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"This is sing-along, guitar-rock kinda stuff," says Todd Rundgren of his aptly-titled 20th solo album, "Arena." True to its name, it's fist-pumping, anthemic, cerebral, uh, edifying... arena rock. Is that your oxymoron detector bleating like Miley Cyrus? Understandable. Arena rock, by definition, is simple, lowest-common-denominator - but not always bad - music, and Todd Rundgren, while quite handy with a hook and a huge crowd, is anything but simple.
Though the multi-instrumentalist/songwriter/producer played his share of widdly-woo lead guitar with the storied late-1960s garage-psych band Nazz, crafted expansive anthems and played arenas with Utopia through the 1970s and early 1980s, and further perfected the pop nugget in his solo work (he's the maestro behind the gems "Hello, It's Me, "I Saw the Light" and "Can We Still Be Friends?"), there has always been a thrumming intellectual through-line to his music. This has manifested in progressive rock tendencies and in heady quote-unquote concepts. It's accessible, dare we say party, vibe notwithstanding, so it is with "Arena."
Rundgren broke a self-imposed 10-year hiatus on concept albums in 2004 with the universally lauded 2004 album "Liars," which examined the sincerity-to-deceit ratio in ourselves and our lives. "Arena" runs parallel to this, scrutinizing courage and cowardice, and how we respond to daily challenges... |
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