By 1976, the group was known simply as Utopia and featured a stable quartet of Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell and John "Willie" Wilcox.

Though often thought of as a Rundgren-oriented project, all four members of Utopia wrote, sang, produced and performed on their albums; "Set Me Free", for example, was written and sung by Sulton.

For a short period of time (1973–74) Todd Rundgren's Utopia consisted of Rundgren plus Hunt Sales and Tony Fox Sales together with the late David Mason (a musician from Florida, not to be confused with the former Traffic guitarist Dave Mason) [1] and "M. Frog" (Jean-Yves Labat), who initially played rhythm guitar and later synthesizers.

However, the Sales brothers had left by the time the band recorded its first release, being replaced by percussionist Kevin Ellman and bassist John Siegler.

The first two albums — Todd Rundgren's Utopia (1974) and Another Live (1975) — featured lengthy, complex and highly arranged progressive rock pieces, performed by a six-piece multi-instrumental ensemble composed of Rundgren (guitar and vocals), Ellman (drums and percussion), Siegler (acoustic and electric basses and cello), Mark "Moogy" Klingman (keyboards), Jean-Yves Labat (now on synths), and Ralph Schuckett (keyboards).

On October 9, 1975, Utopia played their first UK concert at the Hammersmith Odeon in London with the trimmed-down lineup of Rundgren, Siegler, Powell and Wilcox, with backing vocals by future soul star Luther Vandross and Anthony Hinton (a former member of Vandross' early 1970s vocal quintet Luther).

The audio material from this concert was released in 2012 on Floating World Records' Todd Rundgren's Utopia Live at Hammersmith Odeon '75.

Siegler, Schuckett, and Klingman were among the many musicians who played with Rundgren for the concerts recorded and released as the live double-LP set Back to the Bars in 1978.

The first Utopia album Ra (1977) continued showcasing the group's progressive leanings, opening with an electronic arrangement of the "Overture: Mountaintop and Sunrise" theme (from Bernard Herrmann's score for the film Journey to the Center of the Earth), but it also contained several shorter, more accessible songs.

Utopia's subsequent albums increasingly featured more concise and pop-oriented material that showed the influence of the prevailing new wave trend.

[3] Utopia managed to hold on to their cult status throughout the '80s with their albums, concert performances and videos that were shown on MTV in its early years.

The album Swing to the Right (1982) featured satirical political songs, and the Canadian top 40 hit "One World", but its primary purpose was to fulfill the band's recording contract with Bearsville Records, which had stopped promoting the group, concluding that Utopia albums had a guaranteed audience of Rundgren fans but weren't likely to attract new listeners.

The band's final two albums Oblivion (1984) and POV (1985) were neither commercially successful nor critically well-received, partly because the Passport label on which they were issued folded.

Bassist Kasim Sulton issued a solo LP in 1982, which contained the Canadian top 40 hit "Don't Break My Heart", and has toured as a band leader for Meat Loaf, and performed with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Scandal, Hall and Oates, Blue Öyster Cult, and others.

Though Utopia officially broke up in 1986, they reunited briefly in 1992, yielding the album Redux '92: Live in Japan, but they were unable to secure a new label arrangement so they disbanded permanently.

On January 29–30, 2011, a reunion of most of the members of the 1974 Utopia Mark II band (Rundgren, Moogy Klingman, Ralph Schuckett, John Siegler, and Kevin Ellman) was held for two nights at the Highline Ballroom in New York City.

A 4-CD, 2-DVD box set entitled "Live From Peekskill and New York City, Todd Rundgren's Utopia - Benefit for Moogy Klingman," was released by Purple Pyramid Records in 2020.

[6] In March 2018, the band announced that Schuckett would not be able to participate, and called for keyboardists who are familiar with Utopia's catalog to submit audition tapes.

[8] In May 2018, the band performed at the Chicago Theater, which was recorded and released in April 2019 as a four-disc collection on both DVD & Blu-ray video format and two audio CDs, featuring the new line-up with Assayas on keyboards.

After bowing out of the group's 2018 reunion tour due to unspecified health issues, Ralph Schuckett died on April 7, 2021, at the age of 73.