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Nearly Human

Nearly Human
Todd Rundgren - Nearly Human.jpg
Studio album by Todd Rundgren
Released May 18, 1989
Recorded June 1988-February 1989
Studio Fantasy Studios, Berkeley and The Plant, Sausalito, California
Genre Pop rock, soul
Length 53:02
Label Warner Bros.
Producer Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren chronology
A Cappella
(1985)
Nearly Human
(1989)
2nd Wind
(1991)
Singles from Nearly Human
  1. "The Want of a Nail"
    Released: 1989
  2. "Parallel Lines"
    Released: May 1989
  3. "Can't Stop Running"
    Released: 1989
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 4/5 stars
Classic Rock 7/10 stars
Rolling Stone 4/5 stars

Nearly Human is a 1989 album by rock musician Todd Rundgren, released by Warner Bros. Records. It was his first release in four years, although he had been active as a producer in the intervening years. Many of the album's songs deal with loss, self-doubt, jealousy, and spiritual recovery. It was also the first collaboration between Rundgren and Michele Gray, a singer and ex-model who helped organize the sessions. Gray sang background vocals, both on the record and on subsequent tours, and the pair later married.

The song "Parallel Lines" was originally written for Rundgren's musical theater Off Broadway production of Joe Orton's Up Against It. The original version is rather slow and can be found on Rundgren's Japan-only album Up Against It!. The song was re-recorded here with an uptempo and lusher arrangement.

Unlike a large portion of Rundgren's solo albums on which he played all the instruments and sang all lead and backing vocals, Nearly Human was performed live in the studio with numerous musicians, including the members of Rundgren's defunct band Utopia, which had broken up three years earlier; Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton, and John "Willie" Wilcox all play on the track "Can't Stop Running". Scott Mathews and former Tubes members Vince Welnick (keyboards) and Prairie Prince (drums) also perform on Nearly Human; the track "Feel It" was originally performed by the San Francisco band on their 1985 album Love Bomb, produced by Rundgren. Brent Bourgeois and Larry Tagg of Bourgeois Tagg, whom Rundgren had produced, also played on the album along with all three other three members of the band, making Nearly Human effectively a Rundgren-Utopia-Bourgeois Tagg-Tubes collaboration, plus extra vocalists and keyboard players.


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