Chicago - Chicago XIV
#286
by Tom Mott
Chicago
Chicago XIV
Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5
Tom’s Rating: Rating: 3.3
Highlights:
Upon Arrival
Song for You
Where Did the Lovin' Go
Thunder and Lightning
The American Dream
From 1976 to 1980, there was only one stereo in our house. My brother's. He played (and still plays) the trombone, and even though there was a smattering of Eagles, Steely Dan, and Earth Wind & Fire, his record collection was dominated by Chicago. Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago II, Chicago III, Chicago IV ... all way the up through Hot Streets (XII) and Chicago XIII. Every day after school we'd hear one or two sides of a Chicago album before he headed out to deliver papers on his paper route. His first band, Octane ("a high-powered gas") played Chicago songs for the Lompoc Flower Festival Queen pageant. His second band, Backstreet, played Chicago songs at the Aquarium Room at the Lompoc Bowling Alley.
This band is in my bones and part of my family history. While the rest of you were listening to KISS and Led Zeppelin and Elton John, I was listening to Chicago, Chicago, and Chicago. My first concert was Chicago. Live at the L.A. Greek Theater in 1978. I was 13. It turns out it was Jim Shanman's first concert too. Small world! The opening act was Bill Conti, composer of Rocky, conducting the LA Philharmonic. It was Chicago's first live performanes after Terry Kath died, and they had recruited Donnie Dacus (from the movie version of Hair). And you know what? Chicago roared like a beast! The entire concert is on YouTube.
Chicago XIV came out the year my oldest brother left for college in Arizona, which meant he was finally loosening his grip on our household's music. That was good and bad, Mister Dan Fucking Folgelberg.
My strongest memories of this album are listening to it on cassette in the family Chevy van as we made the 14-hour drive from Lompoc to Tuscon. This is the soundtrack to getting out of the hotel pool for sudden lightning storms, discovering Mister Pibb and fried zucchini sticks.
So what to make of this album? It's middle-of-the-road Chicago. If you like Chicago, you won't hate it. If you dislike Chicago, it won't change your mind. It falls sonically but not chronologically between Make Me Smile and If You Leave Me Now. It's well after their big brassy hits of the really early 70s, and after Peter Cetera's big mid-70s ballads, but before Summer Lovers.
In my mind, it's the last of the classic Chicago albums.
Their last on Columbia.
Their last to have John Berg designed cover art.
Their last with percussionist Laudir de Oliveira.
Their last before working with David Foster.
It's a little tired. It's "white guys gettin' funkay" at times. The horn players are still a vital part of the band, and it's not all-Cetera all-the-time, but this is definitely end-of-the-seventies stuff. I'd give anything to be a 13-year-old back at Doubletree Tucson one more time, eating mud pie at the Lunt Avenue Marble Club, so I've listed more highlights than there probably are. P.S. Peter Cetera is an excellent bassist.
Bonus Review!
Chicago XIV
Review by Robert Mott
Highlights:
Doin’ Business (2003 CD re-issue bonus track)
Live It Up (2003 CD re-issue bonus track)
Robert’s Rating: 2.0
For a supergroup with an impressive discography spanning over 50 years, Chicago XIV is one of the most forgettable and disappointing offerings from Chicago. This 1980 album featured no breakout hits and seemed to be still grasping for a new sound direction after the devastating loss suffered by founding guitarist Terry Kath’s unfortunate Russian roulette suicide just two years previous. Founding bassist Peter Cetera is prominently featured with the majority of the lead vocals, but without the fresh production sound that would come another year down the road with producer David Foster at the helm (and the introduction of some new songwriters that were not members of the band and the fresh vocal and keyboard infusion from Bill Champlin who debuted on Chicago XVI).
It seems XIV is an album that truly marks the end of the first chapter of the "Chicago sound" — though some could argue that the best tunes of that era were all recorded five albums previous, before the release of Chicago IX (their first Greatest Hits album).
In fact, Columbia Records used the poor chart performance of Chicago XIV to sever the band's recording contract. The horn arrangements feel like retread licks from previous Chicago songs and the horns themselves seem mixed down into the background more than ever before (on the original 10 song album release).
BONUS TRACKS RELEASED IN 2003:
It seems as if Chicago was cautiously experimenting with a new rhythmic guitar-driven sound that could place them into the mix of some of the era’s top groups, like The Police or The Cure (most evidently heard in Doin’ Business), but they chose to keep this experimentation hidden until the release of the bonus tracks in 2003. Arguably the best horn tune of Chicago XIV – Live It Up — penned by trombonist James Pankow, was also relegated to the bonus tracks. For my money, I’d skip this album altogether and dust off Chicago Transit Authority, II, III, V, VI, or VII for a worthy re-listen.
