Those guys were frigging geniuses- they could do long form jazz-type suites (as you show here) and create a seemingly endless number of hit singles with considerable ease. I admire what they did ever more with each listen of my copies of their records.
Robert, I always mean to look into this album and I appreciate the case you've made for it, in particular as being part of and not an outlier for its times. It's now on my list to hunt down.
I simply loved Chicago in their early days, and can recommend to anyone their first five studio albums. After that, they gradually began sliding downhill.
Their debut album - simply brilliant. It has to be one of the strongest debuts ever by what became a major act. When you compare what they became with this, it is easy to forget the rousing beginnings, but anybody willing to go back to the beginnings, especially for people who only knew them when they fell into the clutches of David Foster and Diane Warren, will get a revelation as to how real this band was.
In some respects, they were something of an enigma. Really a bundle of contradictions and things hiding in plain sight - they could crank out hits, yet their first three albums were all doubles, and even though they didn't get into the concept album craze, they were as much of an album band as they were a singles band. They were also fairly anonymous - people sort of knew who the members were, but sort of didn't at the same time, but that anonymity somehow contributed to their success - there didn't seem to be, to public perception, any one truly dominant personality overshadowing the others (though behind the scenes, we now know there were). But relating to that - they had three distinctive lead singers, none of whom sounded anything like the other, and for being a horn band, their heart and soul was their guitarist.
I sometimes tend to think that they were to rock what "Peanuts" was to comic strips (and as I'm a cartoonist, it's a handy comparison) - popular, well-followed, yet with all sorts of things under the surface that, for those willing to scratch it, would reveal nuance and richness.
It’s the only LP of theirs I own. I listen to it regularly. It pretty much bookmarks my childhood and FM radio in the early 70s. There are some good songs on Chicago 2, but after that they seem to have gone all-in on commercial pop songs.
Those guys were frigging geniuses- they could do long form jazz-type suites (as you show here) and create a seemingly endless number of hit singles with considerable ease. I admire what they did ever more with each listen of my copies of their records.
Robert, I always mean to look into this album and I appreciate the case you've made for it, in particular as being part of and not an outlier for its times. It's now on my list to hunt down.
I simply loved Chicago in their early days, and can recommend to anyone their first five studio albums. After that, they gradually began sliding downhill.
Their debut album - simply brilliant. It has to be one of the strongest debuts ever by what became a major act. When you compare what they became with this, it is easy to forget the rousing beginnings, but anybody willing to go back to the beginnings, especially for people who only knew them when they fell into the clutches of David Foster and Diane Warren, will get a revelation as to how real this band was.
In some respects, they were something of an enigma. Really a bundle of contradictions and things hiding in plain sight - they could crank out hits, yet their first three albums were all doubles, and even though they didn't get into the concept album craze, they were as much of an album band as they were a singles band. They were also fairly anonymous - people sort of knew who the members were, but sort of didn't at the same time, but that anonymity somehow contributed to their success - there didn't seem to be, to public perception, any one truly dominant personality overshadowing the others (though behind the scenes, we now know there were). But relating to that - they had three distinctive lead singers, none of whom sounded anything like the other, and for being a horn band, their heart and soul was their guitarist.
I sometimes tend to think that they were to rock what "Peanuts" was to comic strips (and as I'm a cartoonist, it's a handy comparison) - popular, well-followed, yet with all sorts of things under the surface that, for those willing to scratch it, would reveal nuance and richness.
My favorite album when I was fourteen.
It’s the only LP of theirs I own. I listen to it regularly. It pretty much bookmarks my childhood and FM radio in the early 70s. There are some good songs on Chicago 2, but after that they seem to have gone all-in on commercial pop songs.
Timely and glorious!!! Thank you for covering the origins of Chicago Robert. ✨🎶🎷🎺🎸🥁