Chicago III - time to reassess?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by manco, Jan 3, 2019.

  1. manco

    manco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Robert Lamm had done the heavy lifting for the first 5 years, I'm not surprised he slumped a bit afterwards. He never really was able to recapture that early songwriting magic afterwards.
     
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  2. John Harchar

    John Harchar Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Sometimes even if something does pretty well on the top 40 chart it doesn’t leave a lasting impression and kind of disappears. That’s what happened to Free. Just one of those things.
     
  3. manco

    manco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I think the problem is in this period Chicago were too progressive for their singles to be chart toppers, but too good to flop. I think it's no coincidence that the next set of singles off Chicago V were more straightforward and much bigger hits.
     
  4. Mickey2

    Mickey2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bronx, NY, USA
    My favorite. CTA has some outdated filler toward the end (Free Form Guitar), the second may have gotten a little overplayed and the audio quality is IMO dead (always disappointing initially when I put it on), whereas III does not suffer from these things defects. It had no blockbuster hits (Lowdown, Free), but is solid (no filler, except arguably the brief Progress?) and diverse (hard rocking, country, jazz) all around, and closes with a strong finish.
     
  5. Norbert Becker

    Norbert Becker Senior Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia PA
    Many other groups who started out so strongly out the gate would have loved to have a third album (no less a double) this good. You could make 4 or 5 great single albums out of the first 3.
     
  6. Dougd

    Dougd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fla.
    I've always felt that way.
    They could've saved Hour In the Shower for concerts, maybe.


    That's a good summary.
    III includes a variety of songs and styles.
     
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  7. manco

    manco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    So many of the classic groups in that era put out great LP after great LP year after year.
     
  8. Poem58

    Poem58 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Akron, Ohio
    I was a teenager in the 80s and my band director and I were talking on a bus trip to a show. He found out I liked Chicago and asked if I had heard III yet. I had 16,17, a couple compilations and I think II by then, so he went home and made me a tape. Sing a Mean Tune Kid was a very engaging opening for sure, I Don't Want Your Money has some nice Kath jam and I saw Progress? mentioned... personally I think that was brilliant. Having the song devolve into a chaotic instrumental and mixing in man made noise... essentially asking, THIS IS PROGRESS? Then answering the question with the toilet flush. Walt said it was almost like they could fart on a record and it would be a hit...well they did come close. Lol
    Maybe not a radio friendly album, but one I'll never stop listening to.
     
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  9. JamieC

    JamieC Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit Mi USA
    IMO 3 just went farther into jazz than their fans were really ready for. It also did not really spawn any real hits. Free was probably the most like 2.
     
  10. jwjeffrey

    jwjeffrey Hard working and Honest!

    The times in the Music Business were changing,F.M. Radio were beginning to no longer play extended Musical pieces.The record industry was also changing in that they were only willing to pay for a certain amount of tracks per album.After Carnegie Hall they started releasing single albums except for 7 and also remember at that time they were on the road almost 300 days out of the year
     
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  11. EdgardV

    EdgardV ®

    Location:
    USA
    Yes indeed. I say this all the time about everything in life. Infact I kind of enjoy liking things that are unique that other people don't know about.

    However, if I am the only one who likes something, there is a good chance that I won't be able to enjoy it for long, because it won't survive. A band achieving commercial success allows it to thrive and continue.

    So while I don't pay attention to chart singles or albums, or how many a band sold or how many dollars a band has made or what critics say or whether or not a band got into the rrhof, I'm glad when they do achieve those things so that they can continue to produce.
     
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  12. Treegarden

    Treegarden Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Stamford, CT
    I've just started listening to this album again after, oh, 40 years (part of an early-Chicago binge inspired by the video of their 1970 Tanglewood performance). I had forgotten that they used a pedal steel guitar on Flight 602; there was that period of 4 or 5 years when it seemed almost obligatory for rock bands (even Steely Dan!) to use pedal steel. It would seem to have begun in country rock with the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo, then Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco, and eventually bled into straight rock albums for a while until (it would seem) the novelty faded.

    At any rate, Chicago III is, as I remember it, a damn good album, and pretty much where my listening to them ended, although other comments here make me want to check out a couple of its successors.
     
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  13. dr jazz

    dr jazz Forum Resident

    Location:
    park ridge,il,usa
    Please do not let Tim Jessup remix this
     
  14. JamesD1957

    JamesD1957 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cypress, Texas
    Let Steven Wilson have III and Jessup can have Stone of Sisyphus.
     
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  15. Autotune Sucks

    Autotune Sucks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Little Rock, AR
    Yes, they did. It's called Chicago VII.
     
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  16. Trainspotting

    Trainspotting Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    EASILY the worst of their double albums.
     
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  17. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    How does the Friday Music CD sound?
     
  18. badfingerjoe

    badfingerjoe Senior Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    The Friday Music CD is worth picking up. It's my go to copy of III....they did a nice job on it and it's much better
    than the Rhino (not saying much I know) and a bit more clarity to it compared to the original Columbia CD....
     
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  19. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    Thanks, man. Is the Columbia CD decent?
    I got one of those coming. I already got the Rhino for
    the packaging and liners.
     
  20. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    :agree:
    Nice natural sound.
    Not sure who did this one. Gastwirt did a few early titles, but nothing in the credits for this one.
     
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  21. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    Coolness. Thanx to you.
     
  22. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    Gastwirt did Chicago III
     
  23. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Thanks, I may have put a blind bet that he did. :)
     
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  24. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    I don't think III was ever as hard to imagine as "an album" as the first two were, because yeah - not as publically-accessessible. That was Sophomore Year for me, and as much as I liked it, I always thought of it in context of, "...and look! Here's some more Chicago...!". Then of course IV was out quickly after that, and all the tracks became lumped-together conceptually within the minds of fans in a years' time. Just too much great music, all in one place to even think of it out of context of each other by then...they were all over the radio. (Like we used to say, "ALL FOUR songs!")

    Then Freshman Year of college, and they were back - only one LP's-worth - and the tour finally came to our sized city (right when the music was both absolutely astonishing, yet so far out of the general public's comfort level, all they could mouth along with on the radio was "Saturday In The Park" - and then, "play that other one, you know the one we all know the guitar hook to like the back of our hands!"...and nobody had time for any hits by Varese anymore...:shrug:
     
  25. Autotune Sucks

    Autotune Sucks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Little Rock, AR
    A subjective opinion just like mine. I personally find Chicago II to be frequently boring and I am totally done with its hits. Chicago VII had incredible stylistic diversity, was highly experimental in places AND included several hits. Their creative collapse slowly began right after with VIII.
     

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