TODD RUNDGREN - A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR @ 50

 

Released 50 years ago today, it’s the fourth solo album from Todd Rundgren, A Wizard - A True Star, which hit the record shops on March 2nd, 1973. After the pop chart success of Todd’s previous record, this album saw him veer off into some far more challenging and experimental avenues than where he’d gone before. It was an album inspired by Rundgren’s indulgences in psychedelic drugs and his desire to bring the music he was hearing in his head out into the world.

With limited exceptions, the entire album was created from the ground up by Rundgren, who wrote, performed and produced most of it save for a few bits and pieces here and there. It’s the kind of approach which would be of direct inspiration to young talents like Prince, who often cited Rundgren as a key touchstone. Todd envisioned the album to function as a kind of “flight plan” for a psychedelic trip, carefully crafting it so that each track progressed from one to the next in a seamless manner. No singles were released from the album as Rundgren wanted the LP to be considered as a whole.

After the success of his previous record, Something/Anything, Rundgren began to feel uncomfortable with the praise he was receiving and the comparisons being made to past classics. When he returned to NYC in 1972, he began experimenting with psychedelic drugs for the first time in his life. To his recollection, this included DMT, mescaline, psilocybin, and possibly – but not certainly – LSD. These inner journeys caused him to question his prior work, coming to the conclusion that the simple pop songs he’d made his name on were lacking in effort and true creativity, often feeling formulaic and perfunctory. This realization made him determined that his next record would be far more eclectic and experimental. He explained, "It wasn't like I suddenly threw away everything that I was doing before and decided that I was going to play the music of my mind", rather, the experiences allowed him "to actively put some of my songwriting habits away and to absorb new ideas and to also hear the final product in a different way." However, he "wasn't really aware, at that time, that I'd make such a radical shift".

To record the album, Rundgren and keyboardist Moogy Klingman established a professional recording studio, Secret Sound, to accommodate the Wizard sessions. Located at Manhattan's 24th Street, the studio was designed to Rundgren's specifications and was created so that he could freely indulge in sound experimentation without having to worry about hourly studio costs. During these sessions, Rundgren came to certain revelations, like the idea that the general approach to synthesizers, which was to try to make them sound like traditional instruments, was completely misguided. He realized the instrument had the potential to sound like ANYTHING and that limiting it to pale imitations of horns or strings was a waste of its potential. Rundgren assembled o plethora of instruments in the studio, including vibraphones, organs, keyboards, Fairchild equalizers, and his Stephens 16-track machine. As much as he was able, he’d work by himself, but in some instances, particular songs required others to be available. In these cases, he’d recruit Moogy & the Rhythm Kingz, a band that included drummer John Siomos, keyboardist Ralph Schuckett, and bassist John Siegler. Rundgren encouraged the musicians to contribute any ideas they felt would benefit the music. According to Siegler, "when Todd needed guys to play on his record, we were already there. It was like a club. Secret Sound was our clubhouse, and suddenly Todd was the leader of the club.”

Stylistically, the album runs the gamut from prog & psychedelic rock to Broadway show tunes, bubblegum pop, Philadelphia soul, jazz and funk. The album’s flow is somewhat of an expression of musical ADD, with Rungren unconcerned about the apparent completeness of his ideas, flitting about from one to the next with sometimes abrupt transitions. Regardless, the album is intended to have a specific flow to it, beginning in a kind of chaos and then evolving through a sense of “utopian” idealism, culminating in a medley of Todd’s favorite Philly soul tunes. Music writer Bob Stanley commented that, with Wizard, Rundgren combined all his musical loves, such as "bits of Gershwin, Weimar cabaret and a fight between electronic dogs", into "a red-blooded synth stew".

With the runtime of the album pushing the hour mark, making it one of the longest single disc LPs ever engineered, mastering the vinyl became something of a technical challenge. Most records tend to stay below the 20 minute mark per side, maybe pushing a few minutes beyond that in a pinch. The longer the runtime, the less spacing you can have between the grooves. To accommodate this, the volume level of the mastering had to be dropped, which compromised the sound quality. The liner notes on the album actually address this and advise listeners to increase playback volume to compensate.

Upon its release, the album was met with critical praise, but its eccentric nature knocked it out of contention for much commercial viability, causing it to sell poorly compared to his previous records. Yet commercial success was never the point of the album for Rundgren. After this, he’d spend much of the decade further pursuing his progressive passions with his super-group, Utopia, releasing several albums with them and touring with an elaborate stage show. Todd’s success as a record producer would earn him more than enough commercial success to enable his indulgences on more adventurous projects as a performer.