You sometimes hear talk about the work ethic of bands in the \u201860s, \u201870s, and \u201880s who chose (or were forced) to release albums each year, but Chicago likely towers above any other band you can name for this surfeit of ethic. In three years, the band released three double albums and then, as the capper to this gluttony, a quadruple live album the year after. <\/p>\n
In many ways, Chicago III <\/i>is the first ending of the original band. The albums released between 1973 and 1978 (Chicago V <\/i>through Chicago XI<\/i>, including a popular hits collection) all featured shorter songs on single albums (well, VIII <\/i>had shorter songs on two albums, but they didn\u2019t sound like this), with more of an emphasis on ballads and less on the jams and suites and solos that populated the first three albums. Terry Kath\u2019s accidental death after the release of XI <\/i>marked the second ending of the original band, as did their split from their producer James Guercio, and never again would the band come back to this kind of sound.<\/p>\n
But one listen to Chicago III <\/i>reveals that the original approach couldn\u2019t go on forever. Three multi-part suites on one album is leaning toward overkill, and indeed this album isn\u2019t as fondly remembered as the stunning debut or Chicago II<\/i>. There really weren\u2019t any hits other than maybe \u201cFree\u201d and \u201cLowdown,\u201d which failed to make the same impact \u201cColour My World\u201d or \u201c25 Or 6 To 4\u201d had critically and commercially. The overall effect of the album, then, is worthy of admiration, as it mines the same sound and feel of the first two records, but there\u2019s just a missing spark in the songwriting that makes it not fully connect.<\/p>\n
Individual standout moments abound, though. \u201cSing A Mean Tune Kid\u201d is a heck of an opener, a 10-minute piece with attitude in the vocals and an extended guitar solo, with limber rhythm section work and horn punctuations that bring it all together. \u201cI Don\u2019t Want Your Money\u201d is a solid blues-rocker as well, kind of like \u201cSouth California Purples\u201d from the debut, sounding a bit like early Jethro Tull but much better. \u201cLoneliness Is Just A Word\u201d is a good album track as well, though \u201cWhat Else Can I Say\u201d is a rather dull ballad, portending the Peter Cetera-led sap that would permeate the \u201880s.<\/p>\n
The second side of the original album is the \u201cTravel Suite,\u201d a six-song effort with little to recommend, sadly. \u201cFlight 602\u201d is so much a Crosby, Stills & Nash knockoff that I wondered if they had swapped it out in the studio when Robert Lamm was on a coffee break, \u201cMotorboat To Mars\u201d is a short drum solo, \u201cFree Country\u201d is an overlong and wispy flute\/piano ballad and \u201cAt the Sunrise\u201d is bland Chicago-by-numbers. \u201cFree\u201d works in this context, at least, a noisy little two-minute one-note rocker and \u201cHappy \u2018Cause I\u2019m Going Home\u201d is deceptively simple but builds in complexity, the acoustic guitar joined by the flute solo and jazzy drumming that is far from straightforward. It goes on a bit long for what it offers, but that\u2019s par for the course by now.<\/p>\n
\u201cLowdown\u201d is a fine rocker on the second disc and a prelude to the second suite, \u201cAn Hour In The Shower,\u201d a Kath composition comprised of five one-minute-long pieces. I would imagine this was done for purely pretentious prog-pop reasons, as this easily could have been a six-minute song with one name, but whatever. As the rocker and, arguably, the beating heart of the original group, Kath\u2019s songs are almost automatically successful, but like the rest of Chicago III <\/i>the piece values form over function. When it\u2019s done, you\u2019ll wonder why you just spent six minutes listening to it.<\/p>\n
The fourth side is taken up by a 15-minute suite called \u201cElegy\u201d that starts <\/i>with a spoken-word poem called \u201cWhen All The Laughter Dies In Sorrow\u201d and you can\u2019t get much more cheerful than a poem about cosmic tears and the greater thinking thing giving a damn. The \u201cProgress?\u201d section is a bunch of random horn blasts that get irritating quickly (\u201cCanon\u201d is a short horn-filled introduction), but \u201cOnce Upon A Time\u201d and \u201cThe Approaching Storm\u201d are better instrumentals, the latter in particular finding room for a quirky guitar solo among the thunderous horn blares. And as pretentious as a song called \u201cMan vs. Man: The End\u201d is, it nicely wraps up the piece with suitable drama. Again, none of the songs by themselves are all that noteworthy, but the entire piece is able to convey a story through music and gives the horns (and composer James Pankow) a chance to shine.<\/p>\n
Some fans consider this better than the first two, a culmination of what the guys had been working up to at that point, but the truth is that it\u2019s just a little too much of a good thing without the great songs necessary to carry it fully to completion, like the White Album or Tusk<\/i>. Chicago would realize the same thing and scale back from here on out, making this the last album of its kind. Not an easy album to warm up to, but its pleasures are worth seeking out for longtime Chicago fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5830],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-44762","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chicago","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44762","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44762"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}