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Middle-aged Dummies are back and bursting at the "themes" to get going! Full theme ahead! (2 Viewers)

Last five Single (Named) Ladies out (in chronological order)

Aaliyah - "Try Again" (2000)
Full name: Aaliyah Dana Haughton (first name mononym)

Aaliyah comes first in a lot of alphabetized record collections but just missed my top 31. She and another artist who died prematurely are probably the biggest stars to not make the final countdown. The late 90s/early 2000s were kind of a golden age for mononymous women so competition was stiff. "Try Again" is a bumping Timbaland song from the soundtrack to the Jet Li vehicle Romeo Must Die which marked Aaliyah's movie debut.

Peaches - "**** the Pain Away" (2000)
Full name: Merrill Nisker (unrelated mononym)

Peaches funneled her punky queer attitude through a Roland MC-505 groovebox to help create Electroclash, a short-lived genre from the turn of the century. The lyrics are filthy but they do include an inspirational message to stay in school.

Duffy - "Warwick Avenue" (2008)
Full name: Aimée Anne Duffy (surname mononym)

Welsh singer Duffy had a brief career with one massive Grammy winning album and a less well recieved follow-up in 2010. She then retreated from her musical career after being kidnapped and held hostage. "Warwick Avenue" is a lovely tune that's reminiscent of mid-60s UK Pop stars like Petulia Clark and Dusty Springfield.

Hatchie - "Try" (2017)
Full name: Harriette Pilbeam (nickname mononym)

I expected to have more Indie chicks with synthesizers make my top 31 but guitars overtook the synths in the end. "Try" was the debut single from Australian singer/songwriter Hatchie. It has a blissful feel to it and a magnificent bridge.

Lorde - "The Louvre" (2018)
Full name: Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor (unrelated mononym)

Lorde is a singer/songwriter from New Zealand who broke out with the massive global hit "Royals" in 2012. I prefer "The Louvre" from her second album Melodrama for its weird Jack Antonoff production, the purred lyrical hook "broadcast the boom-boom-boom-boom and make 'em all dance to it" and the lovely coda that references "Born to Run"
 
Likely no Last 5 out for me, but just started watching Mayor of Kingstown and learned that Hugh Dillon is the lead singer of The Headstones and they were the last group I excluded. Here's their remake of The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald. You learn something new every day.

https://youtu.be/Y8LBkYjniTU
 
Likely no Last 5 out for me, but just started watching Mayor of Kingstown and learned that Hugh Dillon is the lead singer of The Headstones and they were the last group I excluded. Here's their remake of The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald. You learn something new every day.

https://youtu.be/Y8LBkYjniTU
I've had Hugh Dillon on my short list for every one of the MADs I've participated in. He's probably got more run than anyone else in my music streams. The Headstones catalog easily goes 31 deep, and then there's all the excellence from Hard Core Logo, which admittedly does not transfer neatly from random youtube videos (It's been more than a few months since I tried to run down this material).
 
I won't be doing a formal last 5 out funeral songs. We'll see how many I sprinkle in until we start this thing. For today, one of my old man's favorites, Eric Clapton- Tears in Heaven

---

Success is no accident. It takes hard work, perseverance, learning, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing. You embodied this whether it was in the office (no matter the job), the golf course (or some other court in your youth), or the scorer’s table (because who wants to spend their life behind a desk). When you weren’t it’s because you were doing what you needed to do for us to do the same.

I’ll always remember you skipping work to ship me off to dozens of golf tournaments throughout northern Ohio. Although I’ve always found it convenient that stopped when I finally beat you. You weren’t the greatest defender, but it wasn’t for lack of effort, and despite giving up 5 inches (probably more if we’re being honest) you made rebounding on our driveway hell. If you ever missed a basketball game, I sure don’t recall. Track and cross country, the same, and after my time was up you kept attending anyway. Maybe that was to fill a void and I should’ve kept running in college – ‘woulda coulda shoulda,’ right? Your kids were…a challenge. I feel like I should take more blame, but it is your DNA that I have. No matter the curve balls we threw, and there were many, your support never wavered.

While my priorities changed with parenthood, juggling multiple jobs, and volunteering for…everything, your priority was always your grandkids. Your wildly, wildly different grandkids. And I see a part of you in each one of them. You may have fancied as an amateur weatherman, but now your tree will have a future pro. I saw how proud you were in our energizer bunny taking your love of healthy competition to your level, one you probably thought couldn’t be matched. Lastly…it’d be fair to say you had an I won’t do what you tell me aura to you. I know, for we can smell our own. And let’s just say we’ve both been one-upped. When it comes to something each of them love to do, they work hard, learn, sacrifice, persevere…it’s how I know all 3 of them are destined for success and you’ll be looking from parts unknown beaming with pride.

Me? I have everything I ever wanted, I also can’t accept being satisfied (I suppose I have you to thank for that too), but I’ll try not to live too fast, and leave a good stamp down here. I promise to put everything I got into the rest of this life, more for others than for me, but I'll remember to take care of myself too. Love you, dad. This isn’t a goodbye, this is a see you again- this side or the other.

RIP Dad (June 8, 1951-January 21, 2025)
 
PRODUCED (AND/OR ENGINEERED) BY TODD RUNDGREN

It's really hard to become a pop/rock star, and it's really hard to become a sought-after record producer for other artists. Todd Rundgren is one of the few people who managed to become both.

In addition to producing his solo albums and those of his band Utopia, Rundgren produced artists spanning folk to punk and almost everything in between. A common thread is that Rundgren valued spontaneity and had a keen ear for how to use the studio to complement artists' material. This also meant he could achieve very interesting sounds in a short time, which record companies liked because the albums were usually completed promptly and under budget. At times he was heavy-handed -- he didn't take writing credits on others' songs unless he had completed the song before the session, but there are plenty of examples of songs on others' albums that sound like his own -- at times passive.

If you look at a timeline of Rundgren's schedule in the '70s and '80s, it is insane. He was producing several albums a year for others while conducting a solo career and, from the mid '70s to the mid '80s, leading Utopia. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has diagnosed himself with ADHD. He has said that the money he made from producing others allowed him to be as experimental as he wanted with his own music, because there was no financial risk to him if his own work bombed.

Rundgren was born in Philadelphia and raised in the suburb of Upper Darby, PA. He broke into the music business as guitarist and primary songwriter of Nazz, a Philly-based psychedelic rock band. He first became interested in the production/engineering/mixing side of the music business during the recording of Nazz' self-titled debut album. He told Paul Myers, author of A Wizard, A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio, that producer Bill Traut "just whipped through the mixes in a day or two ... So I got it into my head, 'Well, he's gone now, so why don't we just mix it again, more like the way we want it?' Our engineer didn't mind if we went and just started diddling around on the board ... It was pretty much trial and error."

The second Nazz album, Nazz Nazz, was the first in which Rundgren had complete control of the production side. Although the production credit is to the entire band, it's well-acknowledged that Rundgren did almost all of the work. That, plus disagreement over track selection and the other members not vibing with Rundgren's Laura Nyro obsession, led Rundgren to leave the band in 1969.

He moved to New York and ingratiated himself into the music scene there, eventually being introduced to Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, who had just founded Ampex Records (a joint venture with the tape company of the same name) and built Bearsville Studios in upstate New York -- Bearsville would become its own imprint that outlasted Ampex. Grossman hired Rundgren, initially to work on folk records, but soon promoting him to house engineer. He helped The Band's Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm record Jesse Winchester's debut album, and then was tapped to engineer the third Band album Stage Fright "because I was pretty quick to get the sounds and they liked that."

After that, just because he felt like it, Rundgren recorded two solo albums with no advance, initially credited to Runt. These sold better than expected, so he was now juggling a performing career with a producing/engineering one. By 1971 his reputation had risen to the point where Apple Records flew him to London to finish producing the Badfinger album Straight Up after George Harrison abandoned it.

Rundgren's next album, the double Something/Anything, produced two major hit singles in "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light" and made him a star. But it also made him able to indulge his creative impulses, and he followed it up with an album, A Wizard, A True Star, that is basically a mesmerizing sonic collage as opposed to a collection of songs, and for some people is the apex of what Rundgren was able to achieve in the studio. Pitchfork wrote that its "fingerprints remain evident on bedroom auteurs to this day."

Rundgren followed Wizard with production jobs for Grand Funk Railroad's We're An American Band, one of the biggest sellers of 1973, and the self-titled debut of New York Dolls, one of the most significant records of the year. He rode that momentum into 1974, producing four records (other than his own and the debut from his new band Utopia) that were released that year.

His production output in 1975 and 1976 was light as he concentrated on his own work, but his profile as a producer was raised again when he was tapped to produce a record that had been rejected by numerous labels, Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell. In fact, he signed on to the project after Meat Loaf and songwriter Jim Steinman told him they had a deal with RCA, which turned out not to be true. When he found out, however, instead of walking away, Rundgren, who found the material to be a "hilarious" Springsteen parody, tried to convince Albert Grossman to put the record out on Bearsville; Grossman was not willing to offer financial support, and Rundgren paid for much of the recording himself. The record eventually came out on Cleveland International, a subsidiary of Epic. In a 1989 interview, Steinman called Rundgren "the only genuine genius I have worked with."

It took a while for Bat Out of Hell to become a hit, but once it did, the demand for Rundgren as a producer was never higher. Between 1979 and the mid-80s, he essentially put his solo career on hold (only releasing albums in 1981, 1983 and 1985 during this period) to concentrate on production and Utopia.

While his previous production projects had very diverse results, many of the records Rundgren produced between 1979 and the mid-80s could have passed for output by Utopia, which was founded as a prog/jazz-fusion band but had morphed into a new wave band. If an artist's material was unfinished, Rundgren would complete it and decline a writing credit. The highest-profile jobs he worked on during this period include Patti Smith Group's Wave, The Psychedelic Furs' Forever Now and XTC's Skylarking.

Rundgren re-launched his solo career in 1989, and his production credits for others after 1990 are few. He moved to Hawaii, where he records idiosyncratic output by himself, including a 2011 album, (re)Production, consisting of synth-heavy covers of songs he produced for other artists.

Myers, author of A Wizard, A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio, said Rundgren sees the studio as "his ultimate instrument" and inspired "a generation of self-contained geniuses like Prince ... Ironically, some of his innovations would come to liberate the recording artist in such a way as to lessen the perceived value, or need, for a record producer at all."

My list is structured this way:

#31: a song from an album I am lower on than most but which can't be excluded from any discussion of Rundgren as a producer.
#30-#14: songs from albums that are not universally known but have something to recommend them.
#13-#12: songs from, in one case, an artist, and in the other case, an album, that should have been much more successful than they were.
#11-#5: iconic songs from iconic albums that, along with #31, are what people associate with Rundgren productions.
#4-#1: songs from Todd's own releases under various guises.

Enjoy!
 
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My list has been submitted and is comprised of 31 songs that include the name of a Texas town or city in the song title, with exceptions made to allow for a county, a road, and a state park - all places that can be identied on any common map.

Not doublechecked, but it looks like 22 unique cities/towns are included in the playlist with one city making the list four times (I'll bet you can guess which one). Dallas has three entries and Amarillo weighs in at 2. I sorted the chalkiest picks to the top of the list (top 6 to be exact), in case anyone wants have fun predicting the reveals.

At first I was a litte worried I might be dipping into a pool of not so good songs to build my playlist, but I'm pretty pleased with the overall song selection quality. I'll try to post some last five outs later this evening, though I'm less excited about most of these leftovers.

Look forward to discovering which songs I left that off that were worthy of inclusion.
 
PRODUCED (AND/OR ENGINEERED) BY TODD RUNDGREN

It's really hard to become a pop/rock star, and it's really hard to become a sought-after record producer for other artists. Todd Rundgren is one of the few people who managed to become both.

In addition to producing his solo albums and those of his band Utopia, Rundgren produced artists spanning folk to punk and almost everything in between. A common thread is that Rundgren valued spontaneity and had a keen ear for how to use the studio to complement artists' material. This also meant he could achieve very interesting sounds in a short time, which record companies liked because the albums were usually completed promptly and under budget. At times he was heavy-handed -- he didn't take writing credits on others' songs unless he had completed the song before the session, but there are plenty of examples of songs on others' albums that sound like his own -- at times passive.

If you look at a timeline of Rundgren's schedule in the '70s and '80s, it is insane. He was producing several albums a year for others while conducting a solo career and, from the mid '70s to the mid '80s, leading Utopia. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has diagnosed himself with ADHD. He has said that the money he made from producing others allowed him to be as experimental as he wanted with his own music, because there was no financial risk to him if his own work bombed.

Rundgren was born in Philadelphia and raised in the suburb of Upper Darby, PA. He broke into the music business as guitarist and primary songwriter of Nazz, a Philly-based psychedelic rock band. He first became interested in the production/engineering/mixing side of the music business during the recording of Nazz' self-titled debut album. He told Paul Myers, author of A Wizard, A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio, that producer Bill Traut "just whipped through the mixes in a day or two ... So I got it into my head, 'Well, he's gone now, so why don't we just mix it again, more like the way we want it?' Our engineer didn't mind if we went and just started diddling around on the board ... It was pretty much trial and error."

The second Nazz album, Nazz Nazz, was the first in which Rundgren had complete control of the production side. Although the production credit is to the entire band, it's well-acknowledged that Rundgren did almost all of the work. That, plus disagreement over track selection and the other members not vibing with Rundgren's Laura Nyro obsession, led Rundgren to leave the band in 1969.

He moved to New York and ingratiated himself into the music scene there, eventually being introduced to Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, who had just founded Ampex Records (a joint venture with the tape company of the same name) and built Bearsville Studios in upstate New York -- Bearsville would become its own imprint that outlasted Ampex. Grossman hired Rundgren, initially to work on folk records, but soon promoting him to house engineer. He helped The Band's Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm record Jesse Winchester's debut album, and then was tapped to engineer the third Band album Stage Fright "because I was pretty quick to get the sounds and they liked that."

After that, just because he felt like it, Rundgren recorded two solo albums with no advance, initially credited to Runt. These sold better than expected, so he was now juggling a performing career with a producing/engineering one. By 1971 his reputation had risen to the point where Apple Records flew him to London to finish producing the Badfinger album Straight Up after George Harrison abandoned it.

Rundgren's next album, the double Something/Anything, produced two major hit singles in "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light" and made him a star. But it also made him able to indulge his creative impulses, and he followed it up with an album, A Wizard, A True Star, that is basically a mesmerizing sonic collage as opposed to a collection of songs, and for some people is the apex of what Rundgren was able to achieve in the studio. Pitchfork wrote that its "fingerprints remain evident on bedroom auteurs to this day."

Rundgren followed Wizard with production jobs for Grand Funk Railroad's We're An American Band, one of the biggest sellers of 1973, and the self-titled debut of New York Dolls, one of the most significant records of the year. He rode that momentum into 1974, producing four records (other than his own and the debut from his new band Utopia) that were released that year.

His production output in 1975 and 1976 was light as he concentrated on his own work, but his profile as a producer was raised again when he was tapped to produce a record that had been rejected by numerous labels, Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell. In fact, he signed on to the project after Meat Loaf and songwriter Jim Steinman told him they had a deal with RCA, which turned out not to be true. When he found out, however, instead of walking away, Rundgren, who found the material to be a "hilarious" Springsteen parody, tried to convince Albert Grossman to put the record out on Bearsville; Grossman was not willing to offer financial support, and Rundgren paid for much of the recording himself. The record eventually came out on Cleveland International, a subsidiary of Epic. In a 1989 interview, Steinman called Rundgren "the only genuine genius I have worked with."

It took a while for Bat Out of Hell to become a hit, but once it did, the demand for Rundgren as a producer was never higher. Between 1979 and the mid-80s, he essentially put his solo career on hold (only releasing albums in 1981 and 1985 during this period) to concentrate on production and Utopia.

While his previous production projects had very diverse results, many of the records Rundgren produced between 1979 and the mid-80s could have passed for output by Utopia, which was founded as a prog/jazz-fusion band but had morphed into a new wave band. If an artist's material was unfinished, Rundgren would complete it and decline a writing credit. The highest-profile jobs he worked on during this period include Patti Smith Group's Wave, The Psychedelic Furs' Forever Now and XTC's Skylarking.

Rundgren re-launched his solo career in 1989, and his production credits for others after 1990 are few. He moved to Hawaii, where he records idiosyncratic output by himself, including a 2011 album, (re)Production, consisting of synth-heavy covers of songs he produced for other artists.

Myers, author of A Wizard, A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio, said Rundgren sees the studio as "his ultimate instrument" and inspired "a generation of self-contained geniuses like Prince ... Ironically, some of his innovations would come to liberate the recording artist in such a way as to lessen the perceived value, or need, for a record producer at all."

My list is structured this way:

#31: a song from an album I am lower on than most but which can't be excluded from any discussion of Rundgren as a producer.
#30-#14: songs from albums that are not universally known but have something to recommend them.
#13-#12: songs from, in one case, an artist, and in the other case, an album, that should have been much more successful than they were.
#11-#5: iconic songs from iconic albums that, along with #31, are what people associate with Rundgren productions.
#4-#1: songs from Todd's own releases under various guises.

Enjoy!

you good writer ...you write good
 
PRODUCED (AND/OR ENGINEERED) BY TODD RUNDGREN

Last 5 Out, in chronological order:

Wonder Girl
Artist: Halfnelson (Sparks)
Album: Halfnelson (1971); Sparks (reissued in 1972 under new name)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Ron Mael

I'll admit that I've never really "gotten" Sparks, and I've tried. But Todd Rundgren, who produced their first album, is as responsible as anyone for launching their career. And I do see how the band shares some of the hermetic qualities of Rundgren's own work.
The Mael brothers were working under the name Halfnelson when they were signed to Bearsville at the suggestion of Rundgren. Their self-titled debut album got no traction, but when it was reissued a year later under the band's new name, Sparks, it produced a minor hit in "Wonder Girl" that enabled them to continue their career.
"Wonder Girl" has a very unique sound for 1971, chugging along but bursting with almost operatic flair at times.
Ron Mael: "It was intimidating for us just to be in a studio, but [Rundgren] was really incredibly open to what we were doing, and I think we really felt like kindred spirits, even though some of his own music was kinda maybe more soul-based. But he was an Anglophile just the way we were Anglophiles. It all went incredibly well with him personally and musically."
Russell Mael: "Todd really wanted to preserve the quality of the ("Wonder Girl") demo. It's not like a live band sound at all. The guitar parts are really deliberate. The recording has a real character to it."


Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through
Artist: Jim Steinman
Album: Bad for Good (1981)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer, arranger, guitar, backing vocals
Writer(s): Jim Steinman

After the success of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, Jim Steinman was under pressure from Epic to get a follow-up album written and recorded. There was only one problem, though: Meat Loaf had blown out his voice on tour.
Steinman's response, after 7 months of trying to record with Meat Loaf and failing, was to release the songs under his own name. There was only one problem, though: Steinman can't really sing.
Enter someone named Rory Dodd, who was enlisted to sing the songs that ended up being released as singles, including "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through," which Meat Loaf re-recorded for his 1994 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.
Rundgren reprised his Bat Out of Hell roles as producer, engineer and guitarist, though three other producers are also credited, so it's hard to know who exactly did what.
"Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” continues the Springsteenian vibe of Bat Out of Hell (including performances by the Boss's pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg) but plays it more straight than most of that material did. The layered-vocal coda is the kind of thing we heard in a lot of Rundgren productions from around this time. Allmusic describes the song as "a heart-tugging testament to the inspirational power of rock and roll."


Live for Today
Artist: The Lords of the New Church
Album: Is Nothing Sacred? (1983)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Mogol, Shel Shapiro and Michael Julien

The Lords of the New Church were formed by Stiv Bators, lead singer of the Dead Boys, and Brian James, guitarist of the Damned, after their previous bands imploded. Its second album, Is Nothing Sacred?, was self-produced except for its closing track and lead single, "Live for Today," a cover of the Grass Roots hit produced by Rundgren. Reviews have described this album as "a soundtrack for a gothic punk horror film" and "a defilement of street credibility, punk ethics and honest hard work and a rank plagiarism of [Iggy Pop], and I can't actually find any fault with it." The band broke up in 1989 and Bators died a year later after being struck by a car.
There is definitely nothing hippie-dippie about this version of "Live for Today". It's got that '80s drum sound that I hate, but it makes great use of synths and bass, and the vocal arrangement is sublime, replacing the optimism of the original with a sort of energetic sarcasm.


I Don't Mind at All
Artist: Bourgeois Tagg
Album: Yoyo (1987)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Brent Bourgeois and Lyle Workman

Bourgeois Tagg was a power pop band that put out two albums in the mid-80s, the second of which, Yoyo, was produced by Rundgren. Each produced some minor hits; "I Don't Mind at All" achieved the lower reaches of the Top 40 (#38). The band fell apart after co-leader Brent Bourgeois turned to Christianity to overcome his drug and alcohol addictions and the other members were not keen on his new Christian-flavored material. He became and still remains a contemporary Christian artist and producer. Rundgren must have liked the band's chemistry on Yoyo because he enlisted bassist Larry Tagg, guitarist Lyle Workman and drummer Michael Urbano for his 1989 album Nearly Human and its subsequent tour; Workman remained for Rundgren's follow-up album 2nd Wind.
"I Don't Mind at All" is a pleasant acoustic ditty with some Beatlesque touches and orchestration. The "it's important to me" part, you can easily envision Paul McCartney singing.
Rundgren covered "Out of My Mind" from this record on the (re)Production album: https://open.spotify.com/track/5aBe7yCYZFsFE8isf6SqUn?si=aba22ea21f2a47c8


Yeah, Whatever
Artist: Splender
Album: Halfway Down the Sky (1999)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Waymon Boone

Halfway Down the Sky, the debut album by late-90s rockers Splender, was one of Rundgren's last outside production jobs. The experience was apparently not a pleasant one. Splender frontman Waymon Boone said on a 2020 podcast that "working with Rundgren was a nightmare, and that he would constantly leave early, not give any feedback during recordings, and once they'd run through a song, he'd tell them it was 'fine' and would want them to move onto the next song." He even confessed to wanting to punch Rundgren in the face.
Whatever bad blood there was is not evident on "Yeah, Whatever," the album's opener and first single. It starts out as jangle pop, but then the power chords kick in, and the layering of guitars, though it sounds different many years later thanks to shifts in technology and musical trends, is very much of a piece with some of Rundgren's '70s and '80s productions. Add in a great chorus and some beautifully soaring guitar parts on the bridge, and the song makes me long for the '90s in the best way.

 
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PRODUCED (AND/OR ENGINEERED) BY TODD RUNDGREN

Last 5 Out, in chronological order:

Wonder Girl
Artist: Halfnelson (Sparks)
Album: Halfnelson (1971); Sparks (reissued in 1972 under new name)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Ron Mael

I'll admit that I've never really "gotten" Sparks, and I've tried. But Todd Rundgren, who produced their first album, is as responsible as anyone for launching their career. And I do see how the band shares some of the hermetic qualities of Rundgren's own work.
The Mael brothers were working under the name Halfnelson when they were signed to Bearsville at the suggestion of Rundgren. Their self-titled debut album got no traction, but when it was reissued a year later under the band's new name, Sparks, it produced a minor hit in "Wonder Girl" that enabled them to continue their career.
"Wonder Girl" has a very unique sound for 1971, chugging along but bursting with almost operatic flair at times.
Ron Mael: "It was intimidating for us just to be in a studio, but [Rundgren] was really incredibly open to what we were doing, and I think we really felt like kindred spirits, even though some of his own music was kinda maybe more soul-based. But he was an Anglophile just the way we were Anglophiles. It all went incredibly well with him personally and musically."
Russell Mael: "Todd really wanted to preserve the quality of the ("Wonder Girl") demo. It's not like a live band sound at all. The guitar parts are really deliberate. The recording has a real character to it."


Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through
Artist: Jim Steinman
Album: Bad for Good (1981)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer, arranger, guitar, backing vocals
Writer(s): Jim Steinman

After the success of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, Jim Steinman was under pressure from Epic to get a follow-up album written and recorded. There was only one problem, though: Meat Loaf had blown out his voice on tour.
Steinman's response, after 7 months of trying to record with Meat Loaf and failing, was to release the songs under his own name. There was only one problem, though: Steinman can't really sing.
Enter someone named Rory Dodd, who was enlisted to sing the songs that ended up being released as singles, including "Rock and Roll Dreams Come True," which Meat Loaf re-recorded for his 1994 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.
Rundgren reprised his Bat Out of Hell roles as producer, engineer and guitarist, though three other producers are also credited, so it's hard to know who exactly did what.
"Rock and Roll Dreams Come True" continues the Springsteenian vibe of Bat Out of Hell (including performances by the Boss's pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg) but plays it more straight than most of that material did. The layered-vocal coda is the kind of thing we heard in a lot of Rundgren productions from around this time. Allmusic describes the song as "a heart-tugging testament to the inspirational power of rock and roll."


Live for Today
Artist: The Lords of the New Church
Album: Is Nothing Sacred? (1983)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Mogol, Shel Shapiro and Michael Julien

The Lords of the New Church were formed by Stiv Bators, lead singer of the Dead Boys, and Brian James, guitarist of the Damned, after their previous bands imploded. Its second album, Is Nothing Sacred?, was self-produced except for its closing track and lead single, "Live for Today," a cover of the Grass Roots hit produced by Rundgren. Reviews have described this album as "a soundtrack for a gothic punk horror film" and "a defilement of street credibility, punk ethics and honest hard work and a rank plagiarism of [Iggy Pop], and I can't actually find any fault with it." The band broke up in 1989 and Bators died a year later after being struck by a car.
There is definitely nothing hippie-dippie about this version of "Live for Today". It's got that '80s drum sound that I hate, but it makes great use of synths and bass, and the vocal arrangement is sublime, replacing the optimism of the original with a sort of energetic sarcasm.


I Don't Mind at All
Artist: Bourgeois Tagg
Album: Yoyo (1987)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Brent Bourgeois and Lyle Workman

Bourgeois Tagg was a power pop band that put out two albums in the mid-80s, the second of which, Yoyo, was produced by Rundgren. Each produced some minor hits; "I Don't Mind at All" achieved the lower reaches of the Top 40 (#38). The band fell apart after co-leader Brent Bourgeois turned to Christianity to overcome his drug and alcohol addictions and the other members were not keen on his new Christian-flavored material. He became and still remains a contemporary Christian artist and producer. Rundgren must have liked the band's chemistry on Yoyo because he enlisted bassist Larry Tagg, guitarist Lyle Workman and drummer Michael Urbano for his 1989 album Nearly Human and its subsequent tour; Workman remained for Rundgren's follow-up album 2nd Wind.
"I Don't Mind at All" is a pleasant acoustic ditty with some Beatlesque touches and orchestration. The "it's important to me" part, you can easily envision Paul McCartney singing.
Rundgren covered "Out of My Mind" from this record on the (re)Production album: https://open.spotify.com/track/5aBe7yCYZFsFE8isf6SqUn?si=aba22ea21f2a47c8


Yeah, Whatever
Artist: Splender
Album: Halfway Down the Sky (1999)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Waymon Boone

Halfway Down the Sky, the debut album by late-90s rockers Splender, was one of Rundgren's last outside production jobs. The experience was apparently not a pleasant one. Splender frontman Waymon Boone said on a 2020 podcast that "working with Rundgren was a nightmare, and that he would constantly leave early, not give any feedback during recordings, and once they'd run through a song, he'd tell them it was 'fine' and would want them to move onto the next song." He even confessed to wanting to punch Rundgren in the face.
Whatever bad blood there was is not evident on "Yeah, Whatever," the album's opener and first single. It starts out as jangle pop, but then the power chords kick in, and the layering of guitars, though it sounds different many years later thanks to shifts in technology and musical trends, is very much of a piece with some of Rundgren's '70s and '80s productions. Add in a great chorus and some beautifully soaring guitar parts on the bridge, and the song makes me long for the '90s in the best way.

Any Australian or Swedish related Todd on your list?
 
PRODUCED (AND/OR ENGINEERED) BY TODD RUNDGREN

Last 5 Out, in chronological order:

Wonder Girl
Artist: Halfnelson (Sparks)
Album: Halfnelson (1971); Sparks (reissued in 1972 under new name)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Ron Mael

I'll admit that I've never really "gotten" Sparks, and I've tried. But Todd Rundgren, who produced their first album, is as responsible as anyone for launching their career. And I do see how the band shares some of the hermetic qualities of Rundgren's own work.
The Mael brothers were working under the name Halfnelson when they were signed to Bearsville at the suggestion of Rundgren. Their self-titled debut album got no traction, but when it was reissued a year later under the band's new name, Sparks, it produced a minor hit in "Wonder Girl" that enabled them to continue their career.
"Wonder Girl" has a very unique sound for 1971, chugging along but bursting with almost operatic flair at times.
Ron Mael: "It was intimidating for us just to be in a studio, but [Rundgren] was really incredibly open to what we were doing, and I think we really felt like kindred spirits, even though some of his own music was kinda maybe more soul-based. But he was an Anglophile just the way we were Anglophiles. It all went incredibly well with him personally and musically."
Russell Mael: "Todd really wanted to preserve the quality of the ("Wonder Girl") demo. It's not like a live band sound at all. The guitar parts are really deliberate. The recording has a real character to it."


Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through
Artist: Jim Steinman
Album: Bad for Good (1981)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer, arranger, guitar, backing vocals
Writer(s): Jim Steinman

After the success of Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, Jim Steinman was under pressure from Epic to get a follow-up album written and recorded. There was only one problem, though: Meat Loaf had blown out his voice on tour.
Steinman's response, after 7 months of trying to record with Meat Loaf and failing, was to release the songs under his own name. There was only one problem, though: Steinman can't really sing.
Enter someone named Rory Dodd, who was enlisted to sing the songs that ended up being released as singles, including "Rock and Roll Dreams Come True," which Meat Loaf re-recorded for his 1994 album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.
Rundgren reprised his Bat Out of Hell roles as producer, engineer and guitarist, though three other producers are also credited, so it's hard to know who exactly did what.
"Rock and Roll Dreams Come True" continues the Springsteenian vibe of Bat Out of Hell (including performances by the Boss's pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg) but plays it more straight than most of that material did. The layered-vocal coda is the kind of thing we heard in a lot of Rundgren productions from around this time. Allmusic describes the song as "a heart-tugging testament to the inspirational power of rock and roll."


Live for Today
Artist: The Lords of the New Church
Album: Is Nothing Sacred? (1983)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Mogol, Shel Shapiro and Michael Julien

The Lords of the New Church were formed by Stiv Bators, lead singer of the Dead Boys, and Brian James, guitarist of the Damned, after their previous bands imploded. Its second album, Is Nothing Sacred?, was self-produced except for its closing track and lead single, "Live for Today," a cover of the Grass Roots hit produced by Rundgren. Reviews have described this album as "a soundtrack for a gothic punk horror film" and "a defilement of street credibility, punk ethics and honest hard work and a rank plagiarism of [Iggy Pop], and I can't actually find any fault with it." The band broke up in 1989 and Bators died a year later after being struck by a car.
There is definitely nothing hippie-dippie about this version of "Live for Today". It's got that '80s drum sound that I hate, but it makes great use of synths and bass, and the vocal arrangement is sublime, replacing the optimism of the original with a sort of energetic sarcasm.


I Don't Mind at All
Artist: Bourgeois Tagg
Album: Yoyo (1987)
Todd's role(s): producer
Writer(s): Brent Bourgeois and Lyle Workman

Bourgeois Tagg was a power pop band that put out two albums in the mid-80s, the second of which, Yoyo, was produced by Rundgren. Each produced some minor hits; "I Don't Mind at All" achieved the lower reaches of the Top 40 (#38). The band fell apart after co-leader Brent Bourgeois turned to Christianity to overcome his drug and alcohol addictions and the other members were not keen on his new Christian-flavored material. He became and still remains a contemporary Christian artist and producer. Rundgren must have liked the band's chemistry on Yoyo because he enlisted bassist Larry Tagg, guitarist Lyle Workman and drummer Michael Urbano for his 1989 album Nearly Human and its subsequent tour; Workman remained for Rundgren's follow-up album 2nd Wind.
"I Don't Mind at All" is a pleasant acoustic ditty with some Beatlesque touches and orchestration. The "it's important to me" part, you can easily envision Paul McCartney singing.
Rundgren covered "Out of My Mind" from this record on the (re)Production album: https://open.spotify.com/track/5aBe7yCYZFsFE8isf6SqUn?si=aba22ea21f2a47c8


Yeah, Whatever
Artist: Splender
Album: Halfway Down the Sky (1999)
Todd's role(s): producer, engineer
Writer(s): Waymon Boone

Halfway Down the Sky, the debut album by late-90s rockers Splender, was one of Rundgren's last outside production jobs. The experience was apparently not a pleasant one. Splender frontman Waymon Boone said on a 2020 podcast that "working with Rundgren was a nightmare, and that he would constantly leave early, not give any feedback during recordings, and once they'd run through a song, he'd tell them it was 'fine' and would want them to move onto the next song." He even confessed to wanting to punch Rundgren in the face.
Whatever bad blood there was is not evident on "Yeah, Whatever," the album's opener and first single. It starts out as jangle pop, but then the power chords kick in, and the layering of guitars, though it sounds different many years later thanks to shifts in technology and musical trends, is very much of a piece with some of Rundgren's '70s and '80s productions. Add in a great chorus and some beautifully soaring guitar parts on the bridge, and the song makes me long for the '90s in the best way.

Any Australian or Swedish related Todd on your list?
He produced a Kiwi band in the '80s but that album is not on Spotify. I believe everyone else he produced was American, British or Canadian.
 
My list has been submitted and is comprised of 31 songs that include the name of a Texas town or city in the song title, with exceptions made to allow for a county, a road, and a state park - all places that can be identied on any common map.

Not doublechecked, but it looks like 22 unique cities/towns are included in the playlist with one city making the list four times (I'll bet you can guess which one). Dallas has three entries and Amarillo weighs in at 2. I sorted the chalkiest picks to the top of the list (top 6 to be exact), in case anyone wants have fun predicting the reveals.

At first I was a litte worried I might be dipping into a pool of not so good songs to build my playlist, but I'm pretty pleased with the overall song selection quality. I'll try to post some last five outs later this evening, though I'm less excited about most of these leftovers.

Look forward to discovering which songs I left that off that were worthy of inclusion.
Do hope you include what would be in my REM top five
 
My theme is favorite Side 2 Track 1s from my record collection.

Here are 5 songs that would have made the cut, but were selected in previous MADs.

Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder from Innervisions (1973)

Dove - Cymande from s/t (1972)

Tin Soldier - Small Faces from There Are But Four Small Faces (1968)

Maybe the People... - Love from Forever Changes (1967)

She's a Rainbow - The Rolling Stones from Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
 
Peaches - "**** the Pain Away" (2000)
Full name: Merrill Nisker (unrelated mononym)

Peaches funneled her punky queer attitude through a Roland MC-505 groovebox to help create Electroclash, a short-lived genre from the turn of the century. The lyrics are filthy but they do include an inspirational message to stay in school.
This one brings back the memories - hearing new electroclash tunes at the club then going home and trying to find them on Limewire (though Peaches was actually big enough to have her CDs sold at Best Buy). Her collab with another singer that's eligible for your list may be the greatest duet of Single-Named Ladies ever - or maybe not, given I haven't really tried to think of any others.
 
The Clash, U2, Tom Petty and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?
 
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And of course, an instrumental.

Buda, Texas Boogie by Neal Black, a very fine guitar player.

 
The Clash, U2, and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?

The need to pigeonhole everything into a genre wasn't nearly as prevalent in 1980 as it is today. U2 got lumped in with a lot of other contemporary bands who were unified more by the fact of their newness than anything else.

The Clash were called punks by most everybody. The only time they ever were associated with new wave at the time was for "rock of the 80s" radio formatters.
 
Man, Dave Alvin is an entire mood.

Abilene by Dave Alvin


I've considered Dave as a MADs artist. He has a large body of quality work both solo and with almost as many groups as Johnny Marr.
 
Man, Dave Alvin is an entire mood.

Abilene by Dave Alvin


I've considered Dave as a MADs artist. He has a large body of quality work both solo and with almost as many groups as Johnny Marr.
That's a vast body of work to take on and would love to see it.
 
The Clash, U2, and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?

The need to pigeonhole everything into a genre wasn't nearly as prevalent in 1980 as it is today. U2 got lumped in with a lot of other contemporary bands who were unified more by the fact of their newness than anything else.

The Clash were called punks by most everybody. The only time they ever were associated with new wave at the time was for "rock of the 80s" radio formatters.
I was hoping to get a quick response from you. Thanks! Also "X". I agree with you on how the 80's did that. I'm just making my initial list of bands on KROQ, yearly, Top 100 lists to start
 
The Clash, U2, and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?

The need to pigeonhole everything into a genre wasn't nearly as prevalent in 1980 as it is today. U2 got lumped in with a lot of other contemporary bands who were unified more by the fact of their newness than anything else.

The Clash were called punks by most everybody. The only time they ever were associated with new wave at the time was for "rock of the 80s" radio formatters.
If a band is only publicly active to a mass audience for a limited time then they are more likely to be pigeonholed into an era.
U2 survived multiple eras, sounds and generations.
Tom Petty the same
The Clash did not

Some of each artists songs can fit certain eras though.
Putting Free Fallin and Beautiful Day into New Wave.is pointless
Refugee and New Years Day, you can make an argument.

Purity means artists like Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, China Crisis etc fit New Wave perfectly, but all have material less known years afterwards
 
The Clash, U2, and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?

The need to pigeonhole everything into a genre wasn't nearly as prevalent in 1980 as it is today. U2 got lumped in with a lot of other contemporary bands who were unified more by the fact of their newness than anything else.

The Clash were called punks by most everybody. The only time they ever were associated with new wave at the time was for "rock of the 80s" radio formatters.
I was hoping to get a quick response from you. Thanks! Also "X". I agree with you on how the 80's did that. I'm just making my initial list of bands on KROQ, yearly, Top 100 lists to start

KROQ, 91X in San Diego and KQAK in San Francisco were at the forefront of that format.
 
The Clash, U2, and some others. Never understood why they were lumped in as New Wave. Thoughts?

The need to pigeonhole everything into a genre wasn't nearly as prevalent in 1980 as it is today. U2 got lumped in with a lot of other contemporary bands who were unified more by the fact of their newness than anything else.

The Clash were called punks by most everybody. The only time they ever were associated with new wave at the time was for "rock of the 80s" radio formatters.
If a band is only publicly active to a mass audience for a limited time then they are more likely to be pigeonholed into an era.
U2 survived multiple eras, sounds and generations.
Tom Petty the same
The Clash did not

Some of each artists songs can fit certain eras though.
Putting Free Fallin and Beautiful Day into New Wave.is pointless
Refugee and New Years Day, you can make an argument.

Purity means artists like Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, China Crisis etc fit New Wave perfectly, but all have material less known years afterwards
This is good stuff. I'm going to try and keep it "pure" as you said, but I'm sure one or two might slip in. INXS, Oingo Boingo, Plimsouls... I'm up to 100 bands. yikes.
 
He produced a Kiwi band in the '80s but that album is not on Spotify. I believe everyone else he produced was American, British or Canadian.

Does this comply with the rules of the MADs geographic countdowns?
I am not going through birth certificates 😆
If we are talking Dragon/Hunter, I would hope none of his production work with them makes this list.
Robyn is Swedish btw lol
We are talking Dragon/Hunter, and since their album produced by him is not on Spotify in the US, I did not consider it.

Robyn appears on one of Todd's own albums. I dealt with those differently from the full albums that he produced for others.
 
My list has been submitted and is comprised of 31 songs that include the name of a Texas town or city in the song title, with exceptions made to allow for a county, a road, and a state park - all places that can be identied on any common map.

Not doublechecked, but it looks like 22 unique cities/towns are included in the playlist with one city making the list four times (I'll bet you can guess which one). Dallas has three entries and Amarillo weighs in at 2. I sorted the chalkiest picks to the top of the list (top 6 to be exact), in case anyone wants have fun predicting the reveals.

At first I was a litte worried I might be dipping into a pool of not so good songs to build my playlist, but I'm pretty pleased with the overall song selection quality. I'll try to post some last five outs later this evening, though I'm less excited about most of these leftovers.

Look forward to discovering which songs I left that off that were worthy of inclusion.
Do hope you include what would be in my REM top five
Oh man, this was a big whiff. Took me a minute to figure it out, because I was stuck on Rockville - not a Texas town I know, but my brother used to live in Rockdale and I remembered singing "Don't go back to Rockdale." Anyway, I missed this one.
 
with your 31 pointer (i.e., your #1 choice) at the top of your list, and in descending order from there
To clarify... List should look like:

1- candida Canada-nickelback
2- maple syrup, etc- Nickelback
3- that guy who ice fishes in shorts- Nickelback
4- we don't have problems with insurance- Nickelback
5.... Etc

Where 1 is the top/favorite choice through last choice at 31.

I write all that because "31 pointer" confuses me. What are the points for if each song is only drafted once?
 
@Mrs. Rannous the deadline for a list is the 25th. She'll probably post 31s within a day or two of that.

Posting this so I don't flake out. I'm in. I heard a cool song that worked on an old favorite playlist and scanning it revealed a theme that will be fun* for me to put together. Summa y'all been around long enough to maybe remember a draft in which I just took 20+ surf rock songs? Those songs were, I think, entirely from the short-lived popular surf rock era between 59-64. Well that playlist has over 100 surf-ish rock-ish ish songs from all periods including the song I just added. So I'm dubbing my theme:

Post Surf Rock Surf Rockish (80s fwd)

*pita
 
with your 31 pointer (i.e., your #1 choice) at the top of your list, and in descending order from there
To clarify... List should look like:

1- candida Canada-nickelback
2- maple syrup, etc- Nickelback
3- that guy who ice fishes in shorts- Nickelback
4- we don't have problems with insurance- Nickelback
5.... Etc

Where 1 is the top/favorite choice through last choice at 31.

I write all that because "31 pointer" confuses me. What are the points for if each song is only drafted once?

Yes, you got it right. The points reference is because most people have been in one or more of my Middle-aged Dummies countdowns, where points were tabulated.

No math involved in this one and no vetting of picks - this is a breeze!
 

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