TODD RUNDGREN'S UTOPIA

Todd Rundgren's first Utopia album is an exercise in prog rock by the numbers, a cynical release that ticks all the boxes for a prog release but which at the same time shows severe compositional deficiencies. On A Wizard, A True Star Rundgren proved capable of writing progressive music crammed into hyper-short songs and fired at the listener one after other like a musical gatling gun; here, he gives himself freedom to sprawl, and that proves fatal. Particularly on the album's two longest tracks, Utopia Theme and The Ikon, the group resorts to aimless, redundant riffing on a decidedly limited range of musical ideas.

And at the end of the day, none of the prog posturing disguised the fact that at his heart Rundgren is a power pop songwriter first and foremost, with both Freedom Fighters and Freak Parade essentially being power pop with prog layers smeared over them, and the end result is neither good power pop nor good prog. Any student of politics will tell you that utopias might sound like a good idea on paper, but when you try to put them into practice the idealised vision all too often turns into a dysfunctional reality. Todd Rundgren's Utopia is no exception.