The Chicago Discography

[Orbert]

Chicago 17 (1984)




Peter Cetera - Bass, Vocals
Bill Champlin – Keyboards, Guitars, Vocals
Robert Lamm - Keyboards, Vocals
Lee Loughnane - Trumpet
James Pankow - Trombone
Walter Parazaider - Woodwinds
Danny Seraphine - Drums

Additional Personnel

(too many to list)

----------

Stay the Night (Cetera, Foster) – 3:50
We Can Stop the Hurtin' (Lamm, Champlin, Neal) – 4:11
Hard Habit to Break (Kipner, Parker) – 4:44
Only You (Pankow, Foster) – 3:53
Remember the Feeling (Cetera, Champlin) – 4:28
Along Comes a Woman (Cetera, Goldenberg) – 4:14
You're the Inspiration (Cetera, Foster) – 3:51
Please Hold On (Champlin, Foster, Richie) – 3:41
Prima Donna (Cetera, Goldenberg) – 4:13
Once in a Lifetime (Pankow) – 4:11

----------

Chicago 16 was a huge success and a huge comeback for the band, so of course producer David Foster was retained to work his magic again on Chicago 17.  He took things farther, adding more synths and electronic drums, another layer of polish to the sound, and an army of session musicians.  If Chicago 16 was less Chicago than it was David Foster, the ratio is even lower here.  More electronics and less horns, more session players and less actual Chicago players on the final record.  And as hard as that is for purists to accept, the result was twice as many hit singles (four total), nearly twice the sales (quadruple platinum upon release, eventually going 6x platinum and still counting), and Chicago's most successful record.

"Stay the Night" starts things off again with a rocker, or at least an "Adult Contemporary" rocker.  The two hits from Chicago 16 were both ballads, but the lead track and first single from Chicago 17 shows that Peter still has some edge to him.  "Stay the Night" went to #16, a hit.  Not Top Ten, but certainly strong enough to let everyone know that that last album wasn't a fluke.  There's more to come.

"We Can Stop the Hurtin'" reminds us that Robert Lamm is still in the band, back from whatever issues he was handling during the Chicago 16 sessions, and singing lead on a song co-written with Bill Champlin and someone named Deborah Neal.  It also reminds us that Chicago has a horn section, as they didn't play on the opening track but are featured here.  They even take a break.  It's against a backdrop of synths, but you take what you can get, and it's even kinda cool hearing them in a somewhat different setting.  Actually, as electronic and synth-heavy as this song is, I was surprised to learn that Robert wrote it.  It's a nice combination of new and old Chicago.

"Hard Habit to Break" was the second single and went all the way to #3 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts.  By outside writers Steve Kipner and Jon Parker, it's a ballad, but it's also another masterpiece of production, with horns, strings, synths, guitars, and drums, all sharing space and somehow sounding full yet clean.

"Only You" is an interesting song.  A James Pankow song, with (presumed studio-earned) co-writing credit to David Foster, the verses are sung by Robert Lamm, the pre-chorus by Bill Champlin, and I'm honestly not sure who that is singing the chorus, but it's a high falsetto, and between that and the horns and synths, my first thought was that we'd suddenly switched to an Earth, Wind & Fire song.  Not that that's a bad thing; as mentioned upthread, EWF also had a great sound which featured horns, and they were pretty hot around this time, too.  But this is a Frankenstein of a song.  Not bad, actually pretty good, but weird.

"Remember the Feeling" is a Cetera-sung ballad co-written by Peter Cetera and Bill Champlin.  It has all of the hallmarks of an Adult Contemporary Power Ballad™ -- distorted guitars low in the mix and topped with strings, heavy gated drums (compressed and also slightly lower in the mix so as not to be confused with actual rock and roll), acoustic and electric piano, synths, and background vocals in high harmony.  The result is a song with enough schmaltz to get the girls excited but enough balls to not completely offend the guys, or at least be mostly tolerable while they slow-dance with the girls.

"Along Comes a Woman" is another Cetera song, co-written this time by Mark Goldenberg.  It's an uptempo song, actually something like rock and roll or at least what passed for it in the 80's.  It was the fourth and final single from the album and reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The third single was "You're the Inspiration" yet another Cetera ballad with co-writing credit by David Foster.  It reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 but went all the way to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

"Please Hold On" is an interesting song.  Co-written by Bill Champlin and Lionel Richie back when they worked together, David Foster also has co-writing credit, presumably earned in-studio.  It's a shuffle, almost funky, but smoothed out by the horns and and electric keyboards into something like Adult Contemporary R&B.  Except I'm not sure if such a thing even exists.  If it does, it was probably invented right here.

"Prima Donna" is the other Cetera-Goldenberg composition.  You know the song "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins (actually written by Georgio Moroder with lyrics by Tom Whitlock)?  I'm pretty sure they listened to this song a few times.  The beat, the accents.  It's really hard for me to listen to this song and not hear "Danger Zone" but at least I know that this one came first, so it's not Cetera's fault.

And apparently we're back to closing the album with a James Pankow song.  "Once in a Lifetime" is, incredibly, the only song on the album not co-written by at least two people.  James' horn charts are great, of course, and they even take the break.  So you can look at it a few different ways.  Either David Foster wanted to put the Pankow song with all the horns last because he considered it of a lower priority, or he was aware that old-school Chicago fans were still looking for something to latch onto, and if this was the last thing they heard, then they would be somewhat appeased.

Actually, the whole album feels like a balancing act between the old and the new.  Foster knew that he'd brought Chicago to a new audience with Chicago 16, but he also knew that at least some of the sales, and credit for even being there in the first place, was due to the old-school Chicago fans.  Where Chicago 16 was remarkably consistent, especially considering everything he had to do and everyone he had to please all at once, Chicago 17 feels like he was trying hard to drag the band into the 80's, and at the same time break new ground in order to not appear to just be doing more of the same.

I think that while Chicago 17 did better commercially, as an album it is overall less consistent and less balanced.  There's very much a feeling like "okay we've had a few rockers in a row, time for a ballad... okay now time for an old-school song with horns to please the fogies... okay now another ballad..."  I'm tempted to say that you can't please everybody, but since this is Chicago's top-selling album of all time, I don't think that that was much of a concern here.  How do you argue with this kind of success?  Six million copies sold.

[Jaq]

The consummate 80s pop-rock album, and most likely the album most played by lovelorn teenagers in the mid 80s. The word for this album is immaculate. Even if it reminds me of the Doonesbury comic where the strip's aging folk rocker has David Foster producing him, and Foster proceeds to tell the singer about all the music that he can make with synthesizers. Finally after working his way through every aspect of his music, the singer asks "Hey, Fos, about my vocals" and Foster says "I got it covered." 

[Orbert]

Oh man, I had totally forgotten about that strip, but I remember it now, and I now get it (I really didn't at the time).

[Big Hath]

so yeah, I like this one.  9 of the 10 songs made my top 50 list.  Only "Please Hold On" didn't make it, but I find that song enjoyable as well.  The pinnacle of 80s pop-rock.  Jaq called it "immaculate".  Yep, every bit of this album, every sound, every beat, every nuance to the vocals is produced to absolute perfection.  I don't know where I mentioned it before, but this is one of the best sounding albums I've ever heard.

The hits are the hits, and I like them naturally, but I feel the strength of the album is in songs like "Once In A Lifetime", "Prima Donna", "We Can Stop the Hurtin'", and my personal favorite from the album "Remember The Feeling".  That song must have hit me at a time of a particularly difficult break-up.  Orbert, probably not too many slow dances to that one.  If you pay attention to the lyrics, it's actually pretty heartbreaking: "I should have noticed that something was wrong, when I awoke she was gone."  He's not talking about a one night stand, either.  The rest of the lyrics describe someone that was basically the love of his life and he was so caught up in love, he didn't see that things might be falling apart.  Cheesy, schmaltzy . . . yeah.  But it got me through some difficult times.

Huge success from this album that gave the band another chance in the spotlight a decade after the first one.  Here is Loughnane talking about it:

"We had a great time playing the big time again. It was the second big wave. People would give their eye teeth for the first amount of success that we had in the '70s, and to be able to do it for the second time is a major milestone in the history of rock 'n' roll as well as our history. Not too many people have had this opportunity, and we had a lot of fun with it."

[Orbert]

Well, as I said, it's hard to argue with how popular this album was and still is.  Six million units is incredible for anyone, let alone a band's 14th studio effort.  And it does sound great; it sounds amazing.

It just doesn't feel as cohesive as Chicago 16.  It doesn't feel as balanced.  Or maybe it does feel balanced, but only because it's more obviously a mix of "hard" and "soft" and "light" and "heavy".  There's a lot going on here.

And my biggest problem is all the music not actually played by Chicago.  They hired a great guitarist; why are there three other guitarists credited?  They have a drummer; why are there two other drummers credited?  They have the best horn section in rock and roll, a legendary horn section; why are there two other horn players credited?  These are all listed under "Additional personnel" and there's more.  Synth programmers, background vocalists, a percussionist (since they lost Laudir).  Did Chicago even play on this album, or was it truly a David Foster work?

[Big Hath]

all fair points.  It probably helped that I had no history with the band before hearing this stuff.

[Orbert]

Chicago 18 (1986)




Bill Champlin - Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals
Robert Lamm - Keyboards, Vocals
Lee Loughnane - Trumpet, Vocals
James Pankow - Trombone
Walter Parazaider - Woodwinds
Jason Scheff - Bass, Vocals
Danny Seraphine - Drums, Percussion

Additional Personnel

(lots)

----------

Niagara Falls (Kipner, Caldwell) – 3:43
Forever (Lamm, Gable) – 5:17
If She Would Have Been Faithful... (Kipner, Goodrum) – 3:51
25 or 6 to 4 (Lamm, Pankow) – 4:20
Will You Still Love Me? (Foster, Keane, Baskin) – 5:43
Over and Over (Lamm, Howard, Lukather) – 4:20
It's Alright (Champlin, Foster) – 4:29
Free Flight (Pankow) – 0:25
Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now (Scheff, Feiten) – 4:25
I Believe (Champlin) – 4:20
One More Day (Pankow, Grillo) – 4:14

----------

After the massive success of Chicago 17, which featured four hits all sung by Peter Cetera, Peter decided that the time was right to leave Chicago and pursue his solo career full time.  I say "full time" because apparently Peter had released his first solo album back in 1981 but no one knew about it.  The label was Warner Bros., who believed that if they promoted it and it sold well, then Peter might leave Chicago, who they had also just signed.  Instead, Chicago made their huge comeback with Peter as lead singer, and Peter ended up leaving two albums later anyway.

If Chicago's recent success was largely due to the efforts and talents of David Foster, which very few people dispute, here was Foster's greatest challenge yet.  Create a successful Chicago album without their lead singer.

He succeeded, for the most part.  Chicago, the great faceless band, now saw that unique attribute work in their favor.  They replaced Peter with a young man named Jason Scheff who played bass and sang in the same high tenor range.  Foster created another one of his sonic masterpieces (with Jason taking over lead vocals and a lot of people not even noticing the difference) and the band played on.  Although the album itself only made it to #35, Chicago 18 boasts four Top 100 songs, including a Top 10 and a Top 20.  It went gold, but compared to the multi-platinum success of its immediate predecessors, it is easily the weakest of the three Foster-produced albums.

"Niagara Falls" leads things off and we've got synths and horns and a high tenor voice, and another Chicago album is off to a fine start.  It was released as a single but only made it to #91 in the Billboard Hot 100.

"Forever" is a Robert Lamm song, co-written with someone named Bill Gable.  It sounds great, it's got those Chicago horns playing accents and taking the horn break, and even something new: a saxophone line weaving around and doing sexy saxophone things.  In all these years, I've never heard Walt play a sax part like he does here.  Who'd have thought?

"If She Would Have Been Faithful... ", by another pair of outside writers, was one of the more successful singles, reaching #17.  It almost segues into its B-side, the remake of "25 or 6 to 4" (originally from Chicago), which divided fans.  Some liked the modern spin on an old classic, many thought it was nothing short of blasphemy.  Either way, it made it to #48 on the charts, thanks to a music video, a great new horn charts by James Pankow (for which he was given co-writing credit), and a terrific vocal performance by Jason Scheff.  Actually, Jason sings all four of the singles from this album.

"Will You Still Love Me?" by David Foster and some of his friends, was the most successful single, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on Adult Contemporary chart.

"Over and Over" is the other Robert Lamm song, this time co-written with none other than composer James Newton Howard, and Steve Lukather from Toto.  Lukather played guitar on Chicago 16 and has credits here for synth programming.

"It's Alright" is a Bill Champlin song, co-written with David Foster.  It has some bite to it, something like a smooth R&B feel, with a good beat and a nice horn chart.

"Free Flight" is a short a capella horn piece which was originally uncredited and appended to the front of "Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now", but now is credited to James Pankow (in case there was any doubt) and is its own track on the CD.

"Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now" is Jason Scheff's ante into the band, co-written with Buzz Feiten.  Another song with a not-too-mellow beat and another horn chart that seems to borrow a few licks from "Just You 'N' Me" (from Chicago VI).

"I Believe" is Bill Champlin's other song, and he shares vocal duties with Jason Scheff.  It's been a while since we had a song with more than one lead vocalist.

And once again, we finish up with a James Pankow song, this time it's "One More Day".  An uplifting, idealistic song about thinking about the future and our children, it of course features a great horn chart, and vocals by Bill Champlin.

----------

I'll be honest, this album sounds as good as its two predecessors, but it's not quite as adventurous as Chicago 17, and it's not as outright rocking as Chicago 16.  The songs themselves aren't bad; they're just not as strong and don't have as many stand-out moments.  Peter had started writing more of the songs, including more of the hits, and his sudden departure left a hole in the writing department as well as in the vocals.  Robert and James wrote a few more songs here, but they just weren't enough to take up the slack.

This led to more outside writers being brought in, and it is with Chicago 18 that they were becoming known as a band with some great songs but not necessarily great albums.

[Nel]

Put me in the camp that doesn't really like what they did with "25 Or 6 To 4" on this one. Just wasn't my cup of tea. Out of this era, I'd say i actually kind of like XIV and 16, but 17 and 18 never did much for me. I found a used copy of 19 at the local record store about a week and a half ago for $2, so I picked that up.

[ZirconBlue]

They replaced Peter with a young man named Jason Scheff who played bass and sang in the same high tenor range.


<snip>


"Will You Still Love Me?" by David Foster and some of his friends, was the most successful single, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on Adult Contemporary chart.

So, Jason Scheff also contributed question marks? 

[Big Hath]

Chicago 18 - not terrible.  Both the hits "If She Would Have Been Faithful" and "Will You Still Love Me?" are favorites of mine.  Some other decent stuff on this album too.  Just not quite on par with the previous albums.  This began a downward slide that got really fast, really quick.

Also, wanted to talk about the Take Me Back To Chicago compilation from 1985.  So Chicago 17 is released in 1984 and becomes a huge multi-platinum hit album with 4 top ten hits (depending on what chart you look at).  And just like after 16, Columbia releases a compilation album in early 1985 to seemingly take advantage of the wave of sales from 17.  It has a pretty cool cover idea in that it is made up of strips from several of the old covers that spell out Chicago.  However, curiously, they didn't include major hits.  Some of the songs weren't even released as singles and Harry Truman was the highest charting song at #13.  Most of them fizzled out around the 40s or 50s.  Maybe they were trying to avoid including songs that had appeared on previous greatest hits albums.  I actually applaud them a little bit for going with some of the deeper cuts.  Anyway, the band obviously doesn't recognize the album as being in the official discography.  This album is the reason I like "Thunder and Lightning" and "Mongonucleosis" as much as I do.

Then, in 1990, right on cue following 1989's 5-time platinum selling Greatest Hits 1982–1989, Columbia again releases a Chicago compilation.  Guess what this one was titled - Take Me Back To Chicago.  Yes, the exact same album title from five years before.  Some of the songs are the same, but some are replaced by bigger Cetera hits, although "Song For You", "Run Away" and "Mama Take" are also included - non-singles, or singles that never charted.

Orbert, yes, I have both of these.    The 1990 version was actually the first CD I ever owned.

[Orbert]

Wow, talk about the ultra-sleezy cash grabs.  I've seen it in the racks but always ignored it.  I didn't realise that there are actually two versions, released five years apart, with the same title but different track listing.  That's pretty lame.

I know you'd asked upthread whether I'd cover Take Me Back to Chicago, and I knew it was coming up and I meant to look it up, but I guess I waited too long.  I've been using Wikipedia as my guide because the page for each album has links to the previous and next albums, so it's easier than using AMG (All-Music Guide), my usual source.  AMG breaks things up between regular releases and compilations, and there are so many compilations, both authorized and unauthorized, that it was a pain in the ass to get it all straight.  I actually started putting the lists together to insure that I had everything and in the correct order, but gave up when I got to the 80's and all the games Columbia was playing.  It was just easier to follow the Wiki links.

Unfortunately, the Wiki page for Take Me Back to Chicago has links back to Chicago 17 and forward to Chicago 18, but the pages from those two albums do not link to Take Me Back to Chicago, which is how I missed it.  So thanks for bringing it up and talking about it.  It's interesting getting the perspective of someone who came to Chicago later in their career and free from the bias against their later material.  And someone who's even more of a completist than me, which sometimes is pretty rare.  But again, I don't bother with any compilations unless they offer something I can't get from the regular releases (other than edited versions, which IMO don't count).

The cover is kinda cool.  Might've been cooler if the slices were from the album covers in chronological order, but I'm assuming they were chosen to create the most aesthetically pleasing effect.  So at least some thought went into it.

[masterthes]

I just have to say "If She Would Have Been Faithful" is one of the weirdest ideas for a pop love song I have ever heard. That had to have come from some real life inspiration

Oh, and on 17, I still listen to Hard Habit and Inspiration on a regular basis

[Big Hath]

yeah, a little strange.  I don't expect many around here to know about it, but it has a very similar theme of the Garth Brooks hit "Unanswered Prayers".  It's about a guy who sees an old flame and thinks about how he used to pray they would spend their lives together, but that would have left him without the life he currently has.

[Orbert]

Chicago 19 (1988)




Bill Champlin - Keyboards, Guitars, Vocals
Robert Lamm - Keyboards, Vocals
Lee Loughnane - Trumpet
James Pankow - Trombone
Walter Parazaider - Saxophone
Jason Scheff - Bass, Vocals
Dawayne Bailey - Guitar, Vocals
Danny Seraphine - Drums, Percussion, Programming

Additional Personnel

(lots and lots)

----------

Heart in Pieces (Feehan, MacLeod) – 5:04
I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love (Warren, Hammond) – 3:55
I Stand Up (Lamm, McMahon) – 4:06
We Can Last Forever (Scheff, Dexter) – 3:45
Come in From the Night (Champlin, Gaitsch) – 4:43
Look Away (Warren) – 4:02
What Kind Of Man Would I Be? (Scheff, Sandford, Caldwell) – 4:21
Runaround (Champlin, Scheff) – 4:10
You're Not Alone (Scott) – 3:56
Victorious (Jordan, Capek) – 6:03

----------

By this point, Chicago was a band, but they were also very much a brand.  A name to put on the album cover, a certain sound, good music, but it didn't seem to matter a whole lot who was singing and playing the music.  Chicago 18 had had four singles, all sung by Jason Scheff, and a lot of people didn't even realize that Peter Cetera had left the band.  Chicago 19 had three singles, all sung by Bill Champlin.

Of course, Peter's solo career was taking off and he had songs on the radio, so it made sense for Chicago to focus on their "other" lead singer, as Robert Lamm continued to take a smaller and smaller role in Chicago, though I've never heard a definitive reason why.  If I had to guess, I'd say that he was disillusioned.  He didn't write many songs anymore, and sang even fewer.  But he stayed in the band because he'd been doing it his entire adult life and didn't have anything else.  Chicago was still a successful band, and he was an original member.  He still got to sing "Saturday in the Park" and "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" every night, and Chicago was even making more money now than they did before.

But Chicago 19 has three other keyboard players credited, and three session guitarists (as well as a percussionist and several programmers).  This is in addition to Bill Champlin, who played both keyboards and guitar, Robert on keyboards, and Dawayne Bailey on guitar.  Dawayne had played with them on the Chicago 18 tour and was made a regular member as of Chicago 19.  But there are still more session players than actual band members on the album, and if you look at the songwriting credits, you see that only half of the songs were even co-written by a member of Chicago; the rest were by outside writers.

"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" went to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Look Away" went all the way to #1 on both the Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts, and "You're Not Alone" made #10 on the Hot 100 and #9 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

But the album itself only went to #37, peaking slightly lower than Chicago 18, which had reached #35.  Even with three Top 10 songs, including another #1, people did not buy Chicago albums.  The people who liked the songs were not the ones who bought albums and played them all the way through.

The rockers on the album are "I Stand Up", "Come In from the Night" and "Runaround".  They each have some nice guitar and horn work and will probably make it to my Chicago playlist on my iPod.  "Victorious" tries hard to be a mini-epic of some kind, with the slow build up and slow fade at the end, but overall it just drags.  It's not as profound as it thinks it is.  The rest of the album is pretty forgettable.

[Nel]

The album cover... it is one of their worst, I think. Just looks like a digital mess.

[jammindude]

I had almost forgotten about "Look Away"...  a guilty pleasure of sorts.   I hate that I like it.   When I catch myself singing it, I'll start to sing it like a lounge singer just to seem like I'm making fun of it.    But then I realize that singing it like a lounge singer is really not far off from the original, so it just sounds like I'm singing it normal....and then I just stop singing and hope it passes.

 

[Lolzeez]

I Stand Up and Runaround are awesome. I don't care what others think.

[Orbert]

They are.  I don't think you'll get any argument here.

Possibly worth noting is that they're two of the songs actually written by Chicago.  "Runaround" is the only song written entirely by Chicago (Bill and Jason) and "I Stand Up" is Robert Lamm's only contribution, co-written with Gerald McMahon.

It seems apparent that outside writers were brought in because Chicago no longer had enough writers in the band, but I wonder how much of that was at the label's insistence.  The two Diane Warren songs were singles, and hits.  "You're Not Alone" made Top 10 also.  None of them were written by Chicago.  Meanwhile, Robert is down to a single co-writing credit, Jimmy is absent, and I guess the others who tried their hands at songwriting (Lee, Danny, and Walt) either didn't care to, or didn't bother.  Were they actively being squelched, or had the well run dry?  And what about two-time Grammy winner Bill Champlin?  Two co-writing credits here, one on the previous album plus a full credit.

It's bad enough that there are so many session players on the album, but I find it really discouraging when a band no longer even writes most of their own songs.  The members of Chicago weren't significantly different from the hired hands at this point.  Even the horns, who still get a moment to shine here and there, aren't heard nearly as often as the synthesizers, all programmed and played by hired guns.

So if they really had become a brand more than a band, for God's sake why didn't someone do something about the packaging?  That cover really is horrible.  In the late 80's, CDs were big; they were the norm.  I think it's entirely possible that people heard the latest Chicago song on the radio, went to check out the CD, went "Ewww!" and instead grabbed the latest from Air Supply or Tears for Fears.

[Big Hath]

yeah, that cover is just a mess.  My guess is that it is supposed to be some kind of digital abstract art.  You know, since computers were "hot" at the time.

Going back to "If She Would Have Been Faithful" for a second, I remember in 9th grade English we were doing vocabulary and the teacher allowed us to bring in a song that contained one of the vocabulary words for extra credit.  One of the words was "paradox" so naturally my first thought was "it's a paradox, full of contradictions".  Got the extra credit and got to listen to Chicago in class - not bad.

[Jaq]

I honestly thought 19 was a compilation or a live album. I had no idea it was a studio album. Which goes to show you how far Chicago had fallen off my personal radar by 1988.

[Big Hath]

Chicago 19 - First off, why was "What Kind of Man Would I Be?" not a released as a single from this album?  I think it is one of the better ballads here and it is also co-written by an actual member of the band!  Scheff has a great vocal performance on the song.  They included it on the 1989 Greatest Hits package and only then was it released as a single.

But even I have some reservations about the other power ballads here. Creatively, it seems the band itself was pretty much done.  They brought in Diane Warren of all people (Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Because You Loved Me, Un-break My Heart, How Do I Live, and a seemingly endless string of other mamsy-pamsy drivel - sorry if some of you like these).  The lyrics are cringe-worthy at times, especially on "Look Away" and "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love".  Grow a pair!  I guess it makes sense that those two were both Warren-penned.

"Come in From the Night" has some really cool things going on.  I like that one.  "I Stand Up" is good.  Wish the horns were a bit more up front in the mix on "Runaraound".

[masterthes]

So, I'm surprised Google doesn't even know the name of the model in the Look Away video. Was that the only thing she did?

[hefdaddy42]

Just to get back to 17 for a minute, it will always be my favorite Chicago album (even though I know it isn't their best - look to the 70's for that), because it came out when I first started having feelings for girls.  I mean real feelings for specific girls, not just teen horniness.  So all of those love songs, even the ones that were uptempo, hit me in that special way that albums sometime hit people. 

You know what I mean.

[Orbert]

I know what you mean.  They say that the music of our adolescence is the music that will resonate with us for the rest of our lives.  The friends you have during that time, the relationships during that time, are the ones you'll never forget.

Almost no one remembers being born and learning to walk and talk.  Our brains weren't developed enough; specifically the memory-recording areas weren't done yet.  But the second most important time, becoming an adult, going through the changes, we all remember.

[King Postwhore]

I completely agree with hef as well as playing these damn love songs after a break up.  Why the hell would I torture myself with the love songs but I did.  I guess I was yearning for the relationships to work it out, to be in love again.

[Orbert]

Chicago: Greatest Hits 1982–1989




Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away
Look Away
Stay the Night
Will You Still Love Me?
Love Me Tomorrow
What Kind of Man Would I Be? (Remix)
You're the Inspiration
I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love
Hard Habit to Break
Along Comes a Woman
If She Would Have Been Faithful...
We Can Last Forever

----------

Yeah, I know, it's another "greatest hits" thing.  But this was an official release by Warner Bros., Chicago's label at the time, not another cash grab by Columbia.  Greatest Hits 1982–1989 is Chicago's 20th official album.  I can even recommend this album for people who are into this kind of thing.

For one thing, Chicago had become a "singles" band, a band known more for their songs than for their albums.  So here they are, all the hits from the 80's, in one convenient package.  People weren't buying Chicago albums in huge numbers, because they were now known for their Adult Contemporary sound, but when you bought the albums there were all these weird songs with trumpets and saxophones and stuff and really, who wants that?

Best of all, they didn't edit the songs!  Give or take a few seconds of fadeout, these are the full album versions.  You even get "Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away" intact.

And because it was becoming more common, the version of "What Kind of Man Would I Be?" (originally from Chicago 19) is slightly remixed and was released as a single.  It reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart.  And you had to buy this particular package to get it.  Now how much would you pay?

Despite all of that, it only reached #37 on the Billboard 200 (album) chart, exactly the same place where Chicago 19 had peaked.

[Cool Chris]

I completely agree with hef as well as playing these damn love songs after a break up.  Why the hell would I torture myself with the love songs but I did.  I guess I was yearning for the relationships to work it out, to be in love again.

Nothing said Forlorn Teenage Love for me and my friends back in high school quite like Chicago 1982-1989. I mean, seven hells! Just look at those song titles!

[King Postwhore]

I tortured myself on that greatest hits for this one girl who stomped my heart.  What the hell was wrong with me?!

[Big Hath]

this is probably my most played album of all-time.  It was never out of my cd-changer in my first car.  There were six slots, and the first one was always reserved for this album.

[Orbert]

Wow, this place continues to surprise me.  I didn't expect all the love for this album.  But as I said, as much as I'm categorically against "greatest hits" things, this is a solid collection of songs, so sure, why not?

What I'd like to see is a collection of all the 80's songs that had some resemblance to old-school Chicago, with horns and rockin' guitars.  I bet they'd all fit on one disc, too.

[King Postwhore]

Bob, I'm curious if you had a bootleg od the album Stone Of Sisyphus?  I had it then when the real release years later but it shorted a song.  That was a modern Chicago sound with horns that the record company did not want to release.

[Orbert]

I tracked down some of the songs from the original bootleg at one point.  I think one or two were officially released on one of the box sets or something; I don't remember now.  I remember getting at least one from Kazaa or something; that's how long ago this was.  But when the official version was released, I picked that up and I think I nuked the bootlegs I had.  I didn't think I needed them since I had the real thing.  In retrospect, I should've kept them anyways.  It would have been cool to have the early versions as well.

Then I learned that one of the songs didn't end up on the album (I think it was by Dawayne Bailey).  But I don't even know which songs I'd had before, so I don't know if I deleted something I'll have trouble tracking down again, or what.

After Chicago Twenty 1, I was going to mention Stone of Sisyphus, since musically it came next, even though the official version wasn't released until many years later, and by that time it had changed somewhat.  The Chicago catalogue gets a bit odd, and a bit messy.

[Orbert]

Chicago Twenty 1 (1991)




Dawayne Bailey - Guitars, Background Vocals
Bill Champlin - Keyboards, Vocals
Tris Imboden - Drums, Percussion
Robert Lamm - Keyboards, Vocals
Lee Loughnane - Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Background Vocals
James Pankow - Trombone, Background Vocals
Walter Parazaider - Saxophones, Flute, Background Vocals
Jason Scheff - Bass, Vocals

Additional Personnel:

(lots)

----------

Explain it to My Heart (Warren) – 4:44
If It Were You (Scheff, Scheff, Smith) – 4:43
You Come to My Senses (Steinberg, Kelly) – 3:49
Somebody, Somewhere (Champlin, Matkosky, Dukes) – 4:21
What Does It Take (Scheff, McMahon) – 4:38
One from the Heart (Lamm, McMahon) – 4:43
Chasin' the Wind (Warren) – 4:18
God Save the Queen (Pankow, Scheff) – 4:19
Man to Woman (Scheff, Mitchell) – 3:56
Only Time Can Heal the Wounded (Lamm, McMahon) – 4:43
Who Do You Love (Champlin, Matkosky) – 3:20
Holdin' On (Champlin, Saviano) – 4:15

----------

Ah, the 90's.  A new decade, time again for a new image.  For the first time, the famous Chicago logo does not even appear on the cover, at least not in its entirety.  As a nod to the past, it's referenced, but the cover itself is dominated by the big red "1" with the word "Twenty" written on it, and then a moment later you might notice the word "Chicago" across the top.  Yes, somebody thought this was a good design, someone else approved it, and it somehow became the new album cover.

Also, after the Roman numerals and a handful of Arabic numerals, we get a new variation: a combination of...  You know what?  You can see it.  I don't need to describe it.  Which is good, because I can't.  Chicago Twenty 1.  Okay.

The album kicks off with a Diane Warren song, and there's another one of her sappy ballads later on.  And the worst part is, the two Diane Warren ballads and the other song by outside writers, "You Come to My Senses", are the worst songs on the album, although the other ballads aren't much better, really.  Somebody decided that this is what Chicago needs, what they should be about.  Honestly, they're all pretty bad.  But at least nine of the twelve songs are co-written by members of Chicago.

So which ones actually rock?  "If It Were You", written by Jason Scheff, his brother Darin, and someone named Tony Smith, isn't bad.  "God Save the Queen" is probably the best song, rocking out with the horns and electric guitars.  Robert Lamm's two songs aren't too bad.  "One from the Heart" has something of an old-school Chicago swing to it, while "Only Time Can Heal the Wounded" has a more modern feel, but still uptempo and not too sappy.  And he even sings both of them, but man, he sounds old and tired.  Age is a bitch.  "Who Do You Love" -- a question without a question mark -- is pretty good.

The last song, "Holdin' On", is interesting, all things considered.  There was the song "Hold On" from Chicago XIV, then there was "Please Hold On" from Chicago 17.  Now we have "Holdin' On" which whines "I don't know what to do, 'cause the pieces won't fit into place" and "we can't let it end this way".  And it occurred to me that that message might apply to the band itself.  At this point, no combination of heavy, light, old, new, horns, strings or synthesizers seemed to be the answer.  But they had to hold on, please hold on, and keep holdin' on.

After ignoring Chicago for most of the 80's, I actually bought this CD when it came out.  I wanted to just check in on them, see what they sounded like.  I saw that three songs were by outside writers and of the other nine, eight were co-written by outside writers.  At the time, however, I didn't realize that this was a step up from Chicago 19.  I didn't understand why the band wasn't writing their own material any more.  I still don't understand it.  But as I suspected, or at least hoped, there was still rock and roll, the horns still blasted from time to time.  But the label insisted on promoting sappy crappy ballads as singles.  They don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band.

Oh yeah, housekeeping.  Danny Seraphine was rather abruptly fired from the band prior to the start of the sessions for Chicago Twenty 1.  By the time the recording was finished, they'd hired Tris Imboden as the new drummer, so his name appears in the credits as a band member, but session man John Keane actually plays on most of the album.  Also appearing are David Foster on piano, three more keyboard players plus Steve Porcaro again programming, another guitarist, and a baritone saxophone player.  Why?  Walt plays baritone sax.  He played one on Chicago VI, and it was great.

Overall, this album sounds a lot like Chicago 19, but a little bit better.  The songs are a bit stronger.  But music had changed again, and Chicago was again trying to find a relevant sound.  "Chasin' the Wind" only reached #39 and was the only single, and the album itself only reached #66, which made it the second-worst non-compilation album (only Chicago XIV did worse).  Once again, Chicago knew that something had to change.

[Podaar]

They don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band.

 

[jammindude]

They don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band.