Talk:A Wizard, a True Star

Untitled

Listening to this album, several things occur to me....

• How many albums have a comma in the title? I think it's pretty unusual. In fact I can only think of Dwight Yoakham's "Guitars, Cadillacs etc.".

• I think "When the Shit Hits the Fan" contains one of the earliest direct references to the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain (I realise John Lennon's "Luck of the Irish" predates this).

• The closing track "Just One Victory" bears more than a passing resemblance to The Impressions' "People Get ready". As TR covers their "I'm So Proud" elsewhere on the album he clearely had Curtis & co on his mind.

• How personal is "Is It My Name?" It sounds like a cry from the heart.

I don't know if any of this warrants inclusion in the page proper.

"How many albums have a comma in the title?"

--I can think of Lick My Decals Off, Baby, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Sing Loud, Sing Proud!, A Blow for Me, A Toot for You, and The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, so it's not unheard of.

I think "When the Shit Hits the Fan" contains one of the earliest direct references to the IRA's bombing campaign on mainland Britain (I realise John Lennon's "Luck of the Irish" predates this)

--There's also Paul and Linda McCartney's "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", released a year earlier than Rundgren's song. Johnnyt471 (talk) 02:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Censored DJ version

The article says, "White Label DJ copies include a censored version of 'When the shit hits the fan/Sunset Blvd', replacing 'shit' with 'stuff' ..."

The white label DJ copy that I heard at the time did not substitute the word, but rather bleeped it. The bleep, however, was not the kind of intrusive sound one normally hears, but was a synthesizer noise that sounded as if Rundgren himself did it. Richard K. Carson (talk) 04:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Earlier tour

The album, or much of it, was performed solo on at least one performance at University of Florida in the '70s, circa '74 to '76. It was mostly done with taped sound, and he played synthesizer tracks and sang. Mydogtrouble (talk) 15:29, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

short article

There should be more for an influential album on best of lists like for Rolling Stone. A quick glance of the edit history shows several aspects such as production and mastering techniques allowed this to be one of the longest vinyl records made. The names of 10,000 fans that mailed a postcard from this album were printed on a poster with Todd's next release Todd. 22yearswothanks (talk) 02:38, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Error in article

The article states (a couple of times) that no single was released from the album. A single was released from the album, Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel b/w Does Anybody Love You was released in the US, in April 1973 on Bearsville, as BSV-0015.

The two songs were included in the 2019 release, Todd Rundgren, The Complete US Bearsville & Warner Bros. Singles

References

The foretelling of Utopia

That Rundgren sang "Wait another year, Utopia is here" on this album and that Utopia (band) debuted the next year is directly relevant to this album and its legacy. The claim of the reverter that it's "obvious" is not a reason to exclude anything from an article; if you check WP:MOS there is no such rule. The claim of the reverter that it's "redundant" is simply untrue, as the fact is nowhere else stated in the article. Please don't revert it the next time I add it. Thanks.