Something/Anything? by Todd Rundgren: The One-Man Masterpiece of 70s Pop Genius

What happens when a studio prodigy locks himself in a room and decides to play literally every instrument himself? You get Todd Rundgren’s sprawling 1972 double album, Something/Anything?. It’s an audacious, chaotic blend of perfect power-pop, blue-eyed soul, and bizarre studio experiments. This week, the Random Album Generator serves up a 25-track masterclass in pure musical ego and undeniable genius.

Inside This Episode:

• First Half Reaction: This is a massive double LP, so we're splitting it right down the middle at the end of Disc 1. If you're listening with us, pause after track 13, "Slut." Jeremy and Jon react to the sheer ambition of Rundgren acting as a one-man band, tackling the flawless pop of "I Saw the Light" and the lush, layered ballads.
• 5 Fast Facts: We uncover the insane logistics of tracking every instrument alone, why "Hello It's Me" is actually a cover of his own teenage band, and the hilarious spoken-word studio games Todd hid in the mix.
• Second Half & Final Thoughts: We flip to Disc 2 and discuss the wild tonal shift of Side 4, where Todd finally brings a full band into the studio for a live, unpolished jam session.
• The Verdict & Standout Tracks: Narrowing down 25 songs to just 3 standout tracks is brutal, but Jeremy and Jon make their picks. Is this double album a no-skip classic, or does it desperately need an editor?

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:03

This is Polyphonic Press. The podcast where two music fans pick a classic album completely at random.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Alright, hey, welcome to Polyphonic Press. I'm Jeremy Boyd. And I'm John Van Dyke. And uh let's not waste any time. We've got the patented random album generator right in front of us here. Uh so let's hit the button and see what album we're gonna be listening to this week. And the album we're gonna be listening to is Todd Röngren's Something Anything. Oh goody. I think we have this one at home. Yeah? Yeah. I know Todd Röngren, I don't know this album. But uh anyway, here is a description of the album. It says uh Something Anything by Todd Röngren is one of the most ambitious and electric albums of the 1970s. Released in 1972, the sprawling double album showcases Röngren as one of as a one-man musical powerhouse, blending pop, rock, soul, RB, and an experimental studio wizardry into a remarkably cohesive work. Much of the album was recorded with Rundgren playing nearly every instrument himself, highlighting both his technical skill and his restless creativity. The record moves effortlessly between styles, from tightly crafted pop songs and blue-eyed soul grooves to humorous interludes and ambitious studio experiments. Tracks like I Saw the Light, Hello It's Me, and Couldn't I Just Tell You demonstrate Rungren's gift for melody and emotionally direct songwriting, while other moments reveal his playful personality and willingness to break the fourth wall with listeners. Beyond its memorable songs, Something Anything is also a statement about the possibilities of the recording studio as an instrument. Rundgren's layered arrangements, inventive production, and willingness to experiment helped establish him as one of the era's most forward-thinking producers. The result is an album that feels both deeply personal and wildly inventive, an overflowing showcase of talent that captures Todd Röngren at the moment he fully realized his vision as a songwriter, performer, and studio auteur. Alright. Okay. So this album was released on uh February 15th, 1972. Um the genres are rock, power pop, RB, psychedelia, and avant pop. And um released on Bearsville Records and uh produced by Todd Rundgren. And uh it's a double album. So uh we what we like to do is we'll uh take a pause at the halfway mark, and since it's a double album, we'll go for disc one and disc. So the first uh song on the album is uh I Saw the Light, and disc one ends with I Went to the Mirror. So if you're listening along, which we do encourage you to do, uh if you want to pause after the song I Went to the Mirror and listen to the uh halfway discussion, and that'll be uh what you can do there. And uh, but without further ado, uh okay, here we go. Here's the uh first on the album, I saw the light. And uh ending the first half of the album with I Went to the Mirror. Yeah, there's a lot going on here. I'm still having I'm still trying to process every everything. Um, but uh yeah, it's really interesting. Um there's like there's pop, there's psychedelic stuff, there's weird experimental stuff. Yeah, it's just a whole lot of stuff happening.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, there is. It's uh it's sort of like I don't know if this was his first solo album. It's the first like uh popular one that he got. It's it's a as far as his stuff goes, I mean he's not exactly a household name, but he's but this stuff this was the album that most people know about if you know about him. Um yeah, he just kind of threw everything that he that he does onto one album and and just presented it. Uh it's uh it's an interesting smorgasboard of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, it's almost like it's his uh it's almost like it's his resume for being a producer. You know, because he w he's also pretty famous for being a producer for a lot of other artists. So it's almost like he's you know, he's just showcasing what he can do in the studio to the point where one of the tracks on there is actually a demo of examples of bad production and and him explaining this is what this sounds like and this is what it's like I'm aware of these things, so I won't do them on your album, kind of thing, you know. But the production is is very lush uh in in some cases, but not overproduced. I don't I wouldn't say uh there's anything that is uh like a bad choice. Um I think everything sort of has its place, but it's it's a very big production, especially the first side uh of the album, and it kind of reminded me a little bit of like Electric Light Orchestra or something like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah. Yeah, it was uh it's very eclectic. Um I find this the the second side of the first half to sort of have a uh it it was definitely a more of a mellow side. There's still some good stuff on it. Um but yeah, and I think that's what the intro was was the beginning of the second side, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, it was, yeah. Yeah, it's uh so far it's pretty good. It's uh, you know, I don't know if it's necessarily like the the best album I've ever heard or anything like that, but there's a lot of good stuff on. And and again, it's it's a long enough album that there's enough stuff on it that you know like the first uh first half of the first half. First quarter? First yeah, I guess so, yeah. Yeah, that was a really strong collection of songs, I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

It really was, yeah. And it it it it that that was what was reminding me of of ELO. It was um, you know, the just really well-crafted pop songs um that weren't cheesy. Yeah, just it just uh uh a really interesting uh really interesting songwriting as well as pr like the production. Um they kind of go hand in hand. And uh and then the the second half, I suppose, or the second quarter, uh you know, it sort of um you're right, it's a little more mellow, a little more a little more psychedelic, a little more experimental, a little more that. So the first side kind of reminded me of of ELO, and then the second side was more like Pink Floyd almost. I can sort of hear that. Um not not the whole I'm not saying it sounds exactly like Pink Floyd, but more in like the vibe and sort of the you can kind of hear the influence.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, it's kinda like if Pink Floyd decided to do like uh an RB sort of slow dance sort of album. Yeah, I can sort of hear that.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

It doesn't really sound like anything that else was happening at the time. This was in 72. And um 72, like I've noticed there's a lot of albums that have come up that have come out in that year specifically. There's something about 1972 that a lot of classic albums came out in that year. And I don't know if like it was just well, I think it was when when FM radio was just first starting to become popular and there wasn't really as many regulations on FM and people were taking chances. And I don't know if a lot of underground stuff became popular or if like I don't really know why that year specifically a lot of classic albums seem to to happen. And this one definitely sort of fits into that year of just throwing everything up the wall, kind of.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

That's very interesting. Like I don't know a whole lot about you know I n I know that FM was a thing that that that there were stations that would play basically whatever they want, but they don't hear too much about them. So it's hard to know exactly what the exact format was. I know they would sometimes play entire albums or they would play some really obscure stuff or they would play just whatever the hell they wanted. And I wonder if that sort of it's it's sort of interesting because I know 1973 the first Nuggets collection came out as far as like playing like older stuff that probably didn't get a lot of airplay. I'm sure someone was playing that stuff somewhere. Yeah, haven't he had like a couple of like big hits and stuff like that, but for the most part this was p he he's not really like a commercial artist for the most part. He he's very much he's very much underground and he's very much an artist's artist. Like he always kinda he did whatever he wanted. Um, you know, to to the benefit or the detriment of whatever p could be. Um it's just basically whatever he wanted. And and Bearsville was his label. I know that. Um so Fog Hat was on that label. I'm trying to think of other bands that were on that label, but uh yeah, if you see Bearsville on there, you know this was Todd Röngren's It was a Todd Rundgren uh production. Yeah, and and he was like a brilliant producer, absolutely. Or I guess still is. Like he did a he did a remix of a Tame and Pala song a few years ago, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So I mean I th I get the feeling that he's sort of like a like a Brian Eno type. Not the same not the same at all, but his he feels very at home in the studio. That kind of artist. Um yeah, I mean uh he produced that that XTC album that we did.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Um yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, he produced um I mean he did Bad Out of Hell by uh by Meatloaf. He's he's probably at least as known as a producer as he is an artist. He's just that guy spends a lot of time in the studio and just you know tinkering in the lab sort of thing, like a mad scientist or something. That's sort of the image that I have of of him. But you know, also is able to write a really good pop song that uh, you know, I know like you saying, he's not like super popular, but he had a few radio hits that that reached the top 40, and you know, he's he's fully capable of of writing uh a really good pop song as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

And he also uh, you know, his first foray into uh I guess pop stardom or whatever, if if you can call it that was his band, The Naz back in the 60s. And they're a really good band. They had uh at least two good releases and then I think a third release of stuff that they kind of just threw together. But it they're it's all good stuff. Great band. There was some like, you know, personality uh clashes in the band towards the end, but uh that's just kind of the way it goes sometimes. But uh But Todd Ringdon when he went off on his own, yeah, it's it's still high quality uh material.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, he's uh he's uh a very fascinating I don't know a whole lot about him, but he's seems like a very fascinating character and an interesting in a really interesting artist. Um but I did uh manage to five find a few um interesting facts about the album. Number one, it was Todd Rengren changed songs to match his mistakes instead of fixing them. During the recording of the album, Röngren, who was not a trained drummer, laid down drum tracks first before adding other instruments. If he made a mistake while playing, he often rewrote the song around the mistake rather than re-record the part. He later explained that it was simply easier to adjust the arrangement than redo the take. This approach contributed contributed to the album's slightly loose real band feel, even though most of it was performed entirely by one person. That is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, that's that's mad scientist stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah. It's like, well, I'm uh I'm an okay drummer, I can keep a beat, and okay, well, I guess there's one bar of 5-4, and we'll just completely change the song because I'm not going in and re-recording it. Oh, that's really interesting. And something I mean, that's that's something that could only happen in the analog world. If it were if he were ha recording on Pro Tools, he could just fix it with a click of a button. But that innovation could only happen with working with tape. Some of it uh was uh the uh part of the album was recorded in his rented house in the Hollywood Hills. Although much of the album was recorded at ID Sound Studios in Los Angeles, Rundgren also set up an eight-track recording system inside his rented home in on Astral Drive in Nichols Canyon. Several of the songs, uh several songs and overdubs were recorded there, including Intro, Breathless, and One More Day, No Word. Recording at home allowed him to experiment freely with technology like EMS VCS3 synthesizer like the EMS VC S3 synthesizer without worrying about wasting expensive studio time.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

It's true, he didn't have to uh worry about uh you know paying for for a space when he's got his own space and you know that that's that's ultimately it's it can sometimes be really beneficial to a lot of home recording and a lot of good stuff has come out of that. It depends on the kind of artist you are. Some artists need that like some sort of uh a limit to them to force them into doing something within an allotted time. So it it it's good to have the option. Todd is, I guess, one of these artists who who uh thrives with having enough time to do whatever he wants.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, it seems like it. I mean, honestly, the results speak for itself. I mean, you can I mean i if if the case is that he has his own label, that kind of means he's paying for the studio time himself. And having that freedom at that time is pretty rare. I mean, it's pretty common now. I mean, you can you can make music with a laptop and and put it up online, you don't need a label and uh to to do it. But back in the 70s, that was very rare, like really rare, uh, to just have your own label and you could just uh basically do whatever you want with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah. No, I think you might have been sort of like uh a forerunner definitely of of like the uh well there were like smaller studios and stuff like that, but most producers didn't produce their own material. They produced other people's materials, and I'm thinking of even Stax Rail uh radio or Stax Radio, Stax uh label or um Motown or even uh in England you got Joe Meek doing stuff. He's a character. Um and there's but for the most part they they're trying to find artists to do to do their work with, whereas Todd Rundgren was an artist himself, so he could basically you know, if he's got some downtime, well I guess I'll just put out an album. And he put out a double album. Which means he I guess he had a lot of downtime at the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, it seems like it.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

But uh yeah, he he would later go on to produce some some pretty good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Very unique, and and like I said, sort similar to to Brian Eno in in that regard. Different styles, but similar approaches, I guess. The album uh secretly includes archival recordings from Rengren's teenage bands. Um, near the end of the record, uh Rengren slipped in two short archival recordings from the mid-1960s, long before he was famous. One is a performance of Barrett Strong's Money, that's what I want, by a band called Money, and the other is a recording of Messin' with a kid by Woody's Truckstop, a Philadelphia group he played with as a teenager. These snippets essentially serve as a musical time capsule of Brungren's earlier career embedded inside the album. So that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I didn't know that. I didn't know that those were on there. I've it's it's weird. We have the album, but we got so many albums, I don't necessarily get to hear all of them. My dad had all this stuff. I've heard little bits of this one for sure. But uh Yeah, it's it's good listening through it all all together. I'm probably gonna dig it out and put it on the turntable. Well I'm getting ahead of myself there. But that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

This is kind of cool, is the album and sort of uh what you what we were picking up on is the album's liner notes are packed with jokes and meta commentary. Rundgren wrote the liner notes himself and used them to satirize the music industry in album marketing. Each track is accompanied by humus humorous commentary, and the album's four sides are given tongue-in-cheek thematic titles. So the first side is called A Bouquet of Ear-Catching Melodies. Uh, side two is the cerebral side, side three is The Kid Gets Heavy, and side four is Baby Needs Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots, a pop app operetta. Okay. The notes are almost like a comedic running commentary on the album itself, something that was highly unusual for rock albums at the time. So basically, he's creating his own. Like you remember when DVDs came out and they would have the movie, but you could also play the movie with like the director and maybe some of the actors having commentary over top of it. He's sort of doing that with his own album. Basically, like uh the number five was the fourth side was intentionally recorded like a loose jam session. After the recording, most of the album alone, uh Rungrin decided the final side should feel completely different. He brought in other musicians and recorded much of it live in the studio with minimal rehearsal. For example, the famous version of Hello It's Me was reportedly rehearsed and recorded in under two hours, with the horn lines and backing vocals improvised on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

And that's a song that goes back to the Naz. It's uh I think he wrote it for the Naz, and I think it was even a regional hit.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

But he's from uh what is he from he's from Los Angeles, isn't he?

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Uh no, I think it was uh I can't remember. I think it's somewhere on the East Coast he was on he was from. Um where was the uh the you you you read one of the bands that he was in that where it was from? Was it like Philadelphia or something? Yeah, Philadelphia. Yeah, I think that's where he's from. I think he's from Philadelphia. But uh, you know once he's you know, a a a big producer and everything like that, you you you he gets around.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

That's cool. That I didn't know I knew I I've heard the Naz um but uh I didn't know that Hello It's Be was a uh a hit for I didn't think they had any hits. I thought they were just sort of a well like an underground thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

They were largely an underground thing, but uh the uh what's that one song? Um you think I think so um I can know Open My Eyes, yeah that's a really good song that's a really good song.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah that's cool. I didn't uh I didn't know that they had uh I I thought I didn't think they were that big.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Um I thought they were more they weren't really big, but you know a lot of bands will have like a regional hit that doesn't necessarily stretch anywhere beyond that but but that's uh you know if you're a local band in like Philadelphia people can go see you and and uh back in the day they they could support you on the radio too. It's a little harder to do today now you got YouTube basically taking over all of that and it's not perfect either.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Right exactly yeah. But yeah so I I guess we'll get back into the uh the second side of the album and uh it starts with uh Black Mariah all right and uh and then the album with slut. Yeah this is a a great album it's it's got everything it's got sort of a wide range of styles and they're all sort of grouped together and so it's almost like um like an opera or something. It tells a story. You kind of don't notice that the styles are changing. It's the the transition is kind of seamless.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

It's sort of like a rainbow and it just sort of changes color sort of gradually I guess you know yeah I sort of noticed the uh the direction that different uh sides have sort of taken like the four different uh personalities that he sort of gave it to the last half of the album I think is really vibrant actually um there's a lot of good stuff going on yeah that uh the saxophone solo in Dust in the wind it was like holy shit I'm noticing some of the songs in there like the less less serious ones remind me of like uh uh some of the less serious stuff of Harry Nilsson Harry Nilsson or Frank Zappa a little bit of Frank Zappa maybe yeah yeah I can I can definitely hear that um like piss Aaron I I could see Frank Zappa doing something like that.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

I could I can see Harry Nilsen doing something like that we figure my daddy and me things are still the same as you see that's when he lived in his team everybody to you always gonna piss it in the hall would refuse one they should call but yeah no the the the last uh the last side was cool hearing the the full band play that was that was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Actually I don't think it was all the same people playing on everything just sort of whatever musicians were available that day they would Yeah which wouldn't surprise me he'd probably know a lot of people kind of curious what the uh band lineup is on uh so um you've got well uh Mark Klingman on drum or on organ um well this is just Dust in the wind you've got uh Mark Klingman uh Rick Derringer on guitar oh wow okay um John Siomos on drums Randy Brecker on trumpet Michael Brecker on tenor sax he was playing that sax the Brecker brothers okay um who else have you got Billy Mundy on drums Amos Garrett Amos Garrett okay Ben Keith playing pedal steel oh I think I've heard that name too a good good mix of musicians no uh no slouches that's for sure yeah no you can definitely hear the difference between the the studio players and and what he played uh everything on. I mean he played every instrument except for the last side and you can definitely hear the difference not that his playing is bad or anything, but you can d hear the difference between him piecing everything together and the live Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

There's a different there's an energy difference but he did a pretty good job of sort of uh you know emulating the uh live off the floor um feeling but yeah once he actually has the band in there it's uh it's a completely other thing but I I really like the it's quite a few songs on the uh third side as well it's uh um it started with Black Mariah that was a pretty good one that was a good one and Little Red Lights was good Red Lights yeah I like that one couldn't I just tell you that one started off with the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar together I know you like that sound.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

I love that sound yeah yeah it's sort of a jangly pop kind of thing um yeah there's uh there's a lot of great stuff on here I mean the whole album is I mean not every song is you know a 10 out of 10 but I mean it's I mean there's 25 tracks for God's sake. Um uh so this actually might be really difficult but um what would be your three uh highlights on the album?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Well I was thinking about it as I was going through it. Um I did think it started off pretty strong with uh I saw the light that was a pretty good song but I think I'm gonna pick Wolfman Jack as my first pick. That was a really cool song and then I'm gonna go into like the third quarter which was yeah Little Red Lights was really good. Um let's see here and I think I'm gonna go with Couldn't I Just Tell You I think those are my three Yeah those are those are really good really good picks.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

I think you've got two of my three mine are I think I yeah I would go with Wolfband Jack too that was that was really good. Yeah Little Red Lights as well that was a really good rock song and um yeah honestly I think I would go with Couldn't I just tell you as well I mean those are my picks as well yeah pretty solid songs.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Black Mariah was in the in the running too and the first track was on in the running which was Yeah I saw the light and yeah some of the stuff at the end of uh at the very end of the album too is uh pretty good um but the song Slut I don't know how politically correct that is now but it's uh it's a funny banger. And it's another song I could definitely hear uh um Harry Nielsen do. Especially with that horn section. It it just sounded like his sound.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah yeah um I do have to say I think Hello It's me I know that was a a pretty big hit for him. Yeah but I think I prefer the NAS version. I think I do too the more minimal uh sort of stripped down version.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

It's slightly got that 60s sound to it that I got that I like.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah. I mean this one isn't it's not bad, but I it's just a little too um there's a little too much on it. Like the horns and everything it's just it's I I like the the more um more straightforward version. But uh I think I know the answer but uh would you listen to this album again? Yeah like I was saying I think I need to pull it out I'm pretty sure there's a copy of this around here so yeah yeah I agree I d definitely listen to this again it's uh like I said it's it's got everything that you could possibly want. Um there's so much going on with I think I need to listen to it again because there's so much on it. It's a little bit overwhelming to take everything in. A little bit yeah but yeah I definitely definitely want to listen to this again. Yeah I guess we'll uh end the episode there. Uh thank you so much for listening if you made it this far uh we would love to hear from you if you uh want to go to the website go to polyphonicpress.com slash contact and uh drop us a line and uh maybe we'll read uh your message on the air and uh if you want to join the community you can uh do that by going to our Patreon go to patreon.com slash polyphonic press um there's lots of cool stuff there you can get these out uh episodes the day before they go live and uh get a shout out during these episodes and um even pick an album for us to for us to review so lots of cool stuff there. And uh if this is your first time listening uh be sure to follow the show and leave a rating and review because it helps people find the show. And uh I think that just about does it. I'm Jeremy Boyd and I'm John Van Dyke. Take it easy