Swing to the Right

Swing to the Right
Studio album by Utopia
Released	February 24, 1982
Recorded	at Utopia Sound Studios
Genre	Pop rock, new wave, progressive rock
Length	38:55
Label	Bearsville
Producer	Todd Rundgren and Utopia
Utopia chronology
Deface the Music (1980) Swing to the Right (1982) Utopia (1982)
Singles from Swing To The Right
"One World" Released: April 1982 "Lysistrata" Released: June 1982

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Swing to the Right is a Utopia (featuring Todd Rundgren, Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton, and Willie Wilcox) album from 1982. It followed the well-intentioned Beatles parody/homage Deface the Music. Swing to the Right swings into hard-edged commentary on corporate raiders, warmongers, political villains, and despicable music industry moguls. There is little in the way of progressive rock on this album, which is limited to its title track.

Originally recorded in the Winter of 1981 and set for release that June, Bearsville Records was reluctant to release the album because of the album's overly political and religious tone. In protest Utopia took this material on the road for a full year begging audiences to petition Bearsville Records execs to release it, even going as far as giving out the phone number and address of Bearsville Records and instructing audiences to ask for Albert Grossman.

The cover photo is a retouched and tinted reproduction of a well-known photograph taken at a public burning of Beatles records, which took place in 1966 in the American South in response to John Lennon's controversial "We are more popular than Jesus now" remark. It depicts a group of youths standing around a bonfire, while in the foreground a boy holds an LP which is about to be thrown into the fire. In the original image, the album the boy holds is the American version of The Beatles debut LP Meet The Beatles, but on the Utopia cover this has been photographically replaced with an image of the Swing To The Right cover (thereby creating the illusion of an endless regression of the same image).

Track listing

All songs by Utopia unless otherwise noted.

1. "Swing to the Right" – 4:21
2. "Lysistrata" – 2:43
3. "The Up" – 4:08
4. "Junk Rock" – 3:13
5. "Shinola" – 5:21
6. "For the Love of Money" (Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, Anthony Jackson) – 3:40
7. "Last Dollar on Earth" – 4:13
8. "Fahrenheit 451" – 2:47
9. "Only Human" – 5:11
10. "One World" – 3:24

Some CD reissues include the bonus track "Special Interest". One song entitled "God and Me" was left off the album, but is available in bootleg form

Personnel

• Todd Rundgren – vocals, guitar
• Roger Powell – keyboards, synthesizer, vocals
• Kasim Sulton – bass, keyboards, vocals
• John "Willie" Wilcox – drums

Charts

Album - Billboard

References