Utopia - Deface the Music

Utopia is one of those bands I was always curious about as this was Todd Rundgren's band, and for years I'd seen his name pop up on various albums over the years. After a fairly long dry spell (at least two or three weeks) where I could only find obscure show tunes and old Disney records in the dollar bin, up popped what looked to be a decent copy of Deface the Music. There was a slight wobble but I figured it was worth a chance so I brought it home and gave it a little TLC and put it in the queue.

Well, the slight wobble was more than slight and effectively made the first tracks on both sides unplayable, which was a shame. But not all was lost. I'm not sure what I was expecting musically as I hadn't looked it up prior to dropping the needle. I suppose the cover should have given it away, but come on, everyone seemed to have a cover like this at some point. Of course as soon as the music started I found myself listening to a long lost Beatles record ... or The Rutles, depending on your preferences. Personally after a couple of times through the album, I'm leaning to The Rutles - but played straight. Over the baker's dozen of tunes represented Utopia replicates the various eras with uncanny precision. It is an odd love letter that I'm not sure I actually like or am just more impressed they carried the conceit through an entire album. I'll call it 50/50 and admit there are some pretty impressive moments scattered throughout the album.

As my album didn't have any credits I actually wanted to see who was doing what. Sadly I couldn't really find a track by track who's who - but from what I can see the band during this period was pretty stable and was comprised of

Roger Powell - synthesizers, keyboards, backing and lead vocals
Todd Rundgren - lead guitar, lead and backing vocals
Kasim Sulton - bass, lead and backing vocals
John "Willie" Wilcox - drums, percussion, backing and lead vocals

This would sort of explain the band's ability to cover a lot of ground as the band had four lead vocalists ... just like The Beatles, that is assuming you count Ringo - me, I love Ringo, he counts.

For me the album really starts to come alive near the end of the side one starting with "Take It Home" that more or less puts "Day Tripper" in a blender. Then the second side is all gravy. I'm going to have to revisit my 50/50 assessment ... but maybe not, as I think much of my reaction is my response to hearing the bits and pieces the band is paying homage to - as a stand alone piece of music I'm still split.

Whatever, this was 1980 and I find it amazingly cool that a band like Utopia figured it was a good idea to dedicate an entire album to The Beatles.

I know it may seem like I was more or less "meh" to the whole thing, but it did have a certain charm. Enough so that I went back to the store to look for a copy in their regular section. I found a few, and for about seven bucks I picked what I thought was the best of the lot.

I'm hoping to find more of their stuff one day in the discount bin to see what else they had up their collective sleeves. Besides, if I can't wait there's always the regular section that regular people use.

As to Utopia on this one, they were indeed outstanding in their field.

6 Cylinder

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