Todd Rundgren - White Knight

Pitchfork 66

Who are Todd Rundgren’s peers? While his fellow artists from the classic rock era have long solidified and embraced their legacy, Rundgren remains elusive. As a producer, he assisted the evolving sounds of the 1970s’ most innovative acts (New York Dolls, Patti Smith, XTC), but he was equally involved in its more commercial moments (Meat Loaf, Hall and Oates, Grand Funk Railroad). As a songwriter, he gave us some of the era’s most earnest love songs and its most confounding piss-takes—several defining albums and many obscure left-turns. In recent years, Rundgren has remained gloriously all over the place. He’ll follow familiar routes, like making a trad-blues covers album or performing a canonical record on tour. But he’ll also run in stranger directions, like dabbling in EDM, acid house, and remixes—all while working at a pace that makes Neil Young look refined by comparison.

Rundgren’s latest album seeks to represent him in a more holistic, reflective light. White Knight is a genre-spanning collection that finds him pairing up with artists new and old to highlight his myriad gifts and to demonstrate the reach of his influence. But even if White Knight makes for Rundgren’s most marketable album in ages, it’s characterized by the cozy, homemade sound that’s defined all his work since 2004’s Liars. This is not the music of an artist attempting to prove himself to a new audience or to reacquaint himself with old fans. Instead, it’s the sound of one of music’s most restless listeners inviting others into the world he built—playing off them like instruments at his disposal.

The album’s greatest moments are often its simplest. Robyn provides lead vocals on “That Could Have Been Me,” and their connection is immediately apparent. Together, they focus on well-worn territory—lonely nights, broken hearts, empty beds—and embellish them with a sadness that feels distinctly their own. Fellow Philadelphian Daryl Hall shows up on “Chance for Us,” and the two pal around over an infectious disco beat, leading to a saxophone solo that feels both inevitable and triumphant. Other tracks put the spotlight on Rundgren’s songwriting. The chugging, Cheap Trickisms of “Let’s Do This” elicit a warm rush of familiarity, while “Fiction” breezes along with stuttering sci-fi synths. Like any of Rundgren’s best-loved work, White Knight is full of pop gems beneath its conceptual framework.

The album’s relaxed charm makes it an easy, endearing listen, but some of its collaborations don’t transcend their novelty. While it’s easy to see what Trent Reznor loves about Rundgren’s music, their track “Deaf Ears” feels disappointingly flat. Reznor and Atticus Ross’ trademark drones fail to spark Rundgren’s imagination, inspiring lyrics that do little more than verbalize the dystopian atmosphere of the music (“We enact The Hunger Games/It’s raining ashes”). The Donald Fagen-assisted “Tin Foil Hat” is a well-meaning protest song, but its surface-level jabs feel like punching down from two of the ’70s’ sharpest songwriters. “He’s writing checks to his accusers/With those tiny little hands,” Fagen sings, and even he sounds exhausted by the futility of these kinds of jokes.

Of course, Rundgren is nothing if not self-aware, and throughout White Knight, he’s quick to laugh at himself. In the faux-Prince funk of “Buy My T,” Rundgren admits to the increasing negligibility of album sales, hawking his own merchandise to stay afloat on tour. Even funnier is “Look at Me,” a mid-album interlude that finds Rundgren barking rhymes with a hypeman who introduces him as “M.C. T.O.D.D.” “I’m a spectacle of myself,” Rundgren shouts to a roaring crowd, “I’m electrical as all hell.” It sounds like his critique of aging artists trying to keep up with the times—demanding their audience view them with the same reverence they did back in the day. Or maybe it’s totally sincere, a testament to his individuality in an industry that demands artists choose a lane and stay in it. Either way, it’s classic Rundgren: weird, charming, and dotted with his favorite kind of jokes—the kind that only he’s in on.