Music Review: Todd Rundgren, Global

By Jeffery X Martin

Nobody writes a lead-off single like Todd Rundgren. When that guy is on, he is all the way on. “Evrybody” is no exception. With its simple demand to clap your hands and some clever lyrics, this is the closest thing to a rave-up you’ll find on Rundgren’s new album, Global. It’s also enough to make you believe, at least for a moment, that he’s made another fantastic record.

You would be wrong, but man, for that one moment, there is hope.

The entire latter half of Rundgren’s career can be divided into guitar albums and synthesizer albums. He hasn’t done a guitar album in a few years. Global plays around with EDM and dubstep, kissing them briefly on the digital playground, but never quite making it to second base. This is not really an issue. Longtime fans understand that Rundgren experiments with different musical genres like a drunken college freshman at his or her first co-ed party.

Global isn’t a concept album, but it is a message album. Most of the songs are all about how we must stand together as one people worldwide. Stop mucking about with the environment. Quit having wars. Peace, love, and ProTools. “Earth is a Holyland,” Rundgren sings, over layers of himself whooping and hollering in a pseudo-native fashion. With his Queen-like endless vocal layering, he manages to make The Mowgli’s sound like a one-man acoustic act.

This is what makes Global such a tricky album. For a record all about how we need to come together and make a stand, Global is remarkably insular. It’s a one-man show, with very few outside musicians being used. How can we be expected to heed a call to work together from someone who is doing everything by himself? The song “Earth Mother” builds its melody on a synthesized didgeridoo. Sure, an artist can dip his toes into the deep pool of world music. But how hard is it to find a second year liberal arts student with a didgeridoo to come in and play on one song? You pay him with a joint and a credit in the liner notes, and it’s done and it’s reasonably authentic.

With song titles like “Terra Firma” and “This Island Earth,” one could genuinely be concerned about a certain level of preachiness on this album. It’s a fair cop. Rundgren’s lyrics are pretty heavy-handed, to the point where the listener could be excused for wondering just how serious he is. In the song “Skyscraper,” he calls on people to get off their high horses and join the rest of the groundlings because we’re having more fun. “We’re listening to oldies and drinking your beer,” says the one-man band. He could very well be singing to himself, pleading with himself to leave his sequencers behind for a while, to take off the long flowing robe and walk amongst us for a while.

The earnestness behind Global is undeniable. No one is saying that Rundgren doesn’t care about the planet. But to get his point across, he has made an album almost completely devoid of humanity. And that might be the point! This may be Rundgren’s own private Silent Running. It may be humor so arch that it’s nigh on impossible to get. This could be Rundgren, in the character of the Healer again, being the lone voice in the wilderness, crying out for action.

Or it could be another mediocre Todd Rundgren album, saddled with electronic tricks and lyrics ripped from a fourth grade Future Farmers of America essay contest winner. File it next to State and hope that Todd’s next album actually embraces humanity instead of pretending to care.

Global was released by Esoteric Recordings and Cherry Red Records on April 6.