Hermit of Mink Hollow by Todd Rundgren (CD, Nov-1987, Rhino)

Having been a fan of Todd Rundgren since I first heard "We Gotta Get You a Woman" it's fair to say I like his more pop/rock stuff. This album contains some of his best in that genre. Stand outs for me are "All the Children Sing", "You Cried Wolf", "Fade Away", Can We Still Be Friends" and "Determination".
The first album of his I purchased was "The Ballad of Todd Rundgren" and on it he does a few tunes that roll around on a verse with subtle changes in perspective which I've always enjoyed—"Wailing Wall" being a good example. That's evident here also in "Hurting For You". Todd gets a little "political" with "Bread" and "Bag Lady", but I feel it's good to get folks to think about things outside themselves and their own experience.
Todd plays everything of the album and does all the vocals too. This is another thing I've always admired about him because I never feel the songs have ever suffered in their presentation when he takes this direction. Yeah, he might not be the best at a particular instrument, but what he plays fits the tunes which to me is more important than a lot of flash from a great player.
If you like the stuff Todd's done from the "Something/Anything?"​; album on back this album will please also. A solid effort from an underrated artist.

This is a minor classic album. Tremendous fan all my life of Todd Rundgren's Music. I wasnt' quite prepared for the depth to some of the lyrics on this album. "All the Children Sing" to the last track are all very good/excellent, socially relevant songs featuring mostly genius-level hit song type melodies. Classic, groundbreaking sound production and engineering on this album, just like on all Todds' other albums. This is considered by many fans to be one of TR's last great solo albums, but he has produced numerous pure diverse pop/rock albums since then that are at least consistently as good as this one. Of these, Nearly Human (1989) and Liars (2004), come immediately to mind. Great albums, all!

MANY PEOPLE AREN'T FAMILIAR WITH TODD RUNDGREN. HAVING BEEN RAISED IN MICHIGAN I HAVE HAD A LOT OF EXPOSURE. THIS CD IS ONE OF HIS EARLIEST; HE IS SUCH A PIONEER OF SOUNDS AND HIS BALLADS ARE THE FOUNDATION FOR MANY TO USE AS EXAMPLES. TODD RUNDGREN'S MUSIC NOW, EVEN 30 YEARS LATER IS FRESH, HE WAS "TECHNO" BEFORE TECHNO WAS THE COOL THING TO DO.

SONGS THAT I LOVE ON THIS: ALL THE CHILDREN SING, TOO FAR GONE. OTHER TODD RUNGRENS CDS TO GET: SOMETHING? ANYTHING?, BALLAD OF TODD RUNDGREN

This is the very best of Todd. He wrote all the songs AND played ALL the instruments himself. Oh yeah, and he recorded and mastered it all himself too. This was back in the day, prior to home recording studios and plugging into your PC and going. Okay, enough about what a pioneer and technical whiz Todd is and was.
The songs range from instrospective, gut wrenching "Bag Lady" to fun as can be "Onomatopoeia." If you like Todd, this should be on top of your CD rack! Buy it!

I heard the song "Can we still be friends?" on the movie Dumb and Dumber so I did some research and found out that the song was by Todd Rundgren. This song is the only one on this cd that I really like. All of the songs on this cd sound so different and it is hard for me to believe that the same person wrote and is performing these songs. I really wish that I would have gotten his greatest hits cd instead of this one.