Utopia (band)

Utopia, 1977 L–R: Roger Powell, Willie Wilcox, Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton

Todd Rundgren's solo work (1972 onward) is a study in genre‑hopping with songs that feel like soul, pop, psychedelia, electronica, and even a cappella. 

With the pseudo-band Runt, he made two albums of experimentation, transitioning away from the style of his first band, Nazz.

He was writing more deeply personal lyrics. He was doing a lot of studio experimentation. He was playing nearly all the instruments and doing the vocals himself. The signature albums of that early solo period include Something/Anything?, A Wizard/A True Star, Hermit of Mink Hollow, and Healing.

On his 1973 album A Wizard, a True Star, Rundgren had sung the line "Wait another year, Utopia is here." That lyric predates the band’s formation and suggests Rundgren already envisioned “Utopia” as a concept — a kind of musical ideal or creative destination he wanted to reach. In other words, Utopia wasn’t just a band name, but a kind of mission statement for that time. 

One of those genre-hops came with forming the band Utopia. That was 1973, and they performed and recorded through 1986 with occasional reunions since.

During its first three years, the group was a progressive rock band with a somewhat fluid membership known as Todd Rundgren's Utopia. Most of the members in this early incarnation also played on Rundgren's solo albums of the period up to 1975. For a short period of time (1973–74), Todd Rundgren's Utopia consisted of Rundgren and included Hunt Sales and Tony Fox Sales who had been in his former band, Runt. 

By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and featured a stable quartet of Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell, and John "Willie" Wilcox. This version of the group gradually abandoned progressive rock for more straightforward synth‑pop and a touch of new wave. 

This is the one band where it seems that Todd is a bandleader, not just a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist.

The band played long, complex compositions early on with long instrumental passages. The band evolved later into doing tight, hooky, electronic pop closer to Todd's solo work. 

In 1980, they had a top 40 hit with "Set Me Free". Though often thought of as a Rundgren solo project, all four members of Utopia wrote, sang, produced, and performed on their albums; "Set Me Free", for example, was sung by Sulton.