks column so they line up across. Then you can sort by Tracks A-Z and get a point total for each song. (Don't forget to check the ballots so they all have consistent wording, taking out "A" and "The" at the beginning, etc.) When the voting was closed, I took all my totals to a fresh spreadsheet that I shared in the results thread after the rollout was done. Hope this helps!

War Babies is terrific

I thought I read in Sound on Sound that Todd was barely around for the New York Dolls album... and that the album was barely produced / NYD were in “unproduceable” lol

the Shawn Cassidy album is definitely worth a listen, sounds just like post-prog, pre-network/passport records utopia

xp I mean I love that album immsensely regardless

Todd was definitely around for the Dolls album. This came up in various remembrances after Sylvain Sylvain's death, but they really liked him and thought he did a great job, especially Sylvain. I think Bud Scoppa (another critic turned Mercury label exec) dropped by and later remembered how strange and funny it was to see Rundgren produce the band. Like he'd stop them after a take, run down, adjust/fix something himself (say a cable or a piece of equipment), have them try again and be like "yeah, that's all you really needed, great." I shouldn't be too hard on him - other producers have fucked up really great proto-punk bands, even when they were supposedly on the same wavelength. Look at Jon Landau and the MC5, or the way the Stooges' Raw Power was mixed. Rundgren didn't fuck up anything, he got it right and added a few touches that worked in the music's favor. The studio demos may be preferable as a "truer" and well-recorded document of how the band sounded live (and the performances are just as great as the ones that made the actual album), but I don't think anything Rundgren did to the first album was a real detriment.

I can’t vote in this because I only know two Rundgren albums, although I like both of them — Something/Anything and A Capella. The latter I taped from a friend in high school and was pretty taken with, I thought the production was clever and I liked the songs. For me he’s mostly one of those people who exists on the periphery of my musical knowledge, I am aware of him and feel like I should know more about him but I have never really taken the plunge.

Also, I'm tempted to add Stage Fright in there. He wasn't actually a producer, but he did a fine job and I think his mixes for that album are still my preferred my mixes (not the later ones he labored over with the input of all five members). They were used on the old Capitol CD and the DCC gold CD reissue. They've been labeled as Glyn Johns's work, but it's not too far-fetched that the reels were mislabeled - they sound a lot more like his work rather than Johns's.

Parts of A Capella are incredible. “Lost horizons”, “blue orpheus”

I really like the "Mighty Love" cover

there's an official bootleg of a show from that tour which is definitely worth listening to, I think he had like a dozen backup singers in tow which made him rearrange a bunch of his tunes

also pretty interesting are the 90s TR-i one-man shows where he invites random audience members to play solos and get on the drums. it does not go particularly well. but I can't think of another performer willing to take a risk like that.

Todd's production with Badfinger is also a little fraught. According to the (very depressing) Badfinger biography, Without You, the Harrison songs were a mess by the time he got to them -- so he did a lot of uncredited work on stuff like "Day After Day" as well.

We can glaze over that tho and count it as a Todd production, since he is credited with 8 of the 12 songs anyway.

If NTI is so inclined… in the late 80s, he had a song that while popular with his cult, huge crowd pleaser, wasn't on a formal record and could not be played on the radio… having just remembered it, it has not aged well at all…but, I dunno, I guess its appropriate for you to consider it…below…

"Hideaway" and "Drive" to me are the highlights of Ever Popular… he did the record under duress as his relationship with Bearsville was on the rocks and he I think has since been dismissive of it, but… he got fellow Woodstock-ite Tony Levin to do a tour with him in the 2000s (I really fucked up and didn't find out about this until too late), and they did "Drive," a fan favorite; man does that tune ever have a bass part that that bald son of bitch could throttle…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7HqqrvMQjg

xpost - (speaking of Straight Up there as I realized he is credited on a few tracks on Ass as well, tho just two)

Re. Jess, yes! Unreleased songs should probably count.

and while I don't have the will to do ballots etc, I will have the time of my goddamn life going over the results with you guys… although I've listened to A Cappella and everything after 2nd wind like once or twice, I pretty much got everything else in my bones…

its kind of funny that the toss off "Bang on the Drum all Day" became a huge hit at the same time he was desperately trying to write one for Utopia

Forgot about Patti Smith's Wave. Not a consistently compelling batch of songs, but Rundgren did a good job.

veronica, I know it can be a little challenging but I’d hope that you find time to put together a ballot. If nothing else, you’d ensure that the list of songs is more varied.

I have never ever made an ILM ballot, and for that matter disliked making top ten lists, only did so when I was obliged to in the course of working for various publications…but I'll think about it cuz you asked so durn nicely!

I’d just like to rep for ‘Hawking’ off ‘Nearly Human’...pure Todd ecstasy...sure Daryl Hall could of killed this

really like “the waiting game” off nearly human

Thanks!

Wow, I think I only listened to Runt. The Ballad... once a long time ago. It's really solid.

I haven't got as much listening time in as I hoped I would this week but I will also revisit the first Utopia album before making my ballot.

I'm doing one, will send it tomorrow if not tonight

My ballot will be sent today (def this time)

Voted my little vote.

Anyone read the book by Mike Myers’s brother?

I did, and there are a couple of posts that reference it above. It's probably a better read than Rundgren's own book from a couple of years ago. I think Paul Myers' blog has "outtakes" and extra interview material from the book if you want a sample of his style.

I really enjoyed the Myers book. Todd participated in it as did a number of artists he worked with, which gives you a really good sense of what it was like to work with him. Perhaps understandably Myers rushed a bit more through the post-Nearly Human era but the details on the productions like Skylarking were awesome.

Did you know about his Emitt Rhodes connection?

No. What is it?

Not 100% sure. He wrote an article about him, maybe about Rainbow Ends and then became pals with him at some level. There are various photos of them together and he sang backup on some latter day recording, maybe Emitt’s cover of “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.”

The man has good taste, I’ll say that.

All right, I'm giving a final listen to "The Ikon" and then hammering this out.

sent

I’m still racing through the discography like something... something very fast... can’t seem to think of a handy metaphor for that.

Except for familiar or obvious hits and the Robert Johnson material nothing is particularly outstanding or bad. If I had heard this stuff on the radio or had bought the physical media back in the day and absorbed it properly might think differently.

GFR version of “The Loco-Motion” certainly burned in some recess of my brain, though.

^^^one of the first records I ever bought, I guess Todd was worming his way into my brain years before I knew who he was.

tic, tic, tic

The Vanilla Sky soundtrack is showing up in Wikipedia under its Albums Produced By Todd Rundgren rubric but presumably that’s just because one of his songs is on it, “Can We Still Be Friends,” I think.

Paul Myers also had a hand in some book about Power Pop which looks interesting. I recently joined a somewhat fractious private group on a social media which discusses Power Pop, maybe one other ILX0r is on it along with a few other people I know. I ignore most of the discussion but every once in a while something interesting pops up.

Okay, trying to finalize my ballot

Will votes for International Feel and Le Feel Internacionale be combined? I'm sure no-one's likely to vote for the latter so probably irrelevant. Going on a one-Todd-album-per-day kick to stop myself just voting for all of A Wizard, A True Star (minus the soul medley).

Finally sent *phew* Please let me know if you received or not.

I sort of took my approach to my Replacements ballot and turbocharged it.

Received!

Who else is thinking of submitting one?

Hmm. Paul Myers identifies himself as a songwriter in the intro to the Power Pop book but I am unfamiliar with his work in that line.

Oh, a Canadian alternative band. Perhaps a few of you remember this number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpTrRAsAJvY

Sent

Not sure how the Dumb & Dumber soundtrack could potentially fit into this but it probably does

blessed image pic.twitter.com/Ipx8z0Lt5M

— Nate Rogers (@Nate_Rgrs) March 22, 2021

that part with the wordless vocals in “can we still be friends” is amazing

I'm positive I first heard that song in D&D.

Too bad, I mean good thing I already submitted my ballot.

Dumb And Dumber is how I got into Todd Rundgren

.

I watched that film a lot with my sister and "Can We Still Be friends" grew on me enough that I really wanted whatever album it was on.

I know I had heard "I Saw the Light" and "Hello It's Me" on AM radio, but I got into Rundgren when I bought Something/Anything not long after it was in the Rolling Stone Best of 1967-1987 issue.

Has everyone gotten their ballot in? There was a nice rush at the end, which should make things fun.

I am done and don't want to tinker.

Still room for me to do one in the next hour?

My lady and I had I Saw The Light playing as the final song at our wedding :D

sent, apologies if it's too late

Nope, all good.

almost voted for this, but ultimately didn't because it's not really that great a cover. still it's the sort of thing that makes Todd forever cool in my book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VdoGbeG3JI

actually here's something even better - a cover of a fairly obscure Yukihiro Takahashi song. "Technopolis" is pretty well known but doing a YT tune from 1990 has to mean you're a real fan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNP72efeZk8

Whoa cool!!!!

Tic, tic, tic....

Boom:

Sometimes I Don't Know What to Poll: ILM Artist Poll #107 - Todd Rundgren - RESULTS

(rollout should start sometime tomorrow morning)

"Not Tonight"

Results for productions rolling out now ...