One Hit No More, No. 106: Utopia's "Set Me Free" & Freedom from Prog

O.G.

Nope. Didn’t know this one either…

The Hit
The only remarkable thing about Utopia’s “Set Me Free” is that it came from the primary musical project of one of the most prolific men in 1970s music. Maybe. And yet, no great tales surround it’s creation - it’s the opposite, if anything - it didn’t make Utopia famous (already there), and it came less from a sound that defined them as an act than it dropped a marker on their evolution. According to Wikipedia, that single and the album it appeared on (Adventures in Utopia) derailed their career arc.

It does sound like its time, with the warm 1970s sound (especially on the keys) blending with the cooler synth production the 1980s made popular. If I had to compare it any song I’d ever heard before, I’d go with “Believe It or Not,” the song Joey Scarbury wrote for TV’s The Greatest American Hero.

It didn’t chart that high - it only reached No. 27 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and didn’t blow up internationally - but that’s entirely on-brand for Utopia.

The Rest of the Story
“Utopia as a group is to convince people of the potential reality of the concept. Utopia isn't even the greatest potential reality, it's just what we can afford now. We're the Disneyland of rock and roll bands. Anyone can get into it with a little bit of effort.”
- Todd Rundgren, a 1973 feature in the UK Guardian (reissued in 2013)

Utopia started as “Todd Rundgren’s Utopia,” and it was very much his baby. The original members included various musicians he’d worked with on his post-Nazz solo material, and even all that happened somewhat by accident. Shortly after Nazz petered out, Rundgren found himself without a job, a band and, as he explained to Songwriter Universe in a 2018 interview, “I did not have any confidence as a solo artist.” He had, however, started writing songs for Nazz “because that’s what bands did…after the Beatles.” Rundgren’s first songs trafficked in the usual themes - e.g., the ecstasy and agony of romantic love - and, after having to force himself to sit down to write the first few, it didn’t take him long to understand how easily the process slipped into formula. And hold that thought for now.

Crash-Course, No. 10: Daryl Hall & John Oates. Not Hall & Oates. A Little Respect.

It's still a stupid question.

Personal
If you grew up in the early 80s, you couldn’t avoid these two. At the same time, I might have bit a few dance moves from “You Make My Dreams.” It is very, very hard to lose the rhythm on that one.

A Little History
Daryl Hall and John Oates met very accidentally in Philadelphia, PA. Fate still had to throw them together at a late-1960s “battle of the bands” kind of event at the Adelphi Theater. They showed up separately, Hall with The Temptones and Oates for The Masters. When gunshots chased people from the event, Hall and Oates bumped into one another in an alley, introduced themselves, realized they shared enough inspirations and influences and, by every account I read, the rest was history.

They roomed together at Temple University, then various places across Philadelphia. One key person noticed them early – Tony Mottola, the managerial legend (who later married/managed Mariah Carey) – and they became his first act, and he their first manager. Atlantic signed them before they found their feet musically, or maybe just before they had the status to push-back. Atlantic connected them to producers, and fairly big ones (Todd Rundgren, I recognize, Arif Mardin, I don’t), and they churned out an album per year: Whole Oats (1972), Abandoned Luncheonette (1973), and War Babies (1974). The sound bounced between folk (B-side of Whole Oats, especially), soul, pop, and, by the time Rundgren got his hands in their production on War Babies, something closer to rock even...(gasp) hard rock. Nothing charted in the Atlantic years (“She’s Gone” did all right, and Minneapolis/St. Paul liked ‘em), and Atlantic dropped them after both they, and their fans couldn’t figure out what to make of War Babies. In an infamous-to-anyone-who’s-read-it Rolling Stone article in 1985, Oates offered this thought:

“That was our first test right there. It would have been easy to make Abandoned Luncheonette II. That would have set our entire career, but we didn’t do it. And people walked out of our concerts when we didn’t.”

When it comes to Hall & Oates, that sentence contains multitudes. Moving on…