Various Artists "For the Love of Todd"

Here is another one of those tribute discs. This one features the songs of the wizard and true star, Todd Rundgren. Rundgren is truly was an innovative and prolific artist during the 70’s and 80’s and most of his material would be excellent for other power pop artists to cover. Unfortunately, the producers of this album (Third Lock Records) should have done a better job of getting the participation of talented musicians. Despite a few well performed covers by Bill Lloyd, P. Hux and Jamie Hoover (Spongetones), the album is dragged down by some horrible amateur tracks (Nater Kennerly sounds like he’s playing “Love of the Common Man” in a closet). Other groups here I’ve never heard of, like: Van Cooper, Viral Satellite, Ben McMurtrie, David Melbye and Fred Froom, do a so-so job and make me NOT want to seek out their original work. An exception is the group The Woods, who do a great version of Todd’s “Slut”. So other than a handful of tracks, this is not essential listening. But the good news here is that this 1999 album is pretty cheap. You can find this album on Amazon for about $7.00