Something/Anything?

Disc 1
1	I Saw the Light 3:00
2	It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference 3:50
3	Wolfman Jack 2:56
4	Cold Morning Light 3:35
5	It Takes Two to Tango (This Is for the Girls) 2:41
6	Sweeter Memories 3:36
7	Intro 1:11
8	Breathless Instrumental 3:15
9	The Night the Carousel Burned Down 4:29
10	Saving Grace 4:12
11	Marlene 3:54
12	Song of the Viking 2:35
13	I Went to the Mirror 4:05
Disc 2
1	Black Maria 5:20
2	One More Day (No Word) 3:43
3	Couldn't I Just Tell You 3:34
4	Torch Song 2:52
5	Little Red Lights 4:53
6	Overture-My Roots: Money (That's What I Want) /Messin' With the Kid 2:29
7	Dust in the Wind 3:49
8	Piss Aaron 3:26
9	Hello It's Me 4:42
10	Some Folks Is Even Whiter Than Me 3:56
11	You Left Me Sore 3:13
12	Slut 4:03

Barnes & Noble

To use his own words, Todd Rundgren was indeed a wizard, a true star. He's had only a couple of genuine hits ("Hello It's Me," "I Saw the Light"), but that's little indication of the depth of his career as pop showman (his dozen-plus solo albums), art rocker (leader of the group Utopia), producer (Meat Loaf, the Psychedelic Furs, Patti Smith, the New York Dolls, Grand Funk, Hall & Oates, Cheap Trick), and pop futurist (an early innovator of sound and video). In the showman category, Rundgren hit a peak with Something/Anything?, as pure an exposition of pop songcraft as perhaps has ever been made. On the first three of the album's four sides, Rundgren writes, plays, and produces everything himself, including "I Saw the Light," "Couldn't I Just Tell You," and "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference"; on the fourth, he and a host of guest stars proffer a funky if somewhat adolescently minded "pop operetta" that actually deserves the term. Included there is "Hello It's Me," jazzy horns, soulful vocals and all. a still-touching slice of romantic ambivalence. This record is really only for those with a sense of humor and a great love of timeless pop rock -- and for them it's a necessity. Bill Wyman

All Music Guide

Others had recorded one-man albums before Todd Rundgren, most notably Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, but with Something/Anything? he captured the homemade ambience of McCartney with the visionary feel of Music of My Mind, adding an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music from Gilbert & Sullivan through Jimi Hendrix, plus the crazed zeal of a pioneer. Listening to Something/Anything? is a mind-altering trip in itself, no matter how many shamelessly accessible pop songs are scattered throughout the album, since each side of the double-record is a concept unto itself. The first is "a bouquet of ear-catching melodies"; side two is "the cerebral side"; on side three "the kid gets heavy"; side four is his mock pop operetta, recorded with a full band including the Sales Brothers. It gallops through everything -- Carole King tributes ("I Saw the Light"), classic ballads ("Hello It's Me," "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference"), Motown ("Wolfman Jack"), blinding power pop ("Couldn't I Just Tell You"), psychedelic hard rock ("Black Maria"), pure weirdness ("I Went to the Mirror"), blue-eyed soul ("Dust in the Wind"), and scores of brilliant songs that don't fall into any particular style ("Cold Morning Light," "It Takes Two to Tango"). It's an amazing journey that's remarkably unpretentious. Rundgren peppers his writing with self-aware, self-deprecating asides, indulging his bizarre sense of humor with gross-outs ("Piss Aaron") and sheer quirkiness, such as an aural tour of the studio at the beginning of side two. There are a ton of loose ends throughout Something/Anything?, plenty of studio tricks, slight songs (but no filler), snippets of dialogue, and purposely botched beginnings, but all these throwaways simply add context -- they're what makes the album into a kaleidoscopic odyssey through the mind of an insanely gifted pop music obsessive. Stephen Thomas Erlewine