Runt

Runt. It's so many things. Todd Rundgren's first solo album, the self-titled debut of a fake band, a studio version of McCartney drawing from Laura Nyro's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, a do-it-yourself cornucopia of ballads and psychedelia, an amateurish adventure in learning how to produce an album with someone else's money. Mostly it's just sadness in the form of fun. 

Broke Down & Busted leads off as a straight up 60s Psych-Rock relationship lament. Very "I Hear You Knockin'" at times. 

Believe In Me is definitely a Laura Nyro style ballad, with the added fun of strumming inside the piano and an accordion, i think. 

Then the big hit We Gotta Get You a Woman. It's an obvious radio single, but plenty of interesting stuff happening in the background. 

Then the straight 70s Hard-Rock Boogie of Who's That Man?. Another radio friendly single, possible a few years ahead of its time. It's only 1970/71 after all. Power Pop. 

Once Burned gives us an R&B cool down. Short, but effective. 

Then the final uptempo 70s Boogie Rock of Devil's Bite. 

Side A, for all its stylistic borrowings, twists and turns, is a pretty solid EP. Hello Cleveland, we are Runt. Adventurish, but totally believable. I'd go see this band in concert, if they were real. 

Then Side B. Now it gets weird. I'm In the Clique is basically a free jam around the chorus, bass and drum solos, weird sirens and percussion everywhere. 

There Are No Words. Haunting, almost howl like vocal experimentation, like a Brian Wilson pistache of Ligeti, a strange midnight barbershop choir of wolves and druids in the forest. Delightful. 

1,2,3,5! The last two tracks of Side B are a kind of meandering suite of 60s Pop/70s Rock fragments, sorrowful string quartet, raunchy guitar solo, piano-man ballad ode to the sadness of growing old, with big-band Hard Blues Rock coda and string quartet/trumpet/flute postlude. Audio collage, i'd call it. 

Runt is actually a really good concept, the scrawny kid with the hand-me-down life, the lovable loser. It's incredibly sad, but happily so, even though that makes no sense at all. 

So, yeah, fantastic album. You might want to actually wind up in a real downer of a melancholic mood before slapping it on the table, just so it doesn't come as a shock when it happens, but it is definitely an affecting listen. Less SQUIRREL!, more box of mementos in the attic. Not too shabby for the first attempt at being an incredibly prolific producer who desperately doesn't want to play live anymore. Good stuff.