** Todd Rundgren

WITH A TWIST

(Guardian)

Todd Rundgren has come up with another entertaining way to sabotage his own career, something he's been doing since he followed up Utopia's most successful release (1979's Adventures in Utopia) with an album of Beatles parodies (Deface the Music). This year he's getting some of his due as a power-pop pioneer, thanks to his inclusion on Rhino's Poptopia! series and to Lori Carson's cover of "I Saw the Light." But instead of riding that wave with a pop album, he's released this perverse set of bossa-nova versions of his own greatest hits.

"Am I serious?" he asks on the back cover, and the answer's hard to fathom. The opening "I Saw the Light" starts out as a credible reworking before the overdone strings and back-up vocals come in. His vocals are generally stronger than they've been in years, but the arrangements don't avoid cocktail cheesiness; the tiki-ized "Hello It's Me" jumps in headfirst. "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference" is built around that generic Latin riff Paul Shaffer's always playing. The more obscure "Influenza" is the only track that really works, mainly because it was a bossa nova already. The rest will get a few giggles from fans, blank stares from everybody else.

-- Brett Milano