Picture yourself in Chicago’s shoes in 1980: Your last two
\nalbums haven’t been up your usual standard of quality, and also did
\nnot meet sales expectations. You just fired Donnie Dacus, the man
\nwho was brought in to replace your bands soul\/guitar player Terry
\nKath, after two albums. Disco, and Punk and New Wave are the
\ndominant musical styles of the time, styles far from the brand of
\njazz rock you made popular in the 70’s. Your lead singer is
\nprepared to leave the group, and drug and alcohol addictions
\nabound. Most groups would pack it in at this point, but not
\nChicago. However, after listening to
\nChicago XIV<\/i>, sometimes I wish they had.<\/p>\n
The problems with
\nXIV<\/i> are many, and couldn’t be avoided. Chicago as a group
\nwas exhausted mentally and physically, and in no condition to
\nrecord a new album. This is evident in the complete lack of energy
\nin the performance, and the tired feel of the material.<\/p>\n
In the 70’s, Chicago’s trademark was their horn section, which
\nwas thought of by the band as another lead vocalist. Jimmy Pankow,
\nLee Loughnane, and Walt Parazaider were the punch in Chicago’s
\nattack. These three did indeed perform on
\nChicago XIV<\/i>, but you couldn’t tell me it was them. The horns
\nare tacked onto the songs, for the sole reason this is a Chicago
\nalbum. There are no amazing performances along the lines of “Now
\nThat You’ve Gone,” or “25 Or 6 To 4” The horns come off as stiff,
\nand don’t add anything to the material. The lone exception is a
\ndecent trombone solo on “Thunder And Lightning,” but it’s over
\nbefore you know it.<\/p>\n
At this point, Chicago had two feasible lead vocalists, Peter
\nCetera and Robert Lamm. Cetera by now was the voice of the band to
\nmany, and as a result has a lion’s share of the vocals. Most of his
\nperformances are average, but he ruins the album for me with his
\nperformances “Song For You” and “Birthday Boy.” Cetera goes
\nfalsetto on the former, and comes off as wimpy. “Birthday Boy” has
\nthe dubious distinction of being my least favorite Chicago song
\never. It’s disgustingly saccharine and sappy, to the point where I
\ncan feel my teeth begin to melt while listening to it. Lyrically,
\nit is an abomination to man, filled with trite lines such as,
\n“Birthday boy, blow out the candles; Good friends around you, you
\nshould feel O.K.” It’s not often I have a visceral reaction to a
\nsong, this is one of those instances.<\/p>\n
Lamm’s material is the “best” on the album; the opener
\n“Manipulation” is actually a decent song, featuring some nice
\nguitar work from session man Chris Pinnick, along with the most
\nlively performance from the horn section on the album. “I’d Rather
\nBe Rich,” an outtake from the
\nChicago X<\/i> album, is a funky offering, with the usual cynical
\nlyrical edge of a Robert Lamm song. Jimmy Pankow wrote the closing
\nnumber, “The American Dream”, an anti-establishment protest song,
\nbut it doesn’t even come close to earlier anti-government songs
\nChicago recorded, such as “It Better End Soon,” or “Dialogue Parts
\nI and II.”<\/p>\n
Does anything go right for Chicago on
\nChicago XIV<\/i>? You wouldn’t think so, however due to the
\nincredibly poor performance of the album, (Jimmy Pankow once said
\nthe album probably went “aluminum, maybe plywood), Chicago’s focus
\ncompletely changed. They brought in a new producer named David
\nFoster, a new vocalist and guitarist named Bill Champlin, and as a
\nresult their next studio effort
\nChicago 16<\/i> would bring them back into the spotlight. Just
\nfor that,
\nChicago XIV<\/i> holds an important position in Chicago
\nhistory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5830],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-38250","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chicago","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38250"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38250"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}