Chicago: The Box (2003)DISC ONE
Introduction (Kath) – 6:35
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (Lamm) – 3:20
Beginnings (Lamm) – 6:27
Questions 67 and 68 (Lamm) – 5:01
Listen (Lamm) – 3:22
South California Purples (Lamm) – 6:11
I'm a Man (Miller, Winwood) – 5:43
Movin' In (Pankow) – 4:06
Wake Up Sunshine (Lamm) – 2:29
Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon: Make Me Smile/So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Pankow) – 7:02
Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon: Colour My World (Pankow) – 3:00
Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon: To Be Free/Now More Than Ever (Pankow) – 2:41
Fancy Colours (Lamm) – 5:10
25 or 6 to 4 (Lamm) – 4:50
Poem for the People (Lamm) – 5:31
It Better End Soon: 1st Movement/3rd Movement/4th Movement (Lamm, Kath) – 6:37
DISC TWO
Loneliness Is Just a Word (Lamm) – 2:36
Travel Suite: Flight 602 (Lamm) – 2:45
Travel Suite: Free (Lamm) – 2:16
Mother (Lamm) – 4:30
Lowdown (Cetera, Seraphine) – 3:35
An Hour in the Shower (Kath) – 5:28
A Hit by Varese (Lamm) – 4:55
All Is Well (Lamm) – 3:50
Saturday in the Park (Lamm) – 3:56
Dialogue (Part I & II) (Lamm) – 7:10
Just You 'N' Me (Pankow) – 3:42
Something in This City Changes People (Lamm) – 3:42
In Terms of Two (Cetera) – 3:29
Feelin' Stronger Every Day (Cetera, Pankow) – 4:14
(I've Been) Searchin' So Long (Pankow) – 4:29
Mongonucleosis (Pankow) – 3:26
Wishing You Were Here (Cetera) – 4:37
Call on Me (Loughnane) – 4:02
Happy Man (Cetera) – 3:14
DISC THREE
Harry Truman (Lamm) – 3:01
Old Days (Pankow) – 3:31
Brand New Love Affair, Part I & II (Pankow) – 4:27
Never Been in Love Before (Lamm) – 4:10
You Are on My Mind (Pankow) – 3:12
Mama Mama (Cetera) – 3:30
Hope For Love (Kath) – 3:03
Another Rainy Day in New York City (Lamm) – 3:01
Gently I'll Wake You (Lamm) – 3:33
If You Leave Me Now (Cetera) – 3:56
Mississippi Delta City Blues (Kath) – 4:39
Baby, What a Big Surprise (Cetera) – 3:04
Take Me Back to Chicago (Seraphine, Wolinski) – 5:17
Prelude (Little One) /Little One (Seraphine, Wolinski) – 6:34
Gone Long Gone (Cetera) – 4:00
No Tell Lover (Cetera, Loughnane, Seraphine) – 3:48
Alive Again (Pankow) – 3:28
The Greatest Love on Earth (Seraphine, Wolinski) – 3:18
Little Miss Lovin' (Cetera) – 4:36
Hot Streets (Lamm) – 5:14
DISC FOUR
Street Player (Seraphine, Wolinski) – 4:23
Must Have Been Crazy (Dacus) – 3:23
Manipulation (Lamm) – 3:29
Thunder and Lightning (Cetera, Lamm, Seraphine) – 3:32
Song for You (Cetera) – 3:41
The American Dream (Pankow) – 3:17
Love Me Tomorrow (Cetera, Foster) – 4:59
Chains (Thomas) – 3:22
What You're Missing (Gruska, Williams) – 3:30
Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away (Cetera, Foster, Lamm) – 5:06
Stay the Night (Cetera, Foster) – 3:48
We Can Stop the Hurtin' (Lamm, Champlin, Neal) – 4:11
Hard Habit to Break (Kipner, Parker) – 4:43
Along Comes a Woman (Cetera, Goldenberg) – 3:46
You're the Inspiration (Cetera, Foster) – 3:48
Good for Nothing (Lamm, Foster, Marx) – 3:38
If She Would Have Been Faithful... (Kipner, Goodrum) – 3:51
Forever (Lamm, Gable) – 5:17
Will You Still Love Me? (Foster, Keane, Baskin) – 4:11
Niagara Falls (Kipner, Caldwell) – 3:42
DISC FIVE
Heart in Pieces (Feehan, MacLeod) – 5:04
Look Away (Warren) – 3:59
What Kind of Man Would I Be? (Scheff, Sandford, Caldwell) – 4:19
I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love (Warren, Hammond) – 3:55
We Can Last Forever (Scheff, Dexter) – 3:45
You're Not Alone (Scott) – 3:56
Hearts in Trouble (Champlin, Matkowsky, Dukes) – 4:01
Only Time Can Heal the Wounded (Lamm, McMahon) – 4:43
You Come to My Senses (Steinberg, Kelly) – 3:49
God Save the Queen (Pankow, Scheff) – 4:19
Chasin' the Wind (Warren) – 4:18
All the Years (Lamm, Gaitsch) – 4:16
Stone of Sisyphus (Loughnane, Bailey) – 4:12
Bigger Than Elvis (Scheff, Wolf, Wolf) – 4:31
Caravan (Ellington, Mills, Tizol) – 3:23
Here in My Heart (Ballard, Howard) – 4:15
The Only One (Pankow, O'Connor) – 4:38
All Roads Lead to You (Beeson, Child) – 4:20
Show Me a Sign (Pankow, O'Connor) – 3:35
DISC SIX: DVD
Live material from 1972
Promotional videos for
Chicago 13 (1979)
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Boxed sets were the big thing, so...
Wait. Boxed sets
were the big thing, but their time had kinda come and gone already by this point. They worked for a while, when a lot of people still had record albums, because boxes were about the same size as records (except for the thickness) and could fit onto the shelf with them. By 2003, it was becoming more common to actually package these multi-disc sets in a booklet-type thing like you see in the photo above.
Anyway, with still no new music forthcoming and Rhino anxious to get some new Chicago product out there, we got
Chicago: The Box. Actually, back in 1991, Columbia Records had released a boxed set called
Chicago Group Portrait, which of course contained only music from the Columbia years. This was yet another cash-grab by Columbia after Chicago had gone over to Warner Bros. and I was feeling kinda spiteful about it, so I didn't include it, but I realise now that I probably should have at least mentioned it, because this is technically the second boxed set from Chicago. Oh well.
Unlike "greatest hits" things, a boxed set is a more serious effort to provide an overview of the band and its history. Besides all the hits, significant album tracks are included, and often out-takes and other rarities as well. The big draws for this set were three tracks from
Stone of Sysiphus (which was still unreleased) and the DVD of concert footage from 1972, the
Chicago V tour.
As you can see by the track listing, including the track times, there are some interesting edits here. "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" is the version without the piano intro but with everything else, the same as on
The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning. "I'm a Man" is the same edit as well, missing most of the drum solo.
I've never seen the "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" edited this way before. Clearly, the idea is to isolate "Colour My World", presumably so people can just jump to that song if they like. The edit of "It Better End Soon" is also unique; if this listing is correct (I don't own this box), we have only the 1st, 3rd, and 4th movements, but not the 2nd (the flute solo). "An Hour in the Shower" is all here; I just didn't feel like including the names of all the separate movements.
"Dialogue (Part I & II)" has been fully restored, so that's nice. There's a rhythm, a gradual buildup at the end which is lost when they randomly cut parts out to make it shorter, to appease today's shorter attention spans. I hate that. The song is great as it is. Each of those repeated sections serves a purpose. End of rant.
"Happy Man" is the version without the false start but everything else, so that's fine. The "Little One" suite is missing the first part, "The Inner Struggles of a Man", which is interesting. I guess someone finally made the decision that it wasn't essential to the piece (which it isn't). Normally, I'd defend including everything, but if there was ever a superfluous orchestral instrumental, this was it.
As mentioned, the three "lost" tracks from
Stone of Sysiphus, "All the Years", "Stone of Sysiphus", and "Bigger than Elvis" were the rarities, and for die-hard Chicago fans, were supposed to be the big draw.
In 2003, getting ahold of concert video from 1972 was a big deal. I'd still probably grab this set if I ever found it somewhere second-hand just for that DVD. Nowadays, I can just go to YouTube and find this footage and more, but I still like owning the physical media, especially for really rare stuff like this.
To me, it's also interesting looking at the track listing and seeing how the early days were dominated by Lamm and Pankow, especially Lamm, and that as time went on, other names crept into the mix, finally giving way to names of people not even in the band.
Unfortunately, as nice as this set is, it did not sell well, failing to chart in the U.S. or anywhere else for that matter. The three rare tracks and the DVD were tempting, but not enough to get hardcore Chicago fans to shell out for it. It was comprehensive out of necessity, but that made it expensive, and hardcore fans already had most of the songs included here. And casual fans don't buy boxed sets. That didn't leave much of an audience for this, Chicago's 28th official release.