Todd Rundgren - No World Order: Expanded Edition (1993/2011)

Every Todd Rundgren album seems to have a gimmick, and on this one, which inaugurates his recording relationship with the Forward subsidiary of Rhino Records, the trick is that he recorded almost four hours of musical fragments of four to eight seconds each and put them on an interactive CD so that they could be combined in a nearly infinite number of ways. If you have a CD-I, that is. If you only have a regular old CD player, this non-interactive version presents 10 songs and six variations on them. Rundgren has added rap to his arsenal, his lyrics are more political, and many of the tracks seem aimed at the dance floor. Sounds like music designed to fall through the cracks, right? Rundgren fans will be put off, while the new jack swingers won't bother to listen. But the real problem is that it's just not very good. (By the way, with this release Rundgren anticipated Prince's decision to rename himself in a weird way: he officially became "TR-I," for "Todd Rundgren-Interactive.") (On June 7, 1993, Forward released No World Order "Lite," an alternate version of the album's 10 tracks, through mail order at a midline price.)