TODD RUNDGREN'S UTOPIA

Todd always seemed to be one of those "I can do that!" composers. Never much for originality, but always a meister of good production values. Here he obviously raised his eyebrows at the likes of Yes, KC and Genesis and said "I can do that!" So what did he do? He did it!

Bringing in a cracker-jack lineup of Kevin Ellman on drums (who gives Neil Peart a run for his money even before he joined Rush!), John Seigler on bass and 3 keyboardists, Todd just throws in everything incuding the kitchen sink. The whole album is pretty much an encyclopedia of prog all wrapped-up in a unprecedent 60 min. single vinyl release. You want it? You got it! Symphonic, fusion, funk, bizarre, artsy it's all here. Unfortunately as most of Todd's work, it's just not very original. Great production values and precision musicianship, but Todd is still just following footsteps.

This lineup pretty much self-destructed from the beginning, eccentric synthesist M. Frog Labat went on to do whatever (last I heard he was doing some church organ music albums!), drummer Ellman is now a financial adviser and who knows where the others went. Todd later recycled Utopia in a more basic lineup to do some more pop oriented prog but never topped this debut splash.

All in all a good album to listen to with some great musicianship and that's as far is it goes. But I guess you could still consider it a prog classic for those virtues alone.

Nuff said: 3 1/2 stars.