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Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star
09.13.2009
02:32 pm
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The great—and very underrated—Todd Rundgren recently did a mini-tour playing his 1973 classic A Wizard, A True Star album from start to finish—for the first time ever in his career—with theatrical flourishes and costume changes. It makes a lot of sense to me that classic rock era musicians are playing their best beloved albums from start to finish. It’s what the fans want to hear and it makes it more of a “special” event. I doubt I’d be that excited for just any Todd Rundgren concert, but I really hope he brings this show to Los Angeles.

Here’s how rock scribe Barney Hoskyns described A Wizard, A True Star in MOJO magazine:

“Sometimes,” Todd Rundgren sang, “I don’t know what to feel.” But sometimes you do know what to feel. And right now I feel like saying what I’ve contended for many years, which is that Rundgren’s A Wizard, A True Star is simply The Greatest Album Ever Made.

You heard me right, pardner. Better than Pet Sounds. Better than OK Computer. Certainly better than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Farts Dub Band. An album of vaulting ambition - of wizardry and true stardom - released into an unsuspecting world by a contrary, super-precocious wonderboy who should have been the biggest thing to happen in the ‘70s but who was just too complex and polymorphous for lasting pop success.

A Wizard, A True Star came out 35 years ago but still sounds more bravely futuristic than any ostensibly cutting-edge electro-pop being made in the 21st Century. A dizzying, intoxicating rollercoaster ride of emotions and genre mutations, the album was substantially the work of Rundgren himself, pieced together in late 1972 at his own Secret Sound studio on NYC’s West 24th Street.

Here is a bit of Todd Rundgren-related trivia found on his Wikipedia page

On the 30 Rock episode “The C Word,” Tina Fey’s character Liz Lemon is telling producer Pete and writer Frank about the obscenity Lutz called her, stating, “He called me the worst name ever. I’m not gonna repeat it. That’s how much I hate it.” Then after multiple guesses by the two, she says, “No! It’s the one that rhymes with the name of your favorite Todd Rundgren album,” referring to Runt, but Frank replies, “It rhymes with Hermit of Mink Hollow?”

I fell out of my seat when I heard that line. Here is a clip of Todd performing Hello It’s Me on the Midnight Special in 1973:

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.13.2009
02:32 pm
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