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.
