Utopia
Pov

For music, when they started, the '80s weren't really that much of a tragedy... The baroque excesses of the previous decade had already been stripped down by punk, but atmosphere and melody couldn't be suppressed forever... So they re-emerged in their splendor with genres like dark and especially new wave, or rather with their combination. Even technology and recording techniques, the scientific side, in short, like everything that is in itself progress, cannot be stopped... Of course, knowing that new wave would give way to new romantic... That intellectual synth beat became dance...

Rundgren, who as a solo artist had successfully ridden the wave of new musical demands with lows (an interesting but unresolved work with new age tones and almost without guitars) and highs (the excellent "The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect"), but always and inevitably with proverbial courage and inevitable prolificacy, with Utopia prefers to reposition himself in the pop rock realm, presenting pop aligned with the production of the era, FM rock, and apart from "Swing To The Right" (which might as well have been from ten years before or ten years after), he devotes himself to a song repertoire made of structural solidity, but a bit more monotonous and predictable. "Pov", a year younger than "Oblivion" and two younger than "Utopia" (and three years younger than "Swing To The Right"), is another work along the same lines.

The '80s are strange, though: you barely create a musical genre or launch a trend, and that genre is already almost passé. In "Pov", Utopia offers Arena rock, typical of the early decade, but by '85 it's already out of fashion; they go with some good new wave in "Zen Machine", but who still listens to pure new wave in 1985? They then try pop, but the tracks come off as unpretentious, a bit subdued, so aligned and covered ("Mated" above all), so flattened on the rest of the then-mainstream musical production that Utopia's hand is indistinguishable, to the point of losing their trademark. And in a decade where branding was everything...

When they narrowly avoid overflowing into new romantic, thanks solely to a genuine guitar solo in the unfortunate "Style", then it's clear the trail is running out, ideas have dried up, and it's not enough to retreat into the semi-prog of "More Light" or the purified blues of "Mistified". Only the opener "Play This Game" survives, a promising start marked by a driving and catchy rock, and "Wildlife", popwave with that extra touch of genius, that something that can (and should always) be sensed and felt when the greats are in play: the trademark.

The problem is certainly (and always) the excessive prolificacy: in a production not I say parsimonious but at least careful, at least six of these eleven songs would have been considered as filler. So why not try fewer records but better ones? Of course, Rundgren, genius and recklessness, won't follow any advice dictated by any form of common sense and... No, he won't continue with one album a year, but will definitively dissolve (except for the usual filthy lucre reunions) his Utopia. Who knows, maybe he was right, maybe the ideas were over, but couldn't he have waited, say, a couple of years? Three? Maybe in the meantime the inspiration would return!

In '85 Todd, even as a solo artist, decided to stay "dry" from records until 1989 (his absolute record), but he didn't completely retire from the scene!

In the '80s, another band devoted to the future dies, whose leader is also an avant-garde man. A band that knows the value of three and a half minutes of song, with a great signature, that of its leader. A band of great musicians and excellent interpreters. A band like few others in that decade, with such credentials!

The '80s were really strange!