Comments for Utopia, RA

The first album with what became the permanent 4-man Utopia lineup, RA is also that roster`s most progressive (which is not surprising given the Utopia albums that preceded this one). Musically speaking, RA has some of the most exciting music that Utopia would produce (Communion With the Sun, Sunburst Finish, Hiroshima). In particular, Todd Rundgren and Roger Powell`s guitar-keyboard interplay and combined songwriting showed some real promise (that, alas, was never quite realized on subsequent releases). The biggest problem is the lyrical content of the 18-minute Singring and the Glass Guitar, which is musically quite listenable but the story line is downright embarrassing. Its cuts like this that have given progressive rock a bad name. If you can ignore that song`s lyric, this could be a favorite Utopia album for you. If you can`t, then right off of the top count 40% of this one as a total waste.