Todd Rundgren: Producer

Meat Loaf had the pipes, Jim Steinman had the songs, and Todd Rundgren recognized both the humor and the potential; with the latter working off the duo’s vision of taking Bruce Springsteen to Broadway decades before that happened – and recruiting E Street Band members to actually play on it – the result was undeniable. Bat Out Of Hell’s theatricality was always part of the point, and the sheer bravura Meat Loaf brought to songs like the title track, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” anchored one of rock’s biggest sellers ever.

Iconic can be an overused word but there’s something about the smash hit title track of this album, which kicks off the whole deal, that might well describe its milieu absolutely perfectly: a clipped cowbell intro from Don Brewer, who adds his own good time vocals, a lyric about road life and partying it down, it’s early 1970s guys boogieing it up to the full. The rest of We’re An American Band can’t equal that – a couple of ponderous wannabe anthems don’t help – but Todd Rundgren’s clean but not overfussed production made it their best sounding album yet.

Fanny’s fourth album was notably more engagingly pop leaning than their previous three efforts, something the Millington sisters later ascribed to Todd Rundgren’s overall production and mixing at the expense of live energy. But even with the harder edges toned down, Mother’s Pride gives Fanny a chance to show its overall range and ability, from the vocal harmonizing treatments on a cover of Randy Newman’s “Last Night I Had a Dream” to the easygoing chug and spirit of “Summer Song,” plus more contemplative songs like “Regular Guy” and “Is It Really You?”

The Pursuit of Happiness and its frontman Moe Berg had already scored Canadian attention with the original 1986 release of the amusing coming-of-age power pop anthem “I’m An Adult Now.” But it was their eventual 1988 debut Love Junk which proved to be the wider breakthrough, helped out by one of Todd Rundgren’s most direct, full sounding production efforts. The rerecorded “I’m An Adult Now” remains the standout but other winners include the wry “Consciousness Raising As a Social Tool” and the brawling opening song “Hard to Laugh.”

Perhaps little surprise that the Tubes would strike up a working alliance with Todd Rundgren as producer given the latter’s equally evident love for the arch and conceptual; perhaps even less so than when he suggested a concept album approach the Tubes went for it, with TV in all its (pre-cable) addictive glory and chaos the subject. Starting with the charging singalong of “Turn Me On” and with other song titles like “Primetime” and “Telecide” in play, Remote Control exudes early new wave/demi-prog synth-driven energy, the Tubes’s careful madness on display.

With Todd Rundgren’s production allowing the rough edges to show just enough, on their debut the New York Dolls helped rewrite the expectations of rock and roll under the noses of the mainstream, their genderqueer presentation matched with evident r’n’b/girl group love as much as Rolling Stones worship. David Johansen’s brash vocals and main songwriting, Johnny Thunders and Sylvian Sylvain’s raunchy guitars and the Killer Kane/Jerry Nolan rhythm section all resulted in subcultural anthems such as “Personality Crisis,” “Looking for a Kiss” and “Trash.”

The recording of Skylarking was a fraught affair, with stories of Andy Partridge and producer Todd Rundgren butting heads still surfacing decades after the fact. But in its original release it was one of the band’s richest sounding efforts, a semi-song cycle that had more than the average amount of Colin Moulding tracks, such as the saucy “Grass” and the perverse destruction of “Sacrificial Bonfire.” Yet it was the attention given to Partridge’s “Dear God,” a B-side turned into a reissued album track, that led to a new US breakthrough for the band.

Thanks to Todd Rundgren’s production skills and his enthusiasm for what Ron and Russell Mael and company were already cooking up in their initial demos, Sparks’s debut album has a crisp, engaging sound that matches their already distinct, unusual songs and delivery. The satisfyingly catchy thwack of “Wonder Girl” starts things off on the right foot, while their range from the sparkling minimalism of “Fletcher Honorama” to the heavy riff drama of “(No More) Mr. Nice Guys” is striking.

Hall and Oates’s third album was in retrospect easily one of their most engagingly atypical, though it lacked any hit singles and ultimately led to their switch from Atlantic to RCA. While part of that mixed reaction could be ascribed to producer/fellow Philadelphian Todd Rundgren’s musical contributions – that’s Rundgren audibly going nuts on lead guitar throughout – the vibe was also nearly Steely Dan-like, with nostalgic references mixed with character studies and cynical themes on songs like “War Baby Son of Zorro” and “Beanie G and the Rose Tattoo.”

The final album of the original Patti Smith Group’s run, Wave is often seen as an uneven attempt to attract more of the mainstream attention Smith and company had gathered with Easter and “Because The Night.” Certainly some of its polished production by Todd Rundgren sounds perfect for late 1970s rock radio playlists, as the opening “Frederick” shows. But the cover of the Byrds’ “So You Want To Be (A Rock’n’Roll Star),” the unsettling flow of “Dancing Barefoot” or the intense rampage of “Citizen Ship” all show much more was happening.

When the Tom Robinson Band followed up its debut, it was in a bit of a state, with drummer Preston Heyman, soon after the start of his decades-long stint as a session musician, stepping in after Dolphin Taylor left soon before recording. The band would soon collapse after TRB2’s release but producer Todd Rundgren made sure the album itself came together well. Robinson’s pub-rock-via-punk songwriting remained crisply passionate; Danny Kustow’s guitar work and Ian Parker’s keyboards in combination with Heyman’s work delivered pep and driving energy.

Cassidy’s album career came to an end with Wasp, the last of three that failed to match the heights of his first two and led him to concentrate on acting and TV series writing and production. But as a swan song it’s a doozy, an attempt to embrace early 80s new wave for all it’s worth, with Todd Rundgren producing the heck out of it. Covers including David Bowie, the Talking Heads and Ian Hunter plus Rundgren-written tracks like the title song don’t really work per se, Cassidy trying out various vocal approaches, but it’s a fascinating curio at the least.

Jill Sobule’s 1990 debut was a classic example of an artist having an aesthetic and musical approach fully in place – late 20th century singer/songwriter – but unable to win an audience quite yet. Seen from the vantage point of her later success that’s a bit baffling, since Things Here Are Different has perfectly catchy and well-sung songs bolstered by Todd Rundgren’s production and solid studio musician backing in turn. Only “Too Cool To Fall In Love” was a hit, but other standouts include “Sad Beauty,” “Evian” and the gentle anthem “Tell Me Your Dreams.”

Resulting from separate sessions overseen by Geoff Emerick, George Harrison and then finally Todd Rundgren, who the band clashed with, Straight Up was famously trashed upon release by various rock critics and later looked on poorly by the band itself. Time has led to a greater appreciation of how Badfinger was still in good creative health at a time when their future looked bright. Certainly the sound has an extra polish courtesy of Rundgren, but songs like “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue” were deserved hits, melodic, emotional but still possessing sonic bite.

The second and final Bourgeois Tagg album was also the band’s most successful, thanks to the low key but still Top 40 charting “I Don’t Mind At All,” a short, sweetly orchestrated and sung breakup ballad that also had a notable video. All the same, Yoyo is an audibly late 80s major label effort – there’s an awkwardness in a lot of the songs, with Todd Rundgren’s usual production polish servicing an airless stiffness masquerading as slick pop/funk more than once – but whenever Brent Bourgeois and Larry Tagg harmonize the results are very attractive.

The New America concluded what had been a choppy run for Bad Religion on Atlantic Records, with nearly all songwriting done by Greg Graffin aside from one cowrite featuring Brett Gurewitz, who would rejoin the lineup soon after. The lyrical focus of the album is as much personal as political, while musically it’s often a good blasting, rollicking affair, a kind of mature hardcore for lack of a better term. Todd Rundgren’s production helps in that regard, and songs like “It’s a Long Way to the Promise Land” and “Don’t Sell Me Short” have familiar shoutalong bonhomie.

The sole album by the Philadelphia band the American Dream is, being somewhat fair, just another example of a lot of aspiring American rock bands as the sixties became the seventies: a little blues boogie, a bit of proto-metal, some post-Byrds folkiness and harmonizing, even some random vocal weirdness on “Credemphels.” Due to the later extensive musical and acting career of lead guitarist Nick Jameson, as well as being Todd Rundgren’s first production job outside of his own work, it’s earned retrospective notice, as its best a perfectly pleasant listen.

Next Position Please found Cheap Trick aiming to right the ship a little bit, both by partially drawing on a variety of older songs that had that been demoed but never formally recorded while getting Todd Rundgren to produce, understandable given his own clear love for melody and loudness. The result’s more enjoyable than most of the band’s up and down 80s output; Jon Brant plays bass throughout for the first time and, especially in the band-approved ‘authorized edition’ from 2006, songs like “Y.O.Y.O.Y.” and the sparkling “I Can’t Take It” shine strong.

The Psychedelic Furs were in a slightly rougher place before the recording of their third album, with two band members suddenly quitting and drummer Vince Ely on the verge. But it was Ely’s suggestion to work with Todd Rundgren that proved to be key, with the now-quartet working with the producer and a small core of session musicians to create the shimmeringly propulsive Forever Now. Famed session singers Flo & Eddie were the further X-factor, especially their harmonies on the quirky, passionate punch of “Love My Way,” an instant new wave standard.

For his second studio album, Steve Hillage wrote to his fellow prog-inclined guitarist Todd Rundgren to see about handling the recording, leading to sessions at the latter’s Woodstock studio to create 1976’s L. With Hillage and Miquette Giraudy accompanied by three members of Rundgren’s band Utopia, not to mention a guest appearance by trumpeter Don Cherry, L is a curious beast in the best of ways, with covers of songs by the Beatles and Donovan balanced by Hillage and Giraudy’s compositions, Hillage’s liquid, sometimes frenetic guitar the linchpin.