Swing to the Right

Swing to the Right
Studio album by Utopia
Released	February 24, 1982
Genre	Pop rock New Wave Progressive rock
Length	38:55
Label	Bearsville
Producer	Todd Rundgren
Utopia chronology
Deface the Music (1980) Swing to the Right (1982) Utopia (1982)

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Allmusic

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.

Utopia, took this material on the road for a full year begging audiences to petition reluctant Bearsville Records execs to release it. The true irony of this chapter for the band is that the subsequent new label release, the self-titled LP on Network Records, was for all intents and purposes the record Bearsville always wanted them to make.^{[citation needed]}

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 "bigger than Jesus" 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" (Rundgren, Utopia) – 3:24

Some CD reissues include the bonus track "Special Interest".

Personnel

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

Charts

Album - Billboard

Year	Chart	Position
1982	Pop Albums	102