If Chicago's last album was its twenty-first, then how can the new one be its thirtieth?
The band Chicago celebrates its thirty-ninth birthday this year, and all that history — unfair or not — makes it difficult to judge its new recordings strictly on its own merits. This hasn't been much of a problem lately, of course; XXX is the band's first new release since 1991's Twenty 1.…
Article comments
26 - juratom
Best Chicago album in the last 30 years.
27 - Barney Lerten
I too love the new album. Too many snobby pretentious critics always claim a group must "evolve" into something foreign to their original loyal fans,rather than deliver more of the wonderful same. Give me more of the wonderful same, and show that you're ... oh what the hell, I'll say it - "Feelin Stronger Every Day." And they do, on every cut.
28 - Rodney Welch
I am amazed by the responses to this review (which sounds like it's on the money, eventhough I haven't heard the record under discussion).
Like a lot of people, I was heavily into Chicago at the beginning; back in my junior high and high school days I played the second, third, fifth and I think eighth records obsessively. I had no idea what "25 or 6 to 4" actually meant, but I was sure it was something of deep significance, no doubt worthy of hours upon hours of discussion. I thought "When All the Laughter Died in Sorrow" was a poem of genius. I thought "Motorboat to Mars" was the greatest drum solo in history. I thought -- yes, I can admit it now -- that "Dialogue" was profound, and I even copied out the lyrics on notebook paper. I was capable of listening to "Does Anyone Know What Time It Is?" and actually asking myself, "Is it possible none of us really know what time it is? Can we... ever?" I was a fan.
That was all over by college. Punk, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Warren Zevon, Elvis Costello -- all these other influences, old and new, started coming in and Chicago just seemed impossibly old. I recalled how my junior-high band director liked them, and indeed they did seem like someone's very staid, conventional, acceptable idea of what "good" rock and roll sounded like. The occasional news that they were still out there kicking actually baffled me; they never got the memo that they were completely irrelevant and I guess their fans haven't either, which I suppose is as it should be, because they apparently keep finding each other, and judging from the responses here both Chicago and its fans like what they see in the other.
Barry Lerten's comment says it all: "Too many snobby pretentious critics always claim a group must `evolve' into something foreign to their original loyal fans,rather than deliver more of the wonderful same."
What can you say to a fan who likes the fact that the band hasn't grown an inch?
29 - NR Davis
Mr. Jefito: I don't disagree with many of your criticisms of Chicago XXX (I'm a fan since CTA, a worn and well-loved vinyl copy of which sits in my collection). There is some well-constructed stuff on there (no serious music appreciator would fail to recognize the talented musicianship), but I moved on in 1979 (guess that makes me one of the "snobby, pretentious critics"; I need my artists to grow). But lots of people DO want their bands to lack innovativeness. What do we say to these people? I would say that these folks - and any interested in reading about the band's release for whatever reason - deserve a review that at least attempts objectivity. Did you write this article for yourself or for your readers? And if the latter, did you target your prose toward mainstreamers ("don't change" fans), (for lack of a better label) "snobby, pretentious" fans, or a general audience?
Here is my gripe about the review - again, noting that I agree with many of its impressions of the new CD. The author wrote: "1969-1977: The "Chicago as Elvis at Sun Records" era, in which Robert Lamm's cynical optimism, Terry Kath's muddy rock, and Peter Cetera's gift for schmaltz combined with rock & roll's best horn section to sell lots and lots of records."
If you enter a review project feeling so negative about the act - and when that feeling is of a degree that motivates you to insult the band about meaningless minutia right from the start rather than focus on its MUSIC'S merits - I have to question your fitness as an objective critic of Chicago.
I did like "cynical optimism," though. The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, sure, but it really does exist - and it's a great description of the sense one gets (or rather the sense I get) from Bobby Lamm's stuff.
Mr. Welch: I could deal with hearing "Dialogue" right now. It may not be particularly deep, but the main message - "We can make it happen" - makes a great pep talk for this dangerous new millennium.
Mr. Lerten: Who's the real pretentious snob? You judge people for daring to appreciate innovation and growth in musical art. I haven't judged you for settling for the "wonderful same." I need more than the same thing I heard eons ago, which is perfectly OK. Being content with a band maintaining one consistent sound is OK too. To each his or her own. And either way, "25 or 6 to 4" is killer. God love Jimmy Pankow and his horns. And long live the memory of Terry Kath. (Muddy rock, my ass.)
30 - jefito
"Muddy rock" is a compliment. Good Lord, people, learn about your rock & roll.
31 - Rodney Welch
NR, Objectivity means nothing. I'm not objective about anything that matters to me. What matters is fairness. Jefito gave the record a fair hearing, hated it, and wrote his impressions with -- it seems to me -- considerable meticulousness. He didn't just say it sucked, he said why it sucked, how it sucked, when it sucked, where it sucked, and then stood back and considered the nature of this particular brand of suckiness. That's all you can ask. It's perfectly okay to hate something -- just make sure you hate passionately and intelligently and, most important of all, interestingly. Jefito passes with flying colors.
32 - NR Davis
Lead with the insults appears to be your M.O., Mr. Jefito. I know quite a bit about rock and roll on a professional level, thank you, so kiss my ass. And in many circles, even musical ones, "muddy" is not a recommended adjective. I sense where you're coming from by using that term (yeah, there are times when muddy is good), but if your readers don't get your intended meaning straight away, that's about YOU and YOUR word choice. Don't slam me - I just spent my valuable time reading YOUR article (an error that assuredly won't be repeated; this buyer has learned to beware), something that added significantly less to my life than an hour with Chicago XXX did.
Mr. Welch, that's your opinion. To me, a certain amount of objectivity indeed matters - whether a writer personally likes or dislikes an artist. He hated it and said so and in the way he saw fit, which absolutely is his right. My point is that by starting with insults practically from word one - and most of them centered around *inane* shit - he doesn't do much to encourage people to find him credible, even if he is right. In a music piece (as opposed to a politics or news editorial, a gossip item or celeb puff piece, or a stylistic piece from a writer who intends to be a nasty, insulting git), I just don't see the point of insulting the artist (and, by extension, the act's fans). It is possible to say negative things about a reviewed recording or whatever without trashing the artist and those in its camp.
33 - Melinda
This album was so country. How did they get from swing rock to country rock? And yes, I'm a diehard fan who FLIPS OUT anytime I hear 25 or 6 to 4.
It's not the sound of the music for me...it's the intelligence. Back then, difficult horn rhythms and intense dissonance...not to mention their crisply performed crescendos stood them out from other bands. They knew music, and they knew how to make intelligent music. Nowadays it's a lame horn part, same old major key signature throughout the song, no drum solos, and certainly no dynamics. If I gave the sheet music of the songs on XXX to a 5th grade band they could play it; the music isn't intelligent like it used to be at all.
34 - White Sox Fan
Man, oh man, oh man. Whew---I don't know what's wilder and more outlandish here, the original review or some of the "fans'" replies to it. I prefer to take what I call the "psychiatric" approach to this CD, because one almost has to be a psychiatrist to fully understand and appreciate what has been going with Chicago for the past 15 years. And at the core of any good psychiatric analysis of Chicago, one has to look at the band's severed relationship with its original producer/manager/handler/hand-holder, James William Guercio. Bless his heart, Jimmy Guercio has to be laughing his rear end off in his adopted home, Boulder, Colorado, if he's taken a listen to XXX. In various comments over the last 15 years, Jimmy G. has noted that while the band fired him in 1977, they really quit listening to him in about 1974, and that is where the almost imperceptible slide in their fortunes began, although the slide did not gain momentum until 1978/1979. If Chicago had stuck with Jimmy G. AND listened to him into the 1980s and beyond, there is no telling what might have been. While Chicago's fortunes staggered back and forth through the 1980s and 1990s, Jimmy G. built a HUGE fortune. Having bought a massive amount of property on the south end of Rocky Mountain National Park in the early 1970s, Jimmy G. established Caribou Ranch, including its famed recording studio, where the likes of Joe Walsh, Elton John, Billy Joel, Carole King and Rod Stewart recorded. Unfortunately, the studio burned down from an electrical short in 1985. After that, Guercio was disenchanted with the music and recording industry, so he shifted gears, and successfully pursued large-scale cattle ranching (he now owns 3 ranches, including Caribou), property development, and, currently, oil and gas exploration, drilling and production, particularly coalbed methane wells. In the late 1980s, Guercio formed the Country Music Television (CMT) channel, which, in the early 1990s he sold to media tycoon Ed Gaylord and Westinghouse Broadcasting. Guercio is now worth several hundred million dollars, and all of this was done in the 21 years since 1985.
Compare that to what Chicago HAS NOT DONE in the same period, while continuing to pat themselves on the back for splitting with Jimmy G. Now, who would YOU say is smarter? Yes, former drummer Danny Seraphine tried to emulate Guercio and put some sanity into Chicago's business and musical decisions, but he was simultaneously hamstrung by both Warner Brothers' idiotic insistence on power ballads (not the band's fault) AND the band's paranoia that he somehow was destroying the group's "democratic" decision-making process, causing them to "fire" him in 1990. And let us not forget that the band's creativity was seriously wounded in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the self-admitted (in public interviews) drug usage of some of the band's members. I mention all of this, because one cannot adequately appreciate how Chicago churned out this incredibly "Dual Personality" CD, a.k.a. XXX, without knowing all the history. And yes, the band DOES have its factions. There is the "conservative" element, the horn section (Pankow, Parazaider and Loughnane), along with the "liberal" wing of Scheff and Lamm, plus the "let's hang out and rock" trio of Champlin, Imboden and Howland. Although all these guys get along well on the surface, there are very significant differences in the way that they all look at musical and business decisions. All that being said, I don't think that this XXX CD would have been given a "green light" commercially, had it not been for Scheff's tight friendship with Rascal Flatts and the popularity of the latter group with recording industry executives. Furthermore, it was Scheff and Lamm, along with Champlin, who really wanted to make the new CD. The horn section was not originally very enthusiastic, although they seem to have warmed up to the idea over the last year. So, the dominance of Scheff over the first half of the CD is somewhat understandable, although you have to wonder why his "elders," the four original members, did not tell him "no" on some of the sophomoric lyric writing. However, I seem to remember several nasty reviewers in the mid-70s referring to "sophomoric" and "sappy" Chicago lyrics around the VII, VIII and X albums, so maybe Scheff is just being true to a less glorious side of the band's history.
By the same token, Scheff's voice isn't quite what it used to be, and in his valiant attempts to hit the highest of high notes in some of the ballads on the front end of XXX, Scheff winds up coming across as screeching. Unfortunately, as people like Billy Joel and Elton John found out some years back, male voices tend to deepen and lose some of their "clarity" with age, no matter what we do to fight it. Scheff is now 43, and this is about the same age that the ability of Joel and John to hit high notes began to fade. I must say, one of the few people to hold on to an extended upper vocal range is Peter Cetera, the original Chicago bassist/vocalist, who is probably also laughing his rear end off in Idaho. And while we're discussing retention of vocal ability, I really have to "Feel" for Robert Lamm, whose voice just "ain't what it used to be." Granted, the man is 61 years old, and he is to be commended for having an incredible amount of energy and boyish enthusiasm for his age (his fellow three original members could learn something from him in that department). Nevertheless, as he unfortunately demonstrated in this week's television appearances on Martha Stewart's and Tony Danza's shows, he's having problems getting his voice warmed up and sounding hoarse. And his ability to hit any high notes is now limited and particularly evident on lighter, slower songs, like Saturday In The Park and the early part of Beginnings. If it was up to me, I would advise the band to develop a song list in which tunes that feature Bobby Lamm on lead vocals are inserted after at least a half-dozen other songs. This would give him a chance to warm up his voice on background vocals while someone else does the leads until he's ready to sing without being hoarse. Again, this is regretfully a function of age, which again leads me to say that Chicago should have cut out 50% of the front half of XXX and replaced these ballads that show the uneven character of Lamm and Scheff's voices with some faster, noisier songs that would mask these limitations. In fact, I very much like the Back Half of XXX, which is what salvages this CD from being completely like 19 or 21. Well, I've triend to take a very analytical, fair approach to my comments, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be skewered by the hard core faithful, no matter what I say. Just remember, I'm really a faithful follower of the band, but let's be honest---they haven't always made the best choices, a problem exacerbated by dumb-ass recording company executives.
35 - bimplebean
White Sox Fan: Man, lots of info in there I never knew! Perhaps you're really Jimmy G in disguise? [g]
36 - DAVID thered
give CHICAGO,aS FAR AS THE concern and the credit for CHICAGOXXX. Keyboard player RObert Lamm and Walt and the remaining Originals can record any style of music and I'd keep in my collection. We love you TERRY DAVE
37 - Mel
The official review of this album did seem more like a vendetta against the band than a review of the album.
I'm an "old school" Chicago fan, and love everything they put out from Transit Authority to Chicago 11.
I heard Chi-XXX was going to be more rock influenced and not another ballad album, so I bought it when it came out. I do have to say I was disappointed. Instead of just making good music they liked, the band seems to have been trying to please both their rock fans and their ballad fans...which never works.
The first half of the ablum is all ballads, and the second half is slightly more uptempo songs. I think I have bought my last Chicago album.
That said, I do love Robert Lamm's solo stuff and will continue buying his work.
38 - Mike Z
What a disappointment! I just downloaded Chicago XXX to my ipod, and now I have to figure out how to unload it. I am probably the biggest fan of Chicago: in the fan club, going to concerts all the time, having every recording in my collection, etc. I thought Chicago XXI was a disappointment, but that 1991 crap was more in touch with the times than Chicago XXX. What are they thinking? Better yet - who was stupid enough to front the money to produce this? My favorite band has died - the problem is they don't know it yet.
39 - Leenie
I think Chicago XXX is well produced and I love all of the songs. Jason Scheff is a plus to Chicago. I have been a fan since the 1970's. I still will always love the song "Beginnings".
40 - Electrify
I think the biggest problem with this review is that you seem to think Chicago was some kind of hard hitting metal band in the late 60s and 70s, and that ballads were below them. I think you should wash the nastalgia out of your ears and relisten to their older stuff. Colour my World, I've Been Searching So Long, Just You and Me, If You Leave Me Now, and more were all done during the "glory days" and were all hit ballads. If you still don't believe me, check out the Love Songs compilation from the band, might help your flawed perspective on the band.
One thing about Chicago's ballads, whether it be the 60s, 70s, 80s or the 90s, is that they always have some of the most powerful lyrics and strongest musical composition than anything else out there. Period. And yes, this trend continues on with Chicago XXX. In fact, this is more in line with the Chicago of the 70s than you give it credit for since both eras have ballads, just that the 70s had horns in their ballads like XXX (as well as HOC1&2, and 26 from the 90s) and the 80s didn't.
And while there are no protest songs damning Bush and 9/11, there are songs that definitely keep pace with the older Chicago tunes. The last three songs (not including Feel) definitely have that old school Chicago sound to them.
41 - skimmer
It's Nov. 07, and I'm just hearing about this album? That's because nobody talked about it. Not the hard core fans anyway. Have you ever tried performing their music? Then you'll never understand where critics are coming from. Oh, their old style won't "sell records" today. That's because of the dumbing down of pop music. Where are the horns? Where have they been for 25 years? Only on Night & Day that's where. When that came out, even Jimmy said " for those of you who gave up on us (the horns) this album is for you". Well it's the only album I've bought since #13. I LOVE their ballads, but as usual, the horns could have phoned this one in. Use em or lose em.
42 - Ryan Marquez
I think one of the biggest mistakes made on this album was its marketing. I saw one, maybe two ads for it in magazines. That's certainly not going to get any new listeners to chime in on their music. Instead of just tossing this album out on the market, Chicago should have released videos of songs like "Feel" and the Cetera-esque "Love Will Come Back" to put their name out in public again. It really pains me to see another great album by a great band flounder like this. I ask people at my school what they think of Chicago and they reply "who's Chicago?" It kills me. So much unappreciated talent. With their connections with Rascal Flatts, "Love Will Come Back" could have become a much bigger hit. All in all, I loved the album. I"ll admit it does feel a little overproduced at times, but that could just be a last-minute attempt to try and sound contemporary. If the band is planning on any new recordings, I'd enjoy some more '70s-sounding tracks. A recover of "Dialogue" would be excellent with the war in Iraq.
43 - Dave Meadows
I have to agree with the article.How many greatest hits packages can a band put out.Not only is it ripping of the fans,it is egotistically absurd.I can't even believe these rearend holes still call themselves Chicago.When Terry Kath died they still moved on,but when Peter Cetera left,then fired Danny Seraphine,to me they died!!!Kudos to Danny Seraphine and CTA and last...Jason Scheff sucks!
44 - Muff
Its horrifying that they play with Scheff and Howland still. If they insist on playing , they should get better singers and try to recreate the sound they had in the seventies. If not, just stay home and enjoy the royalties. Howland and Scheff sound HORRIBLE> There are better Chicago cover bands. Pankow is a genius and I feel bad that he has to endure those 2 guys voices on stage.