A Wizard, A True Star

About A Wizard, A True Star

A Wizard, a True Star is the fourth album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released March 2, 1973 on Bearsville Records. Its music represented a departure from his previous, Something/Anything? (1972). He attributed the idiosyncratic sound of Wizard to his experimentation with psychedelic drugs and his realization of "what music and sound were like in my internal environment, and how different that was from the music I had been making." Upon release, the album received mixed reviews and reached number 86 on US charts. It has since been recognized for its influence on later generations of bedroom musicians. The album was produced, engineered, and, with the exception of some tracks, entirely performed by Rundgren. He envisioned the record as a hallucinogenic-inspired "flight plan" with all the tracks seguing seamlessly into each other, starting with a "chaotic" mood and ending with a medley of his favorite soul songs. At the time of release, he stated that Wizard intended to advance utopian ideals; later, he said that the album had no definite meaning. No singles were issued from the album, as he wanted the tracks to be heard in the context of the LP. With 19 tracks, its nearly 56-minute runtime made it one of the longest single-disc LPs to date. more »