''2nd Wind'' is the thirteenth album by American musician

Todd Rundgren Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, sound engineer and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Ut ...

, released in 1991 on

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

. It reached number 118 on the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart. ''2nd Wind'' includes the single "Change Myself" and was Rundgren's final album on a major label until 2004's '' Liars''.

Background

As with its predecessor, '' Nearly Human'', Rundgren chose to record the album with a full band, as opposed to playing all of the instruments himself. The album was recorded live in front of an audience at the

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, over the course of a week. The album includes three songs ("The Smell of Money", "If I Have to Be Alone" and "Love in Disguise") written for Rundgren's musical version of the

Joe Orton John Kingsley Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), known by the pen name of Joe Orton, was an English playwright, author, and diarist. His public career, from 1964 until his death in 1967, was short but highly influential. During this brie ...

play/screenplay ''

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''. "Gaya's Eyes" continues the new, more mature sound introduced on the preceding album '' Nearly Human''. Rundgren used the video for the album's only single, "Change Myself," as a showcase for the NewTek Video Toaster, a desktop video card for the

Commodore Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

computer.Electronic Musician 1991 – Volume 7, Issues 7-12 – Page 99 "Todd Rundgren's stunning video for his song "Change Myself" required no less than ten Toaster systems running in parallel for a period of five weeks."

Releases

Promotional DJ issues of the CD have a black, gold and blue swirl on the CD label where the stock releases have a blue and yellow swirl. There was also a vinyl release of the album in Europe which is nearly impossible to find. After the album had been out of print for several years, Friday Music released a remastered version in October 2008, the first release in what the company called the "Todd Rundgren Remaster Series", although the follow up remastered release of Nearly Human didn't arrive until 2021. In 2002,

Image Entertainment RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) is an American film production company and home video distributor, distributing film and television productions in North America, with approximately 3,200 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 340 ...

released a DVD entitled ''The 2nd Wind Recording Sessions,'' which detailed the making of the album, and featured interviews with Rundgren as well as band members and fans. Also included with the video was ''The Desktop Collection,'' a compilation of Rundgren's Video Toaster-powered music videos, including "Change Myself."

Track listing

All songs written by Todd Rundgren.

Personnel

– vocals, guitar * Roger Powell – keyboards and vocals *

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– keyboards and vocals *

Ross Valory Ross Lamont Valory (born February 2, 1949) is an American musician who is best known as the original bass player for the rock band Journey from 1973 to 1985 and again from 1995 to 2020. Valory was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a ...

– bass *

Lyle Workman Lyle Dean Workman is an American guitarist, composer, session and touring musician, and music producer. His music has been widely distributed since his debut on the eponymous '' Bourgeois Tagg'' album in 1986, and is known for his work as compos ...

– guitar *

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– drums * Max Haskett – brass and vocals * Bobby Strickland – reeds, winds and vocals * Scott Mathews – percussion, guitar, samples and vocals * Shandi Sinnamon – vocals * Michele Gray – vocals * Jenni Muldaur – vocals

References

1991 albums Todd Rundgren albums Warner Records albums {{1990s-rock-album-stub