Customer Reviews

Utopia

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

By turns it's art-rock, ethereal, a dash of fusion and even pop--reflecting the trends of the period and also some of the more progressive cross-pollination. I adore this album, I rue the day this line-up disbanded and TR trimmed down this glorious type of music to a streamlined 4-pc. group w/less experimentation. Though Utopia went on to create some fine stuff showcasing Todd's genius for songcraft, nothing ever again equaled this in terms of scope and majesty.

I don't know if he took the bad press to heart or what. It's a shame that those who can't handle sophistication and complexity when it comes to rock music have to pan something like this. The simple 3-chord garage/punk/metal etc. will always be around; just think what a dull, monochromatic world it would be if that was all there was.

When I first heard this album in either 78 or 79, I was still very much into hard rock and heavy metal groups like Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, Kiss, and Black Sabbath, so it was kind of surprising that I took to this album so fast. I personally think it's the best Utopia album and maybe the best thing that Todd Rundgren has ever done, before or since.

Utopia began life as a six piece, outer space jazz fusion, progressive metal outfit. The band had two keyboard players, one synthesizer player, and (obviously) a drummer, bassist, and of course, a guitarist and vocalist by the name of Todd Rundgren. For a six piece unit, they were awful darn tight, although all six members are given a chance to stretch out and solo on their respective instruments. And...remarkably for music this weird and complex....the musicians don't really sound like they are showing off. The whole album is very musical and highly listenable.

The album is very daring in it's song lengths...... the first song is 14 minutes long, the second one 10 minutes, the third just four minutes and the last one 30 minutes. And at a time when bands were afraid to put more than 20 minutes per album side ( back in them golden days of vinyl records), Utopia put nearly 29 minutes on the first half and 30 minutes on the second, the whole thing (just in case you didn't have your calculator out) clocking in at nearly an hour!

The first song, " Utopia " ( or " Utopia Theme ", depends on whether you have the cd or vinyl version), is probably my favorite song on the album. Trying to describe it and the rest of the songs is difficult, since there is so much going on musically for each song, but " Utopia " is essentially divided into three or four sections, and it's tough to say which section I like the best, since it's all great. Todd gets in some tough rhythm guitar playing and some very fluid and jazzy, space age metal lead guitar solos, Kevin Ellman's drumming is amazing. As I said earlier, there is a great deal going on during this lengthy track. Words can't describe it, you'll just have to experience it! It's even slightly danceable at times, especially if you are one of them aliens in the first Star Wars movie, which comes to mind when I listen to it.

" Freak Parade " may be the strangest track on the album....the highlights of the song ( to me) are the somewhat frightening synthesizer solo in the middle, the beautiful, classical like piano solo near the end and John Siegler's funky bass line on the fade out. " Freedom Fighters " is the most normal song on the album and my least favorite song here. It's rather tame compared to the rest of the album. Disappointingly, this was the only song from this album to make the Utopia Anthology CD.

As for " The Ikon ", for a song that runs half an hour long, it is highly listenable and very enjoyable and immediately likable, which I think is unusual for a song of it's considerable length. Lots of different musical sections and tons of solos, plenty of guitar and keyboard riffs and melodies...and yes, there is even some singing in it! Some of the more quiet sections remind me of Yes. The song somehow manages to sustain it's interest throughout it's entire 30 minutes...and 22 seconds.

This is a great album, full of very exciting and adventurous music. A must have!!

I'm an avid prog rock fan, but I also have a pretty extensive collection of Todd, whose music most may view as "eclectic" if nothing else - dabbling at times in pop, prog, electronica, computer-based effects, etc. So if you never spent the time to get to know the Todd beyond his Carole King-like ballads, then you might have missed some pretty cool music of his. (You also would have missed some not-so-great stuff in and around, but we won't go into that here;-)

He was perhaps at his proggiest in 1974 and 1975 when he gave us "Todd Rundgren's Utopia" and followed it up with his "Initiation" album (which I've already gone on record as promoting as a personal "Top 5" album). But this Utopia album is different from all of the subsequent Utopia albums in one major way: the personnel that comprised all subsequent studio albums of the prog-pop Utopia were Todd, Kasim Sultan (bass), Roger Powell (keys), and John Wilcox (drums), while this one-off first Utopia album consisted of Todd, John Siegler (bass), Kevin Ellman (drums), and THREE keyboardists: Moogy Klingman, Ralph Schuckett, and Jean-Yves "M. Frog" Labat. Different sound and different musical focus.

The bottom line here is that this album is really something special for prog fans. The opener, "Utopia Theme", was recorded live in Atlanta, and really is superb for all of its 14 minutes, featuring GREAT guitars (by TR), synths, vocals, melodies, and mystical lyrics. The remainder of the album is studio recorded. The 10-minute "Freak Parade" begins with a great vibe, and ends with the solo bass line fading out. In between, you get a little Zappa-like quirkiness - a bit weird for me in places, but it does hold together pretty well. "Freedom Fighters" is not quite as "poppy" as some reviewers might have you believe. Yeah, it's written in 4/4 time and only lasts about 4 minutes, but it's also a pretty good song. And you kind of need that before the 30-minute-long album closer "The Ikon". This cut is classic prog that runs the gamut from symphonic to spacey (think "Treatise on Cosmic Fire" in spots), to jazz fusion, to Western hoedown! Lots of soloing and jamming combined with clever transitions to new sections.

If you like adventure and a plethora of keyboards in your prog diet, this first unique Utopia album is a great way to escape to musical nirvana. Recommended.

I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:
Music quality = 8.8/10; Performance = 9/10; Production = 8/10; CD length = 9/10.
Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 8.7 ("4 stars")

Todd's first lineup of Utopia, that included three keyboard players, was short lived, however, this debut release is an outstanding psychedelic prog disc that is overlooked (don't know why) by some prog fans. Most of the songs are lengthy, well written, and exciting, so I never lose interest. "The Ikon" is a thirty-minute constantly changing musical journey of ideas that are cohesive. I can't say the same of most other epic tunes. As expected with three keyboard players, there is plenty of room for instrumental passages and solos, so if that's not your style, pass on this. However, if you're a prog fan and you've never heard this, it is essential listening.

I have never really been a Rundgren fan. I remember as a teenager in the 80's watching a Utopia concert video on MTV, and not being overly impressed...the band was good, but not my cup of tea. After all, they were playing more commercial numbers, and I was listening to Zappa, Yes, and Marillion. It wasn't until a year or so ago that I even heard about this mysterious Utopia prog album. I avoided buying it until today.

WOW!! This is a great disk! Equal parts prog, psychadelic rock, funk, and fusion, played very well by very accomplished musicians. "The Ikon" is worth admission price by itself. With excellent vocal harmonies, keyboard parts that can be reminiscent of Gentle Giant, outstanding drumming, and so on, and so on. I had written in a review of Jethro Tull's "Broadsword" CD that Peter John Vitesse was one of prog rocks great unsung keyboard players. Todd has enlisted three (yes 3!!) great unsung keyboardists for this CD: Moogy Klingman, M. Frog Labat, and Ralph Schuckett. These guys are excellent, and I mean in a Emerson / Winters / Froom kind of way.

If you are a fan of progressive rock or jazz fusion, or you like top notch keyboard playing pick this up!

My only knock on this recording is the quality of the recording. Although I am (was) not a real fan of Rundgren's music, I have thought that he was a very worthwhile producer. Meatloaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" and The Tubes "Remote Control" come to mind as great Rundgren productions. However, at least to me, there seem to be some production flaws here...but this is a minor complaint.

All in all, a welcome addition to my collection!

I've had this for years on cd and have waited patiently for it to be carefully remastered. I'm not drawn to the rest of Rundgren's catalog- most of it being a bit too "pop" for my liking, but give him credit for being a great balladeer nonetheless. This recording, however, raised the bar with his ability to compose and conduct a full-on rock band. The title track is simply astonishing-- a gorgeous melody woven into some of the most fiery, punishing progressive rock you'll likely to hear from the 70's. These are PLAYERS!!! Unfortunately, the initial release on cd, as well as the vinyl pressings have an annoying harshness to them- the keyboards border on screechy, and are not so easy on the ears. Thankfully, the Japanese have reissued them using K2HD mastering, and they did a fantastic job! I wasn't too happy with this type of remastering on previous discs (PFM's "Photos of Ghosts" contains tape hiss, and ELP's catalog was so-so) but this one they nailed. The harshness on keys and synthesizers was rounded out and the full spectrum of bass and guitar can now be heard. Let's hope the folks at Rhino can do as good a job here at home, and re-release it. I'd say buy this one while you can. Will. CT USA

This album was made when several groups were mimicking, whether they cared to admit it or not,YES. Black Sabbath, Led Zep, others were doing tracks or entire albums with something owing to the ground broken by Yes in albums like Fragile and Close to the Edge.

This is Rundgrens attempt in this area. Although, when this project first came out in the press, and no records had been made, it sounded like he was going to do something sounding more like Mahavishnu. He had just given us his Glam-Pop masterpiece, A Wizard A True Star, and this was apparently intended to be his next chapter. The keyboard fills on melodies are stunning, the textures and vocals are worthy of Yes, but what causes this band to fall short of their model is Rundgren's own guitar playing. He is not a dynamic stylist like Howe or Fripp or Hacket, not even a hard prog rocker like Gary Green of Gentle Giant. His solos sometimes come off as derivatives of the guys who played guitar for Moby Grape or Steppenwolf: harsh and cheesy, straight from the old garage. But it is still, in a lot of ways, a beautiful record. Just not a great band.

Music that will take you to that idealized place. A concept album built around Utopia(the place which the band was named after). The music is different than anything that the band would try again and it's kind of surprising to me that this one is still one of the easist ones available given the fact that it's the least radio friendly with three long songs mixed in with one short one. The songs themselves, starting with Utopia which is recorded live and is quite involved rocks hard. Freak Parade is a cool tune with some really nice changes in it. Freedom Fighters is a fun song and The Ikon which used to take up all of side two goes to many wonderful places. I should add that the lyrics are also execelllent. Makes you think that Utopia REALLY IS HERE. Once again, the JVC copy rocks.

Music that will take you to that idealized place. A concept album built around Utopia(the place which the band was named after). The music is different than anything that the band would try again and it's kind of surprising to me that this one is still one of the easist ones available given the fact that it's the least radio friendly with three long songs mixed in with one short one. The songs themselves, starting with Utopia which is recorded live and is quite involved rocks hard. Freak Parade is a cool tune with some really nice changes in it. Freedom Fighters is a fun song and The Ikon which used to take up all of side two goes to many wonderful places. I should add that the lyrics are also execelllent. Makes you think that Utopia REALLY IS HERE. Once again, the JVC copy rocks.

Most people back in the 70's when they thought of Todd Rundgren thought of his pop hits, "Hello it's Me,' "We Got to Get You a Woman," or the Phildelphia based, The Nazz. Very few knew about Utopia or that Todd was the genuis behind this band. The 70's were full of "Art Rock" or "Progressive Rock" acts like Yes, ELP, Uriah Heep, King Crimson, but none of them mixed together the wonderful ecletic brew that was the first "Utopia" album. Todd Rundgren's "Utopia" was an exotic brew of Rock, Jazz, Funk, Pop, even one or two Country Westren bass lines thrown in the mix for a truely epic Science Fiction concept album worthy of "Metropolis."

The first track recorded live, "Utopia Theme," (14:18 ) is a magnificent progressive Rock extravaganza filled with killer key boards & guitar playing ominously to addictive melodies. I first heard this song on 99 plus KFMH & knew I had to have the album it came from. Next comes "Freak Parade," (10:14) a song that is truly a freak of musical wizardry & accessible melody, built on complicated time signatures of Rock, Funk & Jazz. "Freedom Fighters" (4:01) is the shortest & most vocal orriented song on the album, it is also the most Pop orriented, but still makes for a very enjoyable song progression. The real crown jewel in this album of jewels is "The Ikon," 30:22 of the most incredible brew of sophisticated musical wizardry of rock for it's time. It is truly amazing that this song never repeats it's self untill the very ending, changing musical chops & genres like a kaleidoscope changes colors, yet still remaining an intoxicating marriage to Rock that contagiously reels in the listner to it's exotic sounds. The melodies will stay in your head for hours!

I emphatically recomend this album to those of you who love rock music at it's most progressive, but also love it to be melodic. Those who are hardcore into the heavier sounds of Metal will proably not enjoy this, but I sure do! Check it out!

5/5