Vinyl Album - Utopia - Deface The Music - Bearsville

Vinyl Album

Artist:	Utopia
Title:	Deface The Music
Label:	Bearsville
Country:	UK
Catalogue:	ILPS 9642
Date:	Nov 1980
Format:	LP
Collection:	I Own It I Want It
Community:	2 Own
Price Guide:	Valuation Page
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Track	Artist	Title	Composer	Rating
A1	Utopia	I Just Want To Touch You	Utopia	Rate
A2	Utopia	Cystal Ball	Utopia	Rate
A3	Utopia	Where Does The World Go To Hide	Utopia	Rate
A4	Utopia	Silly Boy	Utopia	Rate
A5	Utopia	Alone	Utopia	Rate
A6	Utopia	That's Not Right	Utopia	Rate
A7	Utopia	Take It Home	Utopia	Rate
B1	Utopia	Hoi Poloi	Utopia	Rate
B2	Utopia	Life Goes On	Utopia	Rate
B3	Utopia	Feel Too Good	Utopia	Rate
B4	Utopia	Always Late	Utopia	Rate
B5	Utopia	All Smiles	Utopia	Rate
B6	Utopia	Everybody Else Is Wrong	Utopia	Rate

Notes

Produced by Todd Rundgren and Utopia for Alchemedia Productions.

Black inner record sleeve.

Images

Comments and Reviews


Jcolefan 8th Mar 2018		My favorite too!



bobzyeruncle 24th Nov 2013		Still my favourite Utopia album. (I know, I know) :laugh:



JPGR&B SUBS 28th Oct 2013		Review In early 1980 Todd Rundgren was invited to provide some music for the soundtrack to an Alice Cooper film called Roadie, starring Meat Loaf in the title role. Todd offered a new tune called I Just Want To Touch You, a cute pastiche of The Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand and, although it was never used in the film, it got a very positive response from Cooper and the producers of the film. This got Rundgren thinking: maybe he should record a whole album of Beatles sound-alikes, just for the hell of it, with Utopia – Rundgren, Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton and John “Willie” Wilcox – on back-up. It made sense. After all, The Beatles had been a huge influence on Todd’s songwriting ever since his days with Nazz. Plus, of course, he had been there before: in 1976, on side one of his seventh solo album – Faithful – he had recorded note-perfect renditions of two Lennon and McCartney songs, Rain and Strawberry Fields Forever, so it wasn’t as though the territory was unfamiliar. The 13 tracks on Deface The Music weren’t cover versions, however; they just recreated the sound and spirit of classic Beatles. If anything, the project recalled former Monty Python Eric Idle’s Beatles-parodying band, The Rutles, only this was less tongue-in-cheek, and more affectionate. The songs were written and recorded in the space of a few weeks in 1980 and ranged from early Beatles skits to latter-day psychedelic weird-outs à la Sgt Pepper. On reflection, it may have been an interesting idea to mirror the evolution of rock’s most important band by starting around 1964, working through mid-‘60s Revolver-style experiments and finishing up with a suite of songs along the lines of side two of Abbey Road. But Deface The Music was never that premeditated (although it does start with an early-Beatles blast and end with a psych-Beatles affair), and in the end the listener just gets a clutch of Paul ’n’ John-alikes based around the music the pair wrote between ’64 and ’67 – before, as Todd puts it, “The Beatles started to get goofy”. I Just Want To Touch You was I Want To Hold Your Hand in all but name; Crystal Ball was pure hi-energy Lennon-angst (Help); Where Does The World Go To Hide evoked You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away; Silly Boy was a little like From Me To You; Alone was a wistful McCartney-esque ballad sung by pretty-boy bassist Kasim Sulton in the style of Girl; Take It Home had something of the vigour of Drive My Car; Hoi Polloi and Always Late were quirky tributes to Ringo Starr; Life Goes On featured the nagging string motif of Eleanor Rigby; Feel Too Good had the upbeat feel of Getting Better and finally there was Everybody Else Is Wrong, a conflation of such LSD-era Beatles cuts as Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. As for the cover art for the album, the front echoed the simplicity and style of the With The Beatles album – it showed illustrations of four busts of the band members’ head-and-shoulders courtesy of Jane Millett, while the rear sleeve featured a photograph of our heroes shot at a distance, surrounded by grass, standing below the pun: “Outstanding In Their Field”. Deface The Music (and an accompanying single) was released in November 1980, mere weeks before John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building in New York. In the light of such a cataclysmic Beatles-related event, the album was regarded as too lightweight an exercise, which is perhaps why it was mostly overlooked, a shame considering the excellence and accuracy of the pastiches. That said, it reached Number 65 in America and is now regarded as one of Utopia’s best, not to mention yet another interesting diversion of the career of Todd Rundgren, rock’s foremost eclectic. Source: Paul Lester (and slightly amended by JPGR&B) in the sleeve notes for the UK Castle Music Limited 1999 digitally remastered CD release Deface The Music (ESM CD 760), with acknowledgement, and used for educational purposes. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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Linked Releases

USA - Bearsville - 1980

Netherlands - Bearsville - 1980

Netherlands - Music On Vinyl - 2020