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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Utopia hits collection is good-but not comprehensive enough, December 2, 1998
For those fans who think Todd Rundgren's musical output is limited to the Something/Anything album and We Gotta Get You A Woman single, this disc may come as a shock. Although Rundgren's solo albums and concerts had a tendency to be inconsistent over the years, Utopia's albums were typically filled with power pop and Beatlesque songs that more popular bands would have killed for. To Rundgren's credit, Utopia was truly billed as a group effort, with the only special mention given to Rundgren usually being that Utopia albums were produced by Todd Rundgren and Utopia. Rundgren even shared lead vocal duties with fellow band members Kasim Sulton(bass), Roger Powell(keyboards) and John "Willie" Wilcox(drums). Of the 16 songs on Anthology, 10 are credited as being written by the entire band. The focus on the group shows in the songs-styles are varied and the playing is tight.Anthology attempts to highlight the best material from the band's collection of fine albums. In this respect, I'm not sure the single disc does the band proper justice. Several of the best cuts are included, most notably Trapped, Love In Action and Love Is The Answer from Oops! Wrong Planet,and You Make Me Crazy, Set Me Free and The Very Last Time from the equally fine Adventures In Utopia. But only one song from the Deface The Music album made the cut. This was Utopia's brilliant Beatles knock off and the exclusion of tunes like Where Does The World Go To Hide, Alone, Always Late, All Smiles and Silly Boy make this collection too incomplete to carry the title of Anthology in my opinion. The other Utopia album which is represented by only one song is 1982's self-titled Utopia album. The 3-sided album was considered to be one of the group's best, yet for some inexplicable reason only Feet Don't Fail Me Now is included here. There's nothing wrong with that selection-it's one of their best ever. But Kasim Sulton's vocal on Libertine and Rundgren and Sulton's harmonies on Bad Little Actress make those two cuts essential for Utopia fans. Another high point from that album which did not find its way onto Anthology was Hammer In My Heart, a longtime Rundgren concert favorite. The selection from Ra of Overture/Mountaintop And Sunrise/Communion With The Sun is a rather strange one as well. Where are Jealousy and Hiroshima? Overall this collection is worth owning if you're only a marginal fan. But I'm betting that this disc will leave you wanting more. A better bet would have been to make this a double disc as Rundgren's solo anthology was. Had this been done, the songs mentioned above as well as Swing To The Right,Gangrene,Caravan,Rock Love,There Goes My Inspiration, and others could have been included. Utopia was always completely underrated as a group. Through no fault of Todd Rundgren, it seemed they could never establish their own identity separate from him. A thorough and more comprehensive anthology collection might have gone a long way to change that. It's a shame that such a fine band doesn't get a little better overview of their work here, especially from a label like Rhino, which normally does an outstanding job of putting together collections like this. You won't be disappointed by this album, but you might wish you had saved the money and instead purchased several of the band's individual albums, all of which are available on cd.
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