my power pop addiction, no. 119 (191)

Todd Rundgren’s creative restlessness can be quite maddening. Maybe it’s narrow mindedness on my part, but I really wish he had spent his entire career honing his pop chops instead of spending so much time in tedious stretches of experimentation. I don’t care for experimentation as an end in itself, which in my book = self-indulgence, a sin Rundgren has certainly been guilty of periodically over the course of a career that’s spanned more than four decades at this point. On the other hand, maybe his flights of fancy have helped re-focus him in some way so that when he’s returned to what he does best, making tight and immediately impactful pop songs, he’s come back fresher and more into what he’s doing. But this is all pure speculation. I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about the man and he still remains a mystery to me. The image that's formed in my imagination is of a mercurial enigma, though his opacity is admittedly part of his appeal. And in spite of the flaws that mark significant portions of his body of work, you have to admire his relentless commitment to his work and his apparent indifference to commercial success, especially since, as Something/Anything seems to show, he could, if he chose to, churn out commercial hits in his sleep. Yet, Something/Anything is far from a perfect album. It’s kind of too bad that it’s a double LP because the filler – or what I regard to be the filler anyway – diminishes the album’s half dozen or so gems. They get lost in traffic. I’ve alluded to this before, but double albums are almost never a good idea, particularly if they’re studio albums. I can’t really think of one double album that wouldn’t have been better if it’d been reduced down to two sides, including the White Album, Exile On Main Street, Freak Out, Zen Arcade, and Double Nickels on the Dime. Maybe if windy concept albums with lots of instrumental noodling are your thing – Progressive Rock, in other words – you can make a case for the double album as an art form. But if you’re like me with my short attention span, my need for instant gratification, and my spare personal aesthetic, then you start to get sleepy at the very thought of sitting through an hour or more of music where the good songs come only intermittently. Something/Anything should have been pared down to two sides. Imagine a record clocking in at 30 minutes, maybe even less, where every song is as good, or almost as good, as the one I’ve posted for you this evening…