ANTHOLOGY (1974-1985)

I had heard about Utopia and was hoping to buy a sampler that hopefully wouldn't cut too many corners. Of course, given the nature of prog band compilations, it'd probably be more of their commercial cuts. I ignored this warning completely when I picked it up at a local record store. You are greeted by late (some early) 70's to mid 80's Pop Rock and some new wave flavor too. The only pure exception is the 15th track being the artsiest and progressive.

The music in terms of sound is nice. Some synths and keyboards are in the background while guitars take the main portion of the sound. However, the sound is rather cluttered and muddy on many tracks.

I had 2 big takeaways: The first being the lack of progressive rock or art rock songs I was hoping to find, and second, for whatever reason, the CD version I have has an odd error where the beginning of another song abruptly starts at the end of another track. This means that if I was selecting a specific track to throw on somewhere, I'd have the first 2-4 seconds chopped off at the beginning. Maybe It's just the way I am, but I find that a tad annoying... anyhoo, Utopia seems to be very good at writing pop rock, in fact so good that some hits dented the charts in America briefly. If you're looking for prog or artsy compositions from this band, this compilation will not help that..