A Wizard, A True Star

While everyone else was swooning over Something/ Anything?, Rundgren dismissed it as “musically lazy” and “too formulaic”. And so, with the help of magic mushrooms and his newly built studio, Secret Sound, he dug deeper, striving to “map the chaotic musical element” in his head. And he did it, with all the Technicolor vividness reflected on Wizard’s sleeve.

Song fragments, laughing orgies, dog fights, synth burbles, soul covers and mood shifts all flow together. From International Feel to Never Never Land and

Just One Victory, it remains an achievement on a par with

Sgt. Pepper’s and Innervisions.