best song on "something/anything?" by todd rundgren

rendgren should have recorded a whole power pop album like "couldnt i just tell you"..
in the meantime, all one's got to do is collect his more guitar-rock driven songs from his first 4 albums...

this is tough

'tis tough indeed...I will need to stew on this awhile...the only ones I would immediately eliminate are "Piss Aaron", "The Viking Song" and "Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me"...

actually, screw it...I'm going with "Slut"...

life is like best of threads:tough.
still, we continue living.and voting.

"screw it...I'm going with "Slut"..."

double meaning...

It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference

i could seriously listen to that song all day. who cares

"I Saw the Light" definitely, but there's a lot to choose from. (Next runner-up would be "It Takes Two to Tango.")

Been lurking here for a while, but had to register just to take part in this. I think sides one and particularly, two (Intro - I Went to the Mirror) are just about perfect, including 'Song of the Viking', but I've always been particularly taken by 'The Night The Carousel Burned Down' (maybe because its one of the few songs I can play on piano without futzing it up somewhere along the line).

"Couldn't I Just Tell You" is the obvious winner, but honestly, 80 percent of the album is amazing.

I've removed "Piss Aaron" from my iTunes playlist. Elevates the whole album.

I'd also eliminate "Marlene" - nice melody, but second only to Benny Mardones' "Into The Night" with its creepy underage-lust lyric.

I pick "Saving Grace." but why the hate for "Piss Aaron"? That's one funny song and fits into the record's theme as it were. I've always loved it. I also dig "Marlene." It's a record made by someone who's pretty close to, er, teenaged love and thus not creepy to me at all, plus it is also rock and roll. I burned my old Bearsville LP to a disc and it didn't quite fit so I think I left off "Some Folks Is Even Whiter" and the "Overture" thing.

"Black Mariah" + "One More Day (No Word)" + "Couldn't I Just Tell You" = knockout LP song sequence. I'll vote for one of those, but which?

i voted for one that another ilxor already managed to fart on upthread. didn't matter nohow.

I'm with zeno, on both the "Couldn't I Just Tell You" selection and the "certain mood" caveat. Side One's the only side I love end-to-end, and overall I think I prefer "Wizard/True Star".

interesting. I really love "Couldn't I Just Tell You" as prime example of circa-'72 powerpop, but I also love the treacle of the record, like the aforementioned "Marlene" and "Saving Grace," and I inexplicably love "Song of the Viking." Something/ is definitely one of the warmest records I know, too. I remember liking "International Feel" from Wizard but not much of the rest of the record, which at the time sounded all weird and trebly to me, as do many of Todd's productions.

that's the thing about this record...no filler...not a speck of cereal, as Zappa once said...even the spoken word piece about crummy recording techniques ("this is the sound of bad editing") seems as integral as "I Saw The Light"...(unlike later Todd records, which were uniformly great but always had that Gilbert & Sullivan track you'd skip over)...

No love for Hello It's Me? Awwwww

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

No love for Hello It's Me?

Yes, but that would be the 1968 Nazz version.

Couldn't I Just Tell You

Didn't know about that! Soulseek here I come!

It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference, but this is making me pull out my copy and go over it again

I prefer this version of Hello It's Me btw

Didn't know about that! Soulseek here I come!

Hey, it's ILM's unofficial tagline.

Man this album is great

Just got back from Soulseek--I prefer this version of Hello It's Me as well, Billy, glad it got my vote!

to be honest, i would be surprised if many people preferred the nazz version at all. it's so slow.

Geir just likes the "original", whatever it is really

The original is the original. Plus I don't like the "live studio" side much at all. The original has more production values.

No it doesn't. They are different, sure. Anyway superhard to pick between One More Day/Couldnt I just Tell You/Slut, went with the first

I prefer the end of the Nazz "Hello It's Me" (with its coda and "sometimes I thought it wasn't so bad") to the end of the <i>S/A?</i> version ("think of me" repeated ad infinitum). But I would rather listen to the <i>S/A?</i> version.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I kinda wish I'd given my vote to wolfman jack. not saying it's the best song, but it's pretty great. I love how it double times in that little bridge section

uh, by "bridge," i mean the verse. i really should stop drinking

if I had seen this poll before it closed I definitely would have voted for "Cold Morning Light"

"saving grace" - 0? wtf?!?!

inexplicably love "Song of the Viking."

Nothing inexplicable about it, it's one of my favourite songs on the album. But I've got a thing for songs about vikings...

Slut was robbed.

i've listened to "breathless" a million times but never heard this (via wikipedia page for talk boxes:

In 1972 Todd Rundgren used a Talk Box on the album Something/Anything? on the instrumental track, "Breathless". Over a synthesized background his VCS3 synthesizer repeatedly "sings" the words "I am so breathless",

im absolutely enamored and obsessed with "the night the carousel burnt down" after listening to this record for the first time this week

"saving grace" - 0? wtf?!?!

That's the only song on the first three sides I skip. The best bit is the pre-chorus, which borrows from one of the songs on the Runt records.

I was just thinking this morning of the era when you slowly got familiar with lengthy records like Trout Mask Replica on double LP. This was another expansive record that makes its own world.

Always forget how hard the bridge of “one more day” hits. What a beautiful song overall.

All alone
All my friends are gone
Ears of stone, eyes gone blind
Too little to do and too much time

middle 8, whatever

fuck that first lieutenant. shut up and wait, my arse.

That's the only song on the first three sides I skip.

this is a crazy opinion to me, "saving grace" for sure one of the best tracks here

Some other specific things I dislike about it are the sloppy rhythm track and the cloying fadeout, but basically I find it complete boilerplate compared to the similar things he was writing at the time, and the biggest culprit for explaining why he felt he was becoming mired in formula and then changed so much with A Wizard/A True Star.

It’s funny that he kind of recycled the melody for “izzit love”