Todd Rundgren's Utopia - Utopia Theme
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Communion With The Sun - Live 2018
US American rock band formed in 1973 by Todd Rundgren.
During its first three years, the group was a progressive rock band with a somewhat fluid membership known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Most of the members in this early incarnation also played on Rundgren's solo albums of the period up to 1975. By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and was a stable quartet of Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox. This version of the group gradually abandoned prog-rock for straightforward rock and pop.
In 1980, they had a top 40 hit with "Set Me Free". Though often thought of as a Rundgren-oriented project, all four members of Utopia wrote, sang, produced and performed on their albums; "Set Me Free", for example, was sung by Sulton. The group broke up in 1986, but reunited briefly in 1992. More recently, beginning in 2011 the earlier prog-rock incarnation known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia was revived for a series of live shows.
For much of the double-album Todd, Todd Rundgren was exploring weird instrumental avenues, creating a warped, synth-fueled variation of prog rock. This wasn't the culmination of the weirdness A Wizard, A True Star initiated -- it was merely the beginning. Not long after completing Todd, Rundgren assembled Utopia, a prog rock group with no less than three synth players, plus guitar, bass and drums. Ostensibly, the band was a collective effort, with Rundgren contributing no more than the remaining quintet, but the possessive nature of the title of their debut, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, illustrates who the driving force of the group was. And it is true that TR's Utopia picks up where Todd left off, expanding the already lengthy experimental instrumentals by adding layers of synthesizers that stretch on forever -- which is no exaggeration, since only one track ("Freedom Fighters") is single-length, with the remaining three cuts clocking in between ten and thirty minutes. For anyone who isn't a dedicated fan, slogging through these seemingly endless prog excursions is a little tedious, and even the devoted may find that these roads, while occasionally interesting, don't necessarily lead anywhere.
US American rock band formed in 1973 by Todd Rundgren.
During its first three years, the group was a progressive rock band with a somewhat fluid membership known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Most of the members in this early incarnation also played on Rundgren's solo albums of the period up to 1975. By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and was a stable quartet of Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox. This version of the group gradually abandoned prog-rock for straightforward rock and pop.
In 1980, they had a top 40 hit with "Set Me Free". Though often thought of as a Rundgren-oriented project, all four members of Utopia wrote, sang, produced and performed on their albums; "Set Me Free", for example, was sung by Sulton. The group broke up in 1986, but reunited briefly in 1992. More recently, beginning in 2011 the earlier prog-rock incarnation known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia was revived for a series of live shows.
For much of the double-album Todd, Todd Rundgren was exploring weird instrumental avenues, creating a warped, synth-fueled variation of prog rock. This wasn't the culmination of the weirdness A Wizard, A True Star initiated -- it was merely the beginning. Not long after completing Todd, Rundgren assembled Utopia, a prog rock group with no less than three synth players, plus guitar, bass and drums. Ostensibly, the band was a collective effort, with Rundgren contributing no more than the remaining quintet, but the possessive nature of the title of their debut, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, illustrates who the driving force of the group was. And it is true that TR's Utopia picks up where Todd left off, expanding the already lengthy experimental instrumentals by adding layers of synthesizers that stretch on forever -- which is no exaggeration, since only one track ("Freedom Fighters") is single-length, with the remaining three cuts clocking in between ten and thirty minutes. For anyone who isn't a dedicated fan, slogging through these seemingly endless prog excursions is a little tedious, and even the devoted may find that these roads, while occasionally interesting, don't necessarily lead anywhere.