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- CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE
WEEK
- Chicago "Chicago" 1970 (USA)
Considering their next 30 or so albums had roman numerals for titles, you might think of this as Chicago II,
though it is actually their second attempt at an eponymous album,
having previously been forced to change their name from their original
(and cooler) handle, The Chicago Transit Authority
(because that's already the trademarked name of the train and bus
system in Chicago). Although not as progressive and fantastic as their
seminal debut album, Chicago is the record that made the band into
superstars, producing their first batch of bona fide hit singles in
"Make Me Smile", "Color My World" and the monster riff and enigmatic
lyrics of "25 or 6 to 4". Twas so successful in fact that singles from
the debut returned to the charts and also became hits ("Does Anybody
Really Know What Time It Is" and "Beginnings" had flopped the first
time out). At their best, this was a group with a solid rhythm section
and keyboardist, an ultra-badass guitarist (the late great Terry Kath),
three strong lead singers who also wrote songs (Robert Lamm's were
usually the best ones), and the thing that set them apart: a
three-piece horn section who "breathed with one set of lungs" and
provided orchestral majesty and funky jazz licks as needed. Plus
trombonist and horn arranger Jimmy Pankow wrote a bunch more hits for
the group, in fact may have been their greatest hitmaker until Peter
Cetera's ballads began to take center stage in the late 1970's. Pankow
wrote the 13-minute "Ballet for a Girl in Buckhanon" which is certainly
their best known long-form piece, two sections of which became the
aforementioned hits "Smile" and "Color". Their catchy tunes and nifty
arrangements made them something like the heir to The Beatles (at least
in America), as the sixties' favorite group was just breaking up
as Chicago was taking off. Having collected up the first 10 or so of
their LPs (cheap in any used record store, the trick is keeping all
those roman numerals straight!) - I would venture to say that the first
three, V and especially the unsung VII are the classics in their canon (IV was a mediocre live album, though the packaging is great, and VI was the first to feature craptastic Cetera ballads, which remained the group's main selling point from VIII until Cetera departed for a solo career in the 1980s). |
