Todd - Todd Rundgren > Reviews > An Elpee's Worth of Tunes

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Contains some of his best work
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Originally released back in 1974 and was then a double LP, it has been remastered and the entire work now fits onto a single disc.

Anyone familiar with Todd Rundgren's work will know that he is a singer / songwriter first and foremost but can also take the credit for producing many other artists' work.

His songs tend to be a mixture of soulful ballad type things and guitar based rock., the latter being especially true when recording with his sometime band Utopia.

A multi-instrumentalist, he was one of the first musicians to record entire albums where he played all of the instruments, arranged the music, wrote and sang all of the songs and produced the finished article.

This particular offering was recorded during Todd's "psychedelic" phase, which started with "A Wizard A True Star" in 1973 and ending with "Initiation" in 1975. A quick glance at the cover featuring a photo of Todd with his multicoloured hair is a bit of a giveaway.

The album starts with a strange little piece called "How about a Little Fanfare?" Basically this is just a short synthesizer piece before going into the first song proper, which is "I Think You Know". This is a love song, guitar and piano based, but with odd little noises scattered all through the mix.

This segues into an instrumental called "The Spark of Life". Lots of twiddly synth noises and a swirling guitar solo. It does sound a little dated now but the use of stereo panning was quite revolutionary back then.

A couple of ballad-type things follow, "An Elpee's Worth of Tunes" and "A Dream Goes on Forever". These are very quiet compared with the previous track and show Todd's quiter side.

Next up Todd tries his hand at Gilbert & Sullivan. "The Lord High Chancellor's Nightmare Song" is brilliantly done. There are sound effects throughout illustrating the song. Sung at a pace of ninety miles an hour, it does justice to Gilbert & Sullivan's original operatic piece.

Then a short instrumental piece, "Drunken Blue Rooster" is followed by "The Last Ride". This is a song of regret. A blues based thing with a stunning guitar solo in the middle.This ended disc one of the original two LP set.

Continuing with "Everybody's Going to Heaven /King King Reggae", a little bit of nonsense which is not reggae and is a bit of a filler. "Everybody's going to Heaven 'cos we've already been through Hell"

"Number 1 Lowest Common Denominator" is a dirty blues riff with some nice feedback guitar throughout.

The next few tracks all run into one another. "Useless Begging" is first. A solo piano piece with odd percussion as backing, which segues into "Sidewalk Cafe". Another instrumental featuring early synthesizer riffs and twiddles. Good guitar solo centre stage.
"Izzat Love?" is the last of the trio. A small pop song. At the end the tape speeds up and slows down again to reveal a crashing power guitar chord for the start of "Heavy Metal Kids".
This is Todd showing how good his guitar playing can be. The song itself is quite amusing lyrically:- "I could make this world so peaceful and calm if I could only get my hands on a hydrogen bomb!"

The final instrumental "In and Out the Chakras We Go" is a solo effort. The drums are a beat box and the rhythm is a jerky affair played on keyboards with a soloing guitar screeching over the top. This fades out slighty, as a chanted "Hare Krishna" chorus fades in. The jerky rhythm returns with a syntheszier solo picking up in speed and frequency until it all stops quite suddenly.

"Don't You Ever Learn?" is a return to the slow ballad, beloved of singer songwriters, pouring their heart out over a keyboard.

"Sons of 1984" is the last track. It was recorded "live" with the audience singing along. They all seem to know the words so maybe they've been given lyric sheets as this is the first version of the song that I'm aware of. It makes for a nice big finish though.

All in all this is a good example of what Rundgren was capable of. I called it "psychedelic" and this can be heard in the odd mixing technique he uses. Lots of weird synthesizer squiggles and burps populate all of the songs.

Now thirty odd years later, it still sounds fresh even though the synthesizers have been eclipsed by later models.

This can be bought from Amazon and all the usual suspects for about £9.99, although it may take them some time to get hold of it for you.