Todd Rundgren
Liars

THE REVIEW

Todd "the Wizard" Rundgren has always been an original, like many artists endowed with great talent. An experimenter uninterested in commercial concerns in some not entirely digestible works; superb, versatile, pop-rock author and performer in other brilliant albums. His career as a musician and producer (from XTC to Patti Smith, from New York Dolls to Janis Joplin) spans more than three decades; his is a name that will remain in rock history, but despite this, he has not yet rested on his laurels. That curiosity, that desire to engage with new musical experiences, that syncretic attitude that has always set him apart, continue to give him new stimuli, pushing him to explore new territories.

"Liars," released in 2004, is the most blatant demonstration of this, of how Todd still retains that childlike enthusiasm, those keen antennas that have always allowed him to capture sounds very different from each other and often far from his original rock roots. These musical genres have sometimes been explored in depth, monographically, as was with Black & Soul with the unmissable "Nearly Human" (1989); in other works, however, they have been mixed into a single succulent "stew," as in the album in question.

He, as on other occasions, does everything himself, harnessing his uncommon talents as an author, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger. "Liars" is a sort of concept album, whose subtitle could jokingly be the academic, "the phenomenology of lying in the contemporary age."
Indeed, in the fourteen tracks, the topos in which, in the "wizard's" opinion, the followers of lies operate with the most fruitful results are highlighted. This parade of hypocrisies could only begin with "Truth" (paraphrasing Musil who said it for stupidity in relation to intelligence: "if the lie were not so similar to the truth, how would it camouflage so well?") and, to avoid misunderstandings, Todd warns us at the beginning of the song: "The truth is not here." The track is, musically speaking, one of those playthings that only he knows how to craft, an improbable electronic dance song winking at the '80s, a kind of semi-serious remix of himself. In "Sweet," "Happy Anniversary," and "Soul Brother," Black Music is declined in several of its possible expressions, from old Blues to Gospel, from Pop-Soul to the Philly sound, but the unmistakable magical touch of ours manages to give the tracks a distinctive trait nonetheless.
"Stood Up" is a recognizable and, we believe, acknowledged child of the friends XTC, a track that would not have been out of place on the album "Skylarking" (album produced guess by whom?). In "Mammon" (the lie of the God-money...) his passion for gothic-rock, evidenced also by some genre productions, comes to the fore, but the innate irony that has always characterized him manages to render enjoyable and less serious a type of music that, at least for me, has one of its major limitations in this very aspect.
In "Future," another notable mirage, Todd demonstrates excellently engaging with current dance, skirting drum'n'bass and personalizing it with his electronic antics; the song opens with "I remember... the world of tomorrow..." and closes with "the future is now": the viewpoint seems clear to me.
After "Future," even its older brother, "Past," is melancholically incorporated into the parade, but the model it wears is of great luxury, a soft rock ballad of rare beauty, a genre of which our maestro is an undisputed master. Completing the overview of the fields plowed by liars are the soft electronics of "Wondering," the warm '70s soul of "Flaw" (the defect), the chiaroscuro pop song à la Rundgren, one might say, "Afterlife" (the big lie?), a perfect cocktail, one part electronics, two of pop, and one of soul.
And to finish, the very current "God Said" (how many lies are told, hiding behind this incipit!), superb, airy, charming ballad and "Liars" a potential hit in a truly free and unprescribed Middle East.

With this challenging album, Rundgren confirms himself as one of the most versatile and imaginative musicians, perhaps among the best at combining the various genres of (pop)ular music. And if the world were not so devoted to the lie of the most vulgar easy listening, this album would not have gone almost unnoticed.