Funny how reading other people’s blogs makes you reassess your own views, isn’t it? I’ve just been having a browse through Beckysisland where there is a whole section on the band Chicago with a wonderfully considered review on each of their multitude of albums – all called ‘Chicago’ funnily enough.
I’ll admit here and now to being a fully paid up member of the Chicago fan club, at least for those albums between 1969 and 1972 (I to V), as I love the melting pot of rampant guitar rock, brassy jazz and singalong pop they invoke on those early albums. Becky comes to the conclusion that the album ‘Chicago V’ is the best - their ‘Sgt. Pepper’ - and whilst my original assessment, made some thirty years ago, is that it is very good indeed, I wasn’t sure about this, so I ditched my distorted vinyl copy, bought it on remastered CD and re-listened to it. And you know what, she could be right? It is filled with immaculate playing, inventive, varied songs and compulsive rhythms.
BUT…whilst all the above is undoubtedly true, I can’t help hankering for the sprawling unpredictability of their first three double albums where ideas were allowed to over-reach themselves in all sorts of peculiar ways. ‘Chicago V’ is, unusually for them at that time, a single album and there is an overall feeling of compression and restriction about it. In some respects this is good as it distils ideas down to a concentrated nugget, but in other respects I can’t help feeling that guitarist Terry Kath was getting more and more frustrated as the album progressed that he wasn’t allowed to rampage around with one of those endlessly liquid solos. Or that what they really needed was a string quartet interlude.
This then got me thinking about, what in the days of vinyl, we called ‘double albums’. These were a breed of musical product that were universally derided as over-indulgent (especially if they were the dreaded live recording) and often described as a good single album with padding. But somehow, this doesn’t apply to the first three Chicago albums. It is as if the rule here should be reversed and that where Chicago is concerned, they should only produce double albums lest they be derided for chickening out with a measly single. Somehow, they just need the space, after all there were seven of them. That’s not to say that ‘V’ is not a great album, because it is, but I’d put it on a par with ‘II’, my first love, where at least three of the four sides are essential.
Am I allowed two CDs on my desert island?
I’ll admit here and now to being a fully paid up member of the Chicago fan club, at least for those albums between 1969 and 1972 (I to V), as I love the melting pot of rampant guitar rock, brassy jazz and singalong pop they invoke on those early albums. Becky comes to the conclusion that the album ‘Chicago V’ is the best - their ‘Sgt. Pepper’ - and whilst my original assessment, made some thirty years ago, is that it is very good indeed, I wasn’t sure about this, so I ditched my distorted vinyl copy, bought it on remastered CD and re-listened to it. And you know what, she could be right? It is filled with immaculate playing, inventive, varied songs and compulsive rhythms.
BUT…whilst all the above is undoubtedly true, I can’t help hankering for the sprawling unpredictability of their first three double albums where ideas were allowed to over-reach themselves in all sorts of peculiar ways. ‘Chicago V’ is, unusually for them at that time, a single album and there is an overall feeling of compression and restriction about it. In some respects this is good as it distils ideas down to a concentrated nugget, but in other respects I can’t help feeling that guitarist Terry Kath was getting more and more frustrated as the album progressed that he wasn’t allowed to rampage around with one of those endlessly liquid solos. Or that what they really needed was a string quartet interlude.
This then got me thinking about, what in the days of vinyl, we called ‘double albums’. These were a breed of musical product that were universally derided as over-indulgent (especially if they were the dreaded live recording) and often described as a good single album with padding. But somehow, this doesn’t apply to the first three Chicago albums. It is as if the rule here should be reversed and that where Chicago is concerned, they should only produce double albums lest they be derided for chickening out with a measly single. Somehow, they just need the space, after all there were seven of them. That’s not to say that ‘V’ is not a great album, because it is, but I’d put it on a par with ‘II’, my first love, where at least three of the four sides are essential.
Am I allowed two CDs on my desert island?
