Employee Review

Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything

by Paul Pearson

For my first employee pick, I figured, what the hey, let's just start with the greatest pop album ever made. You might taunt me. Hell, even Todd might taunt me. But 1973's Something/Anything? remains pop music's ultimate textbook, with nary a second of clinical artifice. Timeless, generous, extremely funny (oh, the liner notes), Todd handles 3 sides of this variety show on his own with no regard for genre boundaries; then plays a pickup game on Side 4 with other musicians in the only rock opera to be written after it was recorded. If you think audio games of Name That Genre imply lack of substance, I prescribe this and Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. You'll feel much, much better in the morning.

THE STORY GOES...
Paul Pearson
Honorary Rhino
Paul is a two-time regional winner of the Rhino Musical Aptitude Test (Los Angeles in 2000, Seattle in 2001). Raised in Sacramento and currently living in Olympia, WA, Paul hosts a hyper-variety radio show, "Shrug Festival," Fridays at 11pm Pacific on KAOS Community Radio (www.kaosradio.org). He's a writer and internet editor, and his hobbies include music (duh) and lighting audiences on fire on karaoke nights at Thekla nightclub in Olympia. He was also in the bands L. Ron Shrubbery and Wonder Woman, who between them have one track that's ever been released to the public. You can contact Paul at shrugfestival@earthlink.net.

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