RA
Utopia
•Eclectic Prog
From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website
3.67
| 146 ratings | 21 reviews | 22% 5 stars
Excellent addition to any |
Studio Album, released in 1977 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Overture: Mountain Top and Sunrise / Communion with the Sun (7:15) - Todd Rundgren / lead vocals, guitar, producer
LP Bearsville - BR 6965 (1977, US) and to Quinino for the last updates Edit this entry |
Buy UTOPIA Ra Music
-
DOUG LARSON IMPORTS — Buy prog rock music and rarities (Free shipping on orders over 10 CD's)
- AMAZON.COM — Best-selling prog vinyls
UTOPIA Ra ratings distribution
(146 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(22%)Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(53%)Good, but non-essential (14%)Collectors/fans only (8%)Poor. Only for completionists (3%)
UTOPIA Ra reviews
Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings
Collaborators/Experts Reviews
PROG REVIEWER
PROG REVIEWER
Even with a few flaws, "Ra" shines brightly in the UTOPIAn landscape as an example of Todd bringing his genius to bear on more ambitious music. As a halfway point between the sometimes sprawling arrangements of earlier UTOPIA albums and the streamlined pomp of subsequent works, UTOPIA moves from failed ideal to a workable blueprint.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
Todd Rundgren used to like to cram as much music as possible onto LPs. "Ra" was no exception, with five lengthy tracks on the first side, and two on the second. These days, he appears to rather struggle to come up with enough output worthy of a single disk.
The opening track, "Communion with the Sun", is a majestic, powerful piece, with swirling synthesisers, and a superb vocal performance by Rundgren. "Magic dragon theatre" is a wonderful piece of amateur dramatics ("I'm sure we were followed, Dr Clang") with a clanking piano beat.
At over 18 minutes, the last track, "Singring and the Glass Guitar", is the longest track on the album. Subtitled "An electrified fairytale" it initially comes across as a rather lightweight, slightly comical track. In fact, it is a well constructed piece of light prog, telling the tale of our heroes' search for four keys which will combine to release a glass guitar containing the spirit of harmony from a chest(!). The search and discovery for the four keys affords each band member the opportunity to slip in a brief solo. The story is narrated by what sounds like a dwarf on helium. The forgoing description probably makes the whole thing sound a bit silly, but trust me, it's well worth hearing.
The remaining tracks are all of a high quality, especially "Hiroshima" where the message is frighteningly clear.
An excellent album from Todd and his mates, diverse yet melodic, and well performed throughout.
PROG REVIEWER
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
This album really is startling uneven. On the positive side we have the fiery Communion With The Sun which has some nice moments, and Sunburnt Finish, a splendid rocker with a great riff, an excellent verse melody (which is sung by Powell, Rundgren and Sultan in turn!), a fusion inspired mid-section and some awesome exchanges by Powell on Moog and Rundgren himself! Then we have Hiroshima, one of Rundgren's most powerful songs ever. With strong anti-war lyrics, heavy riffs, and a gripping arty mid-section (with voiceovers and other sound effects) this piece is also graced by some vicious solos from Powell and Rundgren.
On the downside there are totally un-prog songs which are inferior takes on sounds already covered ad nauseam by Rundgren. Magic Dragon Theatre is one of those quintessential Rundgren pop/soul mini-operas that belongs on his classic 1972-1974 phase. Jealousy is a dull hard rock number sung by Wilcox and even the ballsy Rundgren solo that would have done Richie Blackmore proud doesn't save it. Likewise Eternal Love, despite an interesting psychedelic acapella section and some nice keyboard fills, is basically a draggy piano ballad sung by Sultan.
The uneven nature of the album is probably best summed-up by its 18 minute centrepiece Singring And The Glass Guitar, an excellent tune almost marred by some intermittent and highly ridiculous vocal additions from an "old fairie" John Holbrook. Despite that silliness (which reminds me in a strange way of the awful Hare Who Lost His Spectacles story that interferes with Jethro Tull's excellent A Passion Play album), this song is generally great. An epic fantastical tale, with wonderful melodies, and potent instrumental fireworks ... each band member represents an element within the tale (Rundgren is Earth, Wilcox is Water, Sultan is Wind and Powell is Fire) and each turns in an excellent solo accordingly. I really enjoyed Wilcox's drum solo and Sultan's melodic bass excursions, which is great considering these guys generally were outshone by Rundgren and Powell. That's not to say that Powell doesn't put in another stunning turn on Moog and I must say I really love the epic feel of the Rundgren-led conclusion.
Nonetheless, like its two predecessors, Ra is a flawed prog-rock album. I really wish there was some way to take all the best bits from the first album, the first half of the second and chunks of this one too, and re-edit the whole affair into a prog masterpiece. There is a fair amount of rambling that goes on even within the really good songs, and I can well imagine that hard-core proggers will find albums like Ra to be a big disappointment. ... 61% on the MPV scale
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk Researcher
"Pyramid assembly instructions:
Cut along the outside edge of the pyramid (do not cut off tab 'a'). Gently fold the edges of each panel into a pyramid shape. Tape or glue tab 'a' under the edge of 'b'.
Experiments have been done with pyramids that have the same proportions as the one you are now holding in your hand. The findings of these experiments suggest that the energy within the pyramid is transformed in such a way that it slows down the rate at which organic matter deteriorates and decomposes. The flavor of foods confined in the pyramid's center was noticeably enhanced, and the freshness of the food itself was preserved for a surprisingly long time. If you would like to try an experiment of your own, find an area free of electromagnetic interference (away from t.v. set, etc.) ~ outside is real good. Using a compass, align one of the faces to magnetic north, place some object inside the pyramid for a while, and observe. Let us know what happens."
So if there were any doubt that Rundgren spent the majority of the 1970's stoned, this answered the question for me at least.
Still, I must admit about all I can clearly remember of Rundgren and of Utopia from my teenage years are "Hello, It's Me", "Bang the Drum all Day", and the uncharacteristic Motown medley from A Wizard. The rest of his music has faded with the dense smoke many years ago. I certainly don't remember purchasing this album some 28 years ago, but there it was. So I played it - three times, as often is suggested on this site.
Turns out it's actually a pretty decent album, although it probably came out about five years too late for the progressive heyday of the early 70's (not that Rundgren was ever much of a slave to fashion anyway). It must have been quite funny to see this on the record shelves next to some of the early Fear, Black Flag, and X recordings.
The quality of the record on the whole is a bit uneven, with "Hiroshima" being the one song I think could easily have been left off the album. Unlike most Rundgren tunes, this one doesn't seem to flow all that well. The guitar work is basically an uneven power-chord progression, punctuated occasionally with Oriental percussion and keyboard-type sounds. Rundgren and the young bassist Kasim Sulton alternate on vocals, which only serves to exacerbate the uneven delivery. The abrupt "nuclear explosion" at the end sounds more like a firecracker going off in a toilet.
The rest of the recording is quite interesting, even listening to it for (apparently) the first time nearly three decades after I paid $6 US for it (the price tag is still on the cover too).
The opening track, "Communion with the Sun", is prefaced by a short overture ("Mountain Top" and "Sunrise") by the late Bernard Hermann, composer of memorable film scores for Vertigo, Psycho, and Citizen Kane. The delivery is spirited and precise, with the harmonizing vocals of the four band members setting a solid tone for the rest of the album. Like several other songs on the album, the subject matter is the Sun ("Ra"), in this case a hippy-like ditty about communing with said Sun .
"Magic Dragon Theatre" is a typical Rundgren composition, with a circus-like delivery and lyrics that surely made more sense to him than they do to anyone else, then or now. I gather the song is about the spectacle of a stage show, complete with dancing girls, monkeys in top hats, and a freak parade. Sounds like Todd is reminiscing about getting wasted and going to the carnival (lol!). The intermittent wailing saxophone is an interesting touch.
"Jealousy" features drummer John "Willie" Wilcox on vocals and harmony guitar, but lack of harmony is basically what this song is about. Apparently someone's significant other grew green eyes, and the bloom is off the rose of that relationship.
"Eternal Love" finds Sulton again on vocals, and apparently Rundgren and the green- eyed monster made up.
"Sunburst Finish" has some really interesting vocals, as keyboardist Roger Powell, Sulton, and Rundgren alternate on the lyrics throughout. The lyrics themselves are pure bong-water - "traveling down the sandy track, compass in hand guitar on my back, trying to find the secret truth inside the pyramid", but the drums are crisp, Rundgren's guitar work is actually pretty upbeat and strong, and the song as a whole is a solid close to the first side of the album.
The final cut on Side B is the 18:24 tome "Singring and the Glass Guitar", the most ambitious effort on the album. Sound engineer John Holbrook gets all hopped up on helium and delivers some kind of Tolkienish spoken-word tale about a guy who's frolicking around in a Land called Honalee and.wait, wrong story. Anyway, the guy is wandering around looking for these golden keys that will unlock a glass guitar so he can smash it and release the "spirit of harmony". If it hadn't been written in 1977 I'd have sworn this was a half-decent plot for a cutout-bin Playstation game. The music itself is very good though, with intermittent solos and extended play by each instrument, along with some fairly strident but aggressive vocals by all four band members. It's a very well-constructed song which, if not taken too seriously, is well worth 18-plus minutes of your life.
All told, this has to be a four star album simply because it represents the only true attempt the venerable Todd Rundgren makes at employing an actual band, as opposed to a group of backing musicians. This in itself makes it an excellent addition to any prog music collection. The overall quality of the music suffers somewhat as a result of Rundgren's democratic approach perhaps, but the variety of sounds is something he would never subsequently achieve on his own. Worth a listen, and who knows - you may already have it and were too busy living in the 70's to remember!
peace
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams
While the album does have a hefty helping of good prog, there is also a hint of the pop direction they would veer towards in the very near future. Jealousy is a straight ahead rocker, with a single prog sounding riff at the start of each verse and chorus. Eternal Love is a fairly straight love ballad, that sounds a bit like a Queen arrangement (after they had forsaken their progressive roots).
The two purely prog songs are just great. Communion With The Sun opens with a short Bernard Hermann overture before breaking into the speldor of the song itself. Sunburst Finish (a guitar reference), closes the album with an equally proggy piece.
Magic Dragon Theater is a bit silly, but not bad, sort of a crossover prog song. Hiroshima, a heavy handed song about the use of the atomic bomb, features some wonderful screaming solos from Rundgren and Powell.
The album closes with the eighteen minute Singring And The Glass Guitar (An Electrified Fairytale). While this prog epic is very well done, the simplistic tale makes it difficult to listen to repeatedly.
On the next album, Oops, Wrong Planet, Utopia took another step away from progressive music (other than to play the older songs in concert). Too bad.
COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam
You may know Todd from his hits, but when he decided to dabble in progressive rock music, he jumped in whole heartedly.
As you might guess from the cover art and album title, there is a bit of a sun theme going on here. It gets off to dramatic start with Mountaintop And Sunrise / Communion With The Sun. "love is one" dedicated to Ra, of course. Has all of the blazing guitar and synthesizers that endeared the first Utopia album to me.
Magic Dragon Theater breaks off from the sun theme and introduces a little humor. Reasonably complex short tune.
The next two have more commercial potential and are sort of polar opposites: Jealously and Eternal Love. I don't know if the former charted, but if not it should have.
Side one of the original album returns to the Egyptian/sun theme fininishing it up with a Sunburst Finish. Back into solid prog territory with this one.
Side two kicks off with a different type of sun: Hiroshima. A remeberance of an event that wasn't the U.S.'s best moments. "God God is on our side, he placed the power in our hands to teach the yellow peril how to make an oven."
Singring And The Glass Guitar wraps up the album clocking in at whopping 18 plus minutes (hey look, it's a fairytale.) Sort of a tongue in cheek fun epic.
COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
1. "Overture: Mountain Top And Sunrise/Communion With The Sun" (7:15) (8.5/10) 2. "Magic Dragon Theatre" (3:28) sounds like a more-earthly follow up to "Initiation"'s "Treatise on Cosmic Fire" with some interesting radio theatricity. Not bad; not great. (8/10) 3. "Jealousy" (4:43) an attempt at some snarky metallic music a la "Todd"'s "Heavy Metal Kids." (6/10) 4. "Eternal Love (4:51) a piano-based love song from the pop-tune master. Unfortunately this one has no great hooks or dynamic shifts to suck the listener in (as well as some flawed vocals). (7/10) 5. "Sunburst Finish (7:38) another attempt at Zappa? Todd lets the others have share the vocal leads. Unfotunately, the chorus is horrendous. (5/10) 6. "Hiroshima (7:16) a favorite Utopia song for to this day--though the chorus lyric can't help but bring smiles due to the opportunities for wordplay. Still, the song had some power to it. Unfortunately, it does not stand up very well over time. The best part is the theatric radioplay interlude after the second chorus followed by some awesome synthesizer and guitar soli. (8/10) 7. "Singring And The Glass Guitar (an Electrified Fairy Tale) (18:24) the true epic as it tries to tell a fabulous story, the music stands up okay (though it could well have been an inspiration for SPINAL TAP), but the story doesn't (never really did). (8/10)
More than a lot of Todd's albums, this one suffers terribly from age. Three stars; maybe two.
PROG REVIEWER
PROG REVIEWER
I think the best thing about this album is how much stuff that is one it. A lot of lengthy tracks on this one, with the smallest being only a little over 3 minutes long. It is also fairly accessible for a Prog record, however that is not counting the last song, but we'll get there when we get there. I feel like each track is pretty pop rock like, which is not a bad thing. In fact I do really like this style, especially on tracks like Magic Dragon Theatre and Eternal Love where they do still feel like Prog tracks, but with a pop edge to them so you groove out. Some of the tracks also are pretty hard hitting to. For example, the song Hiroshima feels like a hard rock song, and definitely would go well in a hard rock pub if it was played on the radio. I should also mention the vocal work is not half bad. It definitely feels right with the songs and their instrumentals. However while I do like the vocals, I feel like I've heard these same sort of vocal performances in bands like Kansas, Styx, and Blue �yster Cult. It sort of makes it feel less original, and brings it down a bit for me.
I guess I should also talk about the last track on the album, Singring And The Glass Guitar. Now before I say my piece, I want to let you know that I do really like this track. It is epic and catchy when it needs to be and it does a good deal making a very nice Prog suite, albeit a little silly in a few moments, but I don't mind it. However, I have some problems with this track. I feel like the weakest parts of this track is the middle parts with the keys. When the hero is collecting the keys, they start to play a solo. For the river, it plays a drum solo, for the dragon it plays a guitar solo, etc and etc. Now I do love my fair share of solos, I think they are a fun way to flex the skills of a musician of the band, however I feel like done to much and you'll gain some problems, since I think it'll make the song feel a little clumped up with nonsensical sounds. The appeal of progressive rock suites that they are big and have a great layer of substance, this song feels like it has rarely any substance to be heard of, aside from the start and that very magnificent ending. While the track isn't bad, it is a very weak Prog suite, maybe the weakest one I have heard.
Ra by Utopia is a pretty good album. It has it's shining moments and has some great work to be found on it. However sometimes it feels a little nonsensical and maybe weak at times, maybe more than I'd like to admit. Overall, good album, but not the best.
Latest members reviews
As I read through the reviews I didn't notice a great deal of 5's. I am cautious about that last star as it can be too easy to personally like something and not be objective for what the review is supposed to be. That is what was wrong with media reviewers addicted to 3 minute pop songs giving u ... (read more)
Report this review (#2786800) | Posted by Sidscrat | Saturday, August 27, 2022 | Review Permanlink
Wasted Potential. Epic Ruined. This album should have been great. It begins with a great opening track "Mountaintop and Sunrise: Communion with the Sun", a classic late-1970s progressive rock song. It ends with an 18-minute epic. There are some great guitar solos, and some excellent musical secti ... (read more)
Report this review (#1698207) | Posted by Walkscore | Friday, March 3, 2017 | Review Permanlink
Their first full album of all studio tracks, Utopia's RA is very eclectic in mood and style, with the nice ballad "Eternal Love", the angry "Jealousy", the Beatles-like psychedelia of "Magic Dragon Theatre", the serious band workouts "Communion With the Sun" and "Sunburst Finish", the not-so-s ... (read more)
Report this review (#580215) | Posted by 7headedchicken | Friday, December 2, 2011 | Review Permanlink
A true ProG concept album, produced by Todd Rundgren, based on the supreme powers of the sun. Cool right? Along with solid performances by the band, the album RA, features plenty of unique guitar solos performed by none other but the "Runt" himself. All the songs on this 1977 release are stron ... (read more)
Report this review (#126483) | Posted by Wishbone Ash | Thursday, June 21, 2007 | Review Permanlink
Just listening to this, so i looked up the reviews to see what others thought. This has always been one of my favourite Todd/Utopia albums and although patchy in parts features some his great guitar work. The opener is a lift from soundtrack composer Bernard Hermann. I believe it's from the ST ... (read more)
Report this review (#63330) | Posted by Billymac | Thursday, January 5, 2006 | Review Permanlink
One of the last, finest prog albums from -70's. Lovely hippiestyle with poppish influence from TR. Very pleasant and i find it a masterpiece. First song is very strong, masterful guitarwork from Todd Rundgren, amazing keyboards, and stunning drums. Oh. its instrumental (mostly) . 10/10 Magic ... (read more)
Report this review (#62678) | Posted by | Sunday, January 1, 2006 | Review Permanlink
This album has maybe the greatest and most entertaining song ever: Singring and the glass guitar. Also Hiroshima is a wonderful great song. and great guitairing guaranteed! This album deserves 4.5stars so ->5 =) Todd Rundgren used to fill the lp:s so song quality may vary but this is a great ... (read more)
Report this review (#57004) | Posted by | Saturday, November 19, 2005 | Review Permanlink
This album should be bought for Side 2 alone! "Hiroshima" and "The Glass Guitar" are both progressive/art rock classics, with immensely poetic, creative lyrics, and incredible vocal and instrumental works. Sure, it's not as symphonic as Todd Rundgen's Utopia, the premire album of Utopia, since th ... (read more)
Report this review (#26496) | Posted by | Thursday, April 28, 2005 | Review Permanlink
I don't think this album has stood the test of time. The American's were not doing a really good job with progressive rock in the late seventies - maybe Kansas had a few flashes of inspiration - but generally it was a European thing. Just as the first wave of progressive rock was starting to be ecli ... (read more)
Report this review (#26488) | Posted by | Saturday, January 10, 2004 | Review Permanlink
Post a review of UTOPIA "Ra"
You must be a forum member to post a review, please register here if you are not.
MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE
As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.
You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).