Published on May 6, 2001
Before we get into the heart of this review, let’s clear up one
major misconception: this album is not named
Chicago II. The second album from the former Chicago Transit
Authority (before they had to shorten their name or face the wrath
of Mayor Richard J. Daley) reflected their truncated name,
Chicago. But, hey, you wanna call it
Chicago II – hell, you can call this album
Orange Juice, I don’t care. Just reporting the facts.
There’s another fact that has to be reported when it comes to
this second double-album release from Terry Kath and crew. Unlike
their last album, Chicago moves away from the jazz freeform that
marked their debut’s Achilles’s heel… but move into the realm of
pompous music, which was just as bad. We’ll talk more about that
later.
Chicago contained three of the group’s biggest hits to that
point. The first, “25 Or 6 To 4,” is a solid rocker that shows off
Kath’s guitar skills wonderfully. It also shows how well a horn
section could be worked into a rock number – just in case you
hadn’t been paying attention on
Chicago Transit Authority with “Beginnings” and “Does
Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”. Bassist/vocalist Peter
Cetera really comes into his own on this number, signifying the
role he would later take with the group as their frontman. (On this
release, Cetera is still sharing the lead vocal duties – at least I
assume – with Kath and Robert Lamm. The liner notes are sketchy on
this.)
The other big hits, “Make Me Smile” and “Colour My World,” are
wrapped up in a piece that symbolized the pompous shift for
Chicago, “Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon”. A work in seven parts,
you really have to plow through the sludge (“Anxiety’s Moment,”
“West Virginia Fantasies”) to get to the portions of this piece you
want to hear – namely, the two hits. (Columbia wisely took
the X-Acto knife to the tapes when they released the single of
“Make Me Smile” – sorry, guys, but
that was the way the song should have been played.)
One you get past the hits,
Chicago becomes a hit-or-miss album, occasionally diving
into semi-interesting areas (“Fancy Colours,” “Moving In,” “In The
Country”) and occasionally going off the deep end (the series of
four tracks, including “A.M. Mourning” and “P.M. Mourning”, that
close the third side of the record, as well as the traditional
anti-Vietnam number “It Better End Soon”). Like their first
long-player, it’s not that these efforts are bad, but it does
remind you why greatest-hits compilations for groups like this are
must-owns.
Chicago broke no new ground for the band musically, though
it did contain some of their most memorable music that sounds good,
even some 30-odd years since its release. While everything you
would need to hear is on the best-of
Chicago IX, if you want to learn more about the group, then
Chicago is worth checking out… but step carefully.