who i believe to be one of the most underrated songwriters...

Honestly, I've heard his name, but I couldn't have named a song of his.
In fact all I knew of him was that he was in effect Liv Tyler's dad, until Steve cleaned up his act when she was 11...
and that he produced Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell album, a favourite of mine.

I clearly should do some listening to him.

 

I don't want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day.

 

Just one look at his credits tells you he is a prolific artist, songwriter, instrumentalist and producer: Todd Rundgren | Credits | AllMusic

His solo work plus his stuff with Utopia should garner him respect alone.

 

This one sounds like a Todd Rundgren song.

 

Your wish is my command...and Kasim Sulton is a monster player IMO...

 

I’ve been a big fan of his starting with The Nazz(love this riff)...


...and even thought he kinda got bogged down with Laura Nyro type balladry on his first two solo albums, he was definitely back on track with S/A(an almost one man band album), so many great moments, including one of the most perfect power pop songs ever...

A Wizard... was equally brilliant, but he kinda lost me with the Utopia stuff, plus at that time I was in school with some hardcore Todd fans who were more annoying than Deadheads. That put me off for a while, but I came back after he streamlined things. Then there’s all of his brilliant production work...Grand Funk, The Band, NY Dolls, Hall & Oats, Steve Hillage, Patti Smith, XTC...

 

In a high school band, we played "Hammer In My Heart". The guitarist is a big Rundgren fan, and even worked for him after college at Todd's multimedia company.

 

Thanks, @ajkula66 !
I regret to say that did absolutely nothing for me...In fact, if you're suggesting that's his best work, then I'll not bother checking out any more.
I did think the song @bholder posted was ok...

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Kasim is indeed excellent...I've seen him live with Meat Loaf several times!

 

You're very welcome.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's "his best work" but the one that spoke to me the most.

Definitely. The world would be an awful place if everyone liked the exact same things.

Different strokes once again...at the risk of getting tarred and feathered I'll say that I'm not a fan of MeatLoaf whatsoever...

 

Yeah, but did you listen to any of the stuff I posted? Stylistically, he’s been all over the map, and the Utopia stuff(the early proggy material)was a phase he went through. I’ll throw in a couple more....

 

He produced some Bad Religion too.

He played our college years back and some of my fraternity brothers closed down a bar with him.

 

I used to love Todd. He's extremely talented and a lot of fun to watch play, but he'd always lose me when I'd read interviews with him when he'd come off really arrogant. Like when he'd claim he got more experimental and proggy after "Something/Anything" because he could write hit pop songs in his sleep and there was no challenge to it. But when he went back to writing "hit" pop songs, none of them were a hit except "Bang The Drum All Day." Personally, I loved those pop songs, but it just demonstrated that anyone can write what they think is a hit song but it's a lot harder to actually have a hit.

 

Utopia live is badass! The bass is just fine but if you wanna hear somebody SCALD a guitar, go to 8:30.
Todd is a weirdo, but he is truly BADASS.

 

Love TR! Great guitar player too and rarely gets credit for that. I also love his production work. He has a huge “wall of sound” style...like a modernized Phil Spector.
The Nearly Human album is one of my all time faves of his and is a good example of that huge sound he likes.

 

I picked this record up about 5 years ago from the $1 bin at a record store, purely because it looked crazy and proggy, having never heard of Todd Rundgren before.

Absolutely blew my mind.

Nothing by him I've heard since then has really hit the same.