Initiation is the sixth studio album by American musician Todd Rundgren, released on May 23, 1975 by Bearsville Records. With this album, Rundgren fully embraced the synthesized progressive rock sound he had begun exploring in more depth in his work with his band Utopia. However, unlike Utopia, in which Rundgren had limited himself to playing guitar, much of the synthesizers on Initiation were played and programmed by Rundgren himself.

Content At over sixty-seven minutes, Initiation is one of the longest commercially-released albums contained to a single LP disc. Due to a plastic shortage, in order to keep the album on one vinyl LP, Rundgren had to limit and EQ the master so the bass response was rolled off to keep the grooves small enough to cut onto a single disc; he also had to speed up the first half of Side One ("Real Man" to "Eastern Intrigue") and speed up the entirety of Side Two to eliminate 2–3 minutes from each side (5). The album's original inner sleeve included a note which stated: "Technical note: Due to the amount of music on this disc (over one hour), two points must be emphasized. Firstly, if your needle is worn or damaged, it will ruin the disc immediately. Secondly, if the sound does seem not loud enough on your system, try re-recording the music onto tape. By the way, thanks for buying the album."

The titles and concept are taken directly from Alice A. Bailey's book A Treatise on Cosmic Fire.

Critical reception In The Illustrated New Musical Express Encyclopedia of Rock, Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden wrote, "Initiation (1975), despite the pretentious flirtations with half-baked versions of Zen Buddhism and Alice A. Bailey's "A Treatise On Cosmic Fire" that influenced his lyrics and Eastern mystic scores, contained a perceptible undercurrent of his former melodic invention while one could ascertain traces of self-parody and wry humorous debunking of what Rundgren appeared on the other hand to be holding up as valid. At a shade over one hour Initiation is also amongst the longest albums ever made, evidence of his engineering abilities, if not his sense of self-control".

Influence When asked if Rundgren had influenced his music, with perceived influences of Initiation on Queen Elizabeth and Rite², Julian Cope responded that he and Thighpaulsandra loved "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire", "but we both bemoaned the fact that it was recorded so long before ambient music had been defined that Todd treated it as an ever-evolving, almost prog-rock piece. We both loved huge elements of that piece but found that we never listened to it. So we tried to build that Todd-like transcendence into our own piece of music [with Queen Elizabeth]."

Track listing All tracks are written by Todd Rundgren.

Personnel

"Real Man" (Recorded at Secret Sound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizer, RMI Keyboard Computer, ARP String Ensemble, percussion Moogy Klingman – RMI Keyboard Computer Ralph Schuckett – clavinet John Siegler – bass Kevin Ellman – drums

"Born to Synthesize" (Recorded at Bearsville Sound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals Roger Powell – synthesizer treatments

"The Death of Rock and Roll" (Recorded at Mediasound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals, guitars Ralph Schuckett – clavinet Rick Derringer – bass Kevin Ellman, John Wilcox – drums

"Eastern Intrigue" (Recorded at Secret Sound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals, electric sitar, electric piano, RMI Keyboard Computer, ARP String Ensemble, additional percussion John Miller – bass Roy Markowitz – drums Lee Pastora – congas, bongos Barbara Burton – percussion Roger Powell – nose flute

"Initiation" (Recorded at Mediasound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals, lead guitar, clavinet, synthesizer, RMI Keyboard Computer, ARP String Ensemble Bob Rose – rhythm guitar John Siegler – bass Rick Marotta, Bernard Purdie – drums Lee Pastora – congas David Sanborn – saxophone solo Roger Powell – synthesizer solo

"Fair Warning" (Recorded at Mediasound Studio) Todd Rundgren – vocals, piano, electric sitar, RMI Keyboard Computer, ARP String Ensemble Moogy Klingman – organ Rick Derringer – guitar Dan Hartman – bass Chris Parker, Barry Lazarowitz – drums Edgar Winter – saxophone

"A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" (Recorded at Secret Sound and Bearsville Sound Studios) Todd Rundgren – all instruments Roger Powell – synthesizer programming, "creative assistance"

Production Todd Rundgren – writing, production, arrangement, mixing, and engineering ("Real Man", "Born to Synthesize", "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire") Jack Malken – engineering (all other tracks)

Charts Album Chart (1975)PositionBillboard Pop Albums86

"Real Man" Chart (1975)PositionBillboard Hot 10083

References

5. Richard Robinson - Crawdaddy Magazine - July 1975 "Todd was born to synthesize"