Todd Rundgren – Utopia
Todd Rundgren is a very prolific artist, with a wide discography not only as musician but also as a producer of known acts like Grand Funk Railroad, Hall & Oats, Meatloaf, among others. In 1974 he adventured into the realm of progressive rock and published “Utopia”, first album of this homonymous band.
The piece “Utopia” is presented in a live version, and has a duration of over 14 minutes. It has all the elements of excellent progressive and this piece alone would warrant a recommendation. But where I want to focus your attention is in the piece “Freak Parade”. The treatment of the vocal melodies and the arrangement is vert avant-garde even by the standards set by the great progressive bands of the moment. The piece “The Ikon”, with a duration of 30 minutes (amazing that they could fit it in the B side of the original vinyl edition) completes this excellent album.
Here’s a link to a live performance in 2011 of the entire “Utopia” album:
The following year, Rundgren released a solo album, also well ingrained in the progressive rock style, titled “Initiation”. The homonymous piece and “Born to Synthesize” are in my opinion the best in the album. In the case of “Born to Synthesize” one has to keep in mind that this production was made in 1975; therefore, all the effects were created by using analogic resources.
This is a live version of “Initiation”
I agree these are great albums from ‘Utopia’s Theme’ to ‘A Treatise on Cosmic Fire’, ‘The Icon’ of course. At the time I thought of them as fusion albums but they have a lot of structure and not a great deal of improvisation. Again the names are not important, sometimes people like to categories things because of distinct differences, but what is awesome is some of the music, and we get to hear the funny side of Todd in such tunes as ‘Death to Rock n Roll’ and ‘Easter Intrigue’.
What astounds me particularly about the shorter song (Freedom fighter) is the fluid way in which mannerisms from ELP, Gentle Giant and Yes’ standards are cleverly developed within a melodic framework whose Beatlesque flavors are so obvious.
Of course, the very long suite The Ikon states the perfect synthesis of the main moods and textures of the 3 previous songs.
You are quite right. It’s progressive rock but looked at from a “pop” perspective. Their Beatlesque flavor turn them into a sort of popgressive proposal. I’m so glad to see you participating!!!