Like the Beatles’
\nMagical Mystery Tour<\/i>, Fleetwood Mac’s
\nTusk<\/i> or U2’s
\nZooropa<\/i>, Todd Rundgren’s
\nA Wizard \/ A True Star<\/i> is one of those abrupt-left-turn
\nrecords that the geniuses of the rock and roll era who get the
\ncommercial recognition they deserve make as long-anticipated
\n“follow-ups,” challenging their devoted listeners further, and
\nturning their bandwagon fans away almost as quickly as they latched
\non in the first place.<\/p>\n
In Rundgren’s case, this perennially-overlooked
\nsongwriter\/producer was coming off the lone mainstream success of
\nhis now-30-year career, the 1972 double album
\nSomething \/ Anything<\/i>, which harnessed his promising
\nsynthesis of blue-eyed soul and psychedelic experimentation into
\nsome of the most irresistible pure pop ever recorded, among it the
\ndeservedly-smash hits “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light.” So
\nwhat to do for an encore? Well, I wouldn’t have done what he did,
\nbut in 1973 I was a mere toddler, whereas Rundgren was about to
\nbecome the odd, unpredictable musical force of the ’70s that still
\nknows no equal.<\/p>\n
The gatefold is an attractive piece of album art in itself,
\nfeaturing lyrics and notes in Todd’s informal scrawl. He tells the
\nowner of the record to “crank up your victrola as loud as it will
\ngo to get the full enjoyment contained in this here LP.” Doing so
\nundoubtedly caused many to recoil in horror and cry out something
\nto the effect of “What the devil is he doing?!” in perhaps less
\nthan G-rated language.<\/p>\n
The dissonant plane taking off that launches into the leadoff
\ntrack “International Feel” immediately signals that this is not
\nSomething \/ Anything, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo<\/i>. It’s a
\nrough, pounding track, that lasts only a couple minutes, and then
\nsegues awkwardly into a version of “Never Never Land” from “Peter
\nPan” drenched in vintage analog feedback. Huh?<\/p>\n
Side one continues much in this fashion – the songs are mostly
\nfairly short, there’s hardly a break, and our Wizard jumps all over
\nthe place, from vicious hard rock (“You Need Your Head”) to twisted
\nfaux-showtunes (“Just Another Onionhead \/ Da Da Dali”) to indulgent
\nsynthesizer-lab noises (“Flamingo,” “Dogfight Giggle”). Only “Zen
\nArcher” is a full-fledged song, and it’s a sprawling, morbid ballad
\nabout pretty things dying. Side two is more traditional, but nearly
\nhalf of it is a medley of rather unnecessary (and extremely
\nindulgent) tips of the hat to some of Rundgren’s favorite Motown
\nsongs.<\/p>\n
But after the initial shock wears off, and after you’ve listened
\nto
\nSomething \/ Anything<\/i> a few more dozen times, you come back
\nto this album to give it another chance, and like the
\naforementioned classic abrupt-left-turn albums, this one grows on
\nyou like the true work of genius it is. How does this happen? Well,
\nthe mish-mash of side one starts to make a little more sense; it’s
\nin fact Rundgren’s own idea of a musical melting pot, sort of like
\nthe Who’s
\nThe Who Sell Out<\/i> or Frank Zappa’s
\nWe’re Only In It For The Money<\/i> in its ability to rope you in
\nwith sheer variety and unpredictability.<\/p>\n
The segues are almost as important as the songs themselves – the
\nwild gurgling of “Dogfight Giggle” cuts to the smooth, jazzy “You
\nDon’t Have to Camp Around.” The desperate fade out of “Zen Archer”
\nturns into the comical “Just Another Onionhead.” The syrupy “Never
\nNever Land” gets interrupted by the syrupy instrumental “Tic Tic
\nTic It Wears Off.” And the ear-candy-like seventh and diminished
\nchords of Rundgren’s earlier work is still here, just in slightly
\ndisguised form.<\/p>\n
Side two, though not as ambitious (or as good) as side one,
\nshould not go unnoticed either. The well-crafted Philly soul of
\n“Sometimes I Don’t Know What To Feel” leads it off. Then “Does
\nAnybody Love You” sneaks in – it’s one of those cute little songs,
\n(other examples are “Izzat Love” from 1974’s
\nTodd<\/i> and “Onomatopoeia” from 1978’s
\nHermit Of Mink Hollow<\/i>) that Rundgren always throws in the
\nmiddle of his albums, songs you imagine he could write in his
\nsleep, yet still turn out to be wonderfully simple and catchy.<\/p>\n
That god-awful Motown medley comes next, but fortunately it gets
\nredeemed, by the breakneck cry against rejection “Is it My Name?”
\nwhich you would swear was punk if it weren’t 1973, and then by the
\nuplifting “Just One Victory,” which would be a staple of his
\nconcerts for years and the only track from this album to get any
\nsort of radio play.<\/p>\n
This is not the best album with which to initiate new listeners
\ninto the Rundgren canon. But eventually it becomes the sort of
\nalbum you need to listen to over and over again, to discover all
\nthe nuances, to know it so well that you can amuse yourself by
\nplaying it back in your head. It remains the perfect compromise
\nbetween Rundgren’s accessible pop and his even-further-out-there
\nexperiments on some of his work of the mid-’70s. And while it does
\nget tedious from time to time, such is the price to pay for
\nlistening to the work of a wizard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":25152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5630],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36357","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-todd-rundgren","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36357"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36357"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}