American Utopia | ||||
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Released | March 9, 2018 | |||
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Length | 37:17 | |||
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David Byrne chronology | ||||
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American Utopia is the eighth studio album by Scottish-American rock musician David Byrne, released on March 9, 2018 through Todo Mundo and Nonesuch Records. The release is his first solo studio album since 2004's Grown Backwards , and serves as a musical component of a larger multimedia project titled Reasons to Be Cheerful, which attempts to spread positivity. Byrne announced the album and posted its lead single, "Everybody's Coming to My House", online on January 8, 2018. [1]
The album is part of a larger multimedia project titled Reasons to Be Cheerful which aims to give reasons for being happy and optimistic in spite of political strife and environmental problems. [1] The title is derived from the Ian Dury song "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3". [2]
Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AnyDecentMusic? | 7.0/10 [3] |
Metacritic | 72/100 [4] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [5] |
The A.V. Club | B [6] |
The Daily Telegraph | [7] |
Entertainment Weekly | B+ [8] |
The Guardian | [9] |
Mojo | [10] |
NME | [11] |
Pitchfork | 5.8/10 [12] |
Q | [13] |
Rolling Stone | [14] |
American Utopia received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 72 based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [4] The Arts Desk's Howard Male gave the album a positive review calling it a "a muscular and quirky return to form". [15] Erik Adams of The A.V. Club gave the album a B, calling the album an uneven "mixed bag" but praising the album's themes. [6]
American Utopia became Byrne's first top 10 album on the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 3 with the equivalent of 63,000 copies sold in the United States. [16]
The release of the album was backed by a world tour that lasted from March to November 2018. The elaborate concert featured an empty stage surrounded by metal chains and a cast of twelve musicians (including Byrne himself) sporting bare feet and wearing identical gray suits. Cutting-edge technology in wireless audio, MIDI, lighting and real-time tracking was used to totally untether the musicians from any cables, allowing free movement and complex choreography (developed by Annie-B Parson) like in Byrne's previous tours. In addition to songs from American Utopia, the setlist incorporated material from Byrne's solo catalogue, several hits by Talking Heads and a cover of Janelle Monáe's "Hell You Talmbout".
In September 2019, an altered version of the concert was previewed at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. It now featured small changes to the setlist and to the structure to achieve a format closer to that of a musical stage production. It premiered on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre in previews on October 4, 2019 and officially on October 20, closing on February 16, 2020. [17] A second run, scheduled to start in September 2020, was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was eventually moved to the St. James Theatre, where it started on September 17, 2021 and ended on April 3, 2022.
A live recording of the Broadway production titled American Utopia on Broadway was released in 2019 and received a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album nomination. [18]
A film version of the Broadway play was produced by Spike Lee as a documentary/concert film, released in late 2020. [19] debuting on HBO. [20]
An homonymous picture book was released in late 2020, intended to be a companion piece to the Broadway show. [21] The book includes words and lyrics by Byrne and illustrations by Maira Kalman.
All songs written by David Byrne and Brian Eno, except where noted.
Personnel according to David Byrne's homepage. [22]
Production
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