Eephus
Footballguy
Intentionally went for an artist who's been in four different bands plus collaborations and solo stuff.
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Middle Aged Dummies!! Artists #1's have been posted!! (9 Viewers)
- Thread starter Zegras11
- Start date
Intentionally went for an artist who's been in four different bands plus collaborations and solo stuff.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I was listening to them a lot about an 3 weeks ago. Maybe too much. Needed to switch it up and now that I’ve gone back, I am loving them again. I just overdid it a bit initially.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
The form is really easy, you will do fine
higgins
Footballguy
I ranked my band’s songs simply by how hard my nipples got (tiebreakers by time of day)….
Mt. Man
Footballguy
Nah. If that was going to happen, it would have happened years and years ago.
If anything, it shined a light on some B-sides and other songs I hadn't listened to as much.
JB Breakfast Club
Footballguy
Avatar updated. That's part of this, yes?
MAC_32
Footballguy
No, but I decided yesterday I need a break before we start. The last two tweaks I made to my order were minor and I ended up almost back to where I started in the first place. Figured it'd be better to write about those that got squeezed later rather than burning myself out on them soon after we get started. I am very curious to learn what those interested think of my tour through Green Day.
MAC_32
Footballguy
I used rankings as a road map, but with one intentional exception I tried to avoid stacking songs from the same album on top of each other. While the structure of a lot of their music is similar the sound from one album to the next isn't, so I thought the journey would be better with an ebb and flow rather than linear evolution.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
No, but it probably helps that I didn't hear most of their albums in full until a few years ago.
Zegras11
Footballguy
Mister CIA
Footballguy
There are four or five unselected artists for [oh ****, what word do I use here] whom-which I want to create top 31 playlists.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
I want to create top 31 playlists for four or five unselected artists.
You're welcome.
Mrs. Rannous
Footballguy
Is Binky a caveman?
Doug B
Footballguy
All right. I've been out of this thread a few weeks, and missed the various discussions on how the lists need to be formatted. I see that the title of the thread attempts to explain it ... but I can't quite make out what's intended.
Is there a Google Sheet up with the lists submitted so far? If so, I can just crib that.
If no Google Sheet ... can someone post a two or three item list in this thread, formatted in the correct way? Alternatively, someone can just post an instruction to go elsewhere in this thread for pointers ("... it's all laid out on page 5 ...").
Thanks in advance.
Is there a Google Sheet up with the lists submitted so far? If so, I can just crib that.
If no Google Sheet ... can someone post a two or three item list in this thread, formatted in the correct way? Alternatively, someone can just post an instruction to go elsewhere in this thread for pointers ("... it's all laid out on page 5 ...").
Thanks in advance.
Zegras11
Footballguy
Sent pm with info a few w eeks ago
Doug B
Footballguy
Saw that ... OK. So long as the topmost song in the list is the favorite (#1 favorite song, 31 points, etc.), nothing else is needed except Song Title and Song Link?
So the following would consist of a full list #1 through #3? No numbering or anything else necessary?
Rockin' Heaven Down
If Looks Could Kill
City's Burning
scorchy
Footballguy
List for the Hold Steady submitted. I think it was just as easy as folks said, but it would be great if @Zegras11 could give it a quick glance to be sure.
Like I wrote above, my list is neither in "favorite" nor chrono order. I've seen The Hold Steady 37 times and it will be 40 come the end of June, so my submission follows a "realistic" dream setlist for one of the upcoming shows. By realistic, I mean balancing my desire for rarities with the fact that the band will no doubt always play certain favorites as well songs from the newer albums. The latter part was especially important to me after reading a joke post on some music blog that said something like "Your favorite band's 'new' album just turned 10." I identified way too much with that, realizing that I spend too much time at shows rooting for obscure b-sides and getting a bit let down when a newer song is in the queue. This exercise really inspired me to listen to THS's last few records and helped me find a track or two that might even break my top 10. In the end, this also means that a couple of my ATF's also got left off, but isn't that the case at every concert you've ever been to?
Since a few other folks did this, my selections by the numbers:
Almost Killed Me (2004) - 5
Separation Sunday (2005) - 5
Boys and Girls in America (2006) -4
Stay Positive (2008) - 5
Heaven is Whenever (2010) - 3
Teeth Dreams (2004) - 1
Thrashing Through the Passion (2019) - 1
Open Door Policy (2021) - 2
The Price of Progress (2023) - 2
Various B-Sides/Rarities - 3
Like I wrote above, my list is neither in "favorite" nor chrono order. I've seen The Hold Steady 37 times and it will be 40 come the end of June, so my submission follows a "realistic" dream setlist for one of the upcoming shows. By realistic, I mean balancing my desire for rarities with the fact that the band will no doubt always play certain favorites as well songs from the newer albums. The latter part was especially important to me after reading a joke post on some music blog that said something like "Your favorite band's 'new' album just turned 10." I identified way too much with that, realizing that I spend too much time at shows rooting for obscure b-sides and getting a bit let down when a newer song is in the queue. This exercise really inspired me to listen to THS's last few records and helped me find a track or two that might even break my top 10. In the end, this also means that a couple of my ATF's also got left off, but isn't that the case at every concert you've ever been to?
Since a few other folks did this, my selections by the numbers:
Almost Killed Me (2004) - 5
Separation Sunday (2005) - 5
Boys and Girls in America (2006) -4
Stay Positive (2008) - 5
Heaven is Whenever (2010) - 3
Teeth Dreams (2004) - 1
Thrashing Through the Passion (2019) - 1
Open Door Policy (2021) - 2
The Price of Progress (2023) - 2
Various B-Sides/Rarities - 3
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Zegras11
Footballguy
No numbering needed if you put 1 at the top.Saw that ... OK. So long as the topmost song in the list is the favorite (#1 favorite song, 31 points, etc.), nothing else is needed except Song Title and Song Link?
So the following would consist of a full list #1 through #3? No numbering or anything else necessary?
Rockin' Heaven Down
If Looks Could Kill
City's Burning
Zegras11
Footballguy
I'll pm your list when I get home from with tonight. I've been doing that and all but a like two were perfect on first try. The two were easy to fix.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Since I think Eephus was the only other one with Jorge Ben Jor in the worldwide countdown, my list by the numbers may only make any sense to him, but I’ll share anyway. I think ended up with a good mix from most of his various phases — early samba/bossa nova stuff in the mid-60s, late 60s Tropicália, early 70s samba rock, and more electric/funk stuff in the mid-1970s. He’s still around and been active since then (with a lot of releases in the 1980s), but nothing after that was just able to make my cut (and not where I’d start for someone new to him, so left out).
Samba Esquema Novo (1963) - 2
Big Ben (1965) - 1
Jorge Ben (1969) - 4 (album cover is my avatar)
Fôrça Bruta (1970) - 3
Negro É Lindo (1971) - 1
Ben (1972) - 1
A Tábua de Esmeralda (1974) - 7
Solta o Pavão (1975) - 4
Gil e Jorge (with Gilberto Gil) (1975) - 1
África Brasil (1976) - 4
A Banda Do Zé Pretinho (1978) - 1
Releases with other artists (1968, 1970) - 2
Samba Esquema Novo (1963) - 2
Big Ben (1965) - 1
Jorge Ben (1969) - 4 (album cover is my avatar)
Fôrça Bruta (1970) - 3
Negro É Lindo (1971) - 1
Ben (1972) - 1
A Tábua de Esmeralda (1974) - 7
Solta o Pavão (1975) - 4
Gil e Jorge (with Gilberto Gil) (1975) - 1
África Brasil (1976) - 4
A Banda Do Zé Pretinho (1978) - 1
Releases with other artists (1968, 1970) - 2
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Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
Yeah I was one. I thought I had read that putting the song title wasn’t necessary since the Spotify link would bring the name up. That wasn’t the case. It was simple to go back and add the song title. If I had read more carefully it would be almost impossible to mess it up.
titusbramble
Footballguy
Listened to the first three albums working this afternoon, although thinking about it I should have listened to the more recent material that I'm less familiar with
rockaction
Footballguy
Why cover yourself in glory when you can cover yourself like a bruise?
Good to see you back, man.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
The 1974 album must be pretty special. Will you be talking about why you picked so many songs from it?
Don Quixote
Footballguy
If someone asked me where they should start with a dive into his work, I’d tell them to put on A Tábua de Esmeralda and play it front to back. It’s a bit of a concept album; the title refers to the Emerald Tablet and Hermes Trismigestus — while the concept is a bit unusual, it is pretty widely regarded as his masterpiece. The album has a bit more of an Afro-Brazilian sound, and probably my favorite sound of his.
Eh, since we are not doing last five out, I left out the title track itself because I thought a bit too esoteric (particularly without the context of the album), and I already had 7 songs from that album on my list. I’ll post it below. The lyrics are just him singing along to the text of the Emerald Tablet in Portuguese, and he plays the same chords over and over, which is a pretty unappealing description, but it has a simple beauty to it. (If too esoteric, the ones that I picked from the album are much less so, but may give a flavor for the sound.)
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John Maddens Lunchbox
Socialism for Dummies
I hope you need choices 3 to 31 lol. I onky entered 2 to familiarise myself
Eephus
Footballguy
Fugees fall short of 31 if you don't include remixes and live recordings.
Amy Winehouse has 40 released songs, some of which probably never would have seen the light of day had she lived.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
I will have three pre-countdown posts.
Tomorrow: An essay about why I picked Chicago and why I like the band (pre '80s ballads), with some band history to put into context some of the things I will say in my song writeups.
Sunday: Breakdown by album, writer and lead vocalist, and my thoughts on the albums that I listened to for the countdown but had no tracks make my top 31.
Monday: My brief concert experience with the band.
Tomorrow: An essay about why I picked Chicago and why I like the band (pre '80s ballads), with some band history to put into context some of the things I will say in my song writeups.
Sunday: Breakdown by album, writer and lead vocalist, and my thoughts on the albums that I listened to for the countdown but had no tracks make my top 31.
Monday: My brief concert experience with the band.
Eephus
Footballguy
What did you play?
simey
Footballguy
He played the skin flute, and he was quickly escorted out of the concert hall.
Eephus
Footballguy
Charlie Steiner
Footballguy
Baby what a big surprise.
John Maddens Lunchbox
Socialism for Dummies
Look Away
Leroy Hoard
Footballguy
These comments make me smile.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Hopefully this is not only the beginning of jokes at my expense.
snellman
Footballguy
There will definitely be some disagreement with my #1 for Queen, but that is ok. When I was growing up, my neighbor would have Queen cranked in his house and that album and especially that song really stuck with me and helped me discover Queen and dig further into the band. You will also see that a lot of their later stuff is higher on my list than their earlier stuff. I was more influenced by their later albums because they came out when I was in my teenage years. It was after that I started digging into their earlier work. Shoot, I was only 19 when Freddie passed away. They are still very high on my listening list and most of the music I listen to is from the late 70s through early 90s.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
They’re a band where I could see 20 different people rank 20 different songs #1.
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Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Yeah. They dabbled in so many different styles and had something for everyone.
timschochet
Footballguy
Just sent in my list of Elton John songs
Raging weasel
Footballguy
Even though I love AIC I've never listened to their post Layne stuff so looking forward to those tracks.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
I wanted to feature Chicago because they put out incredible, and incredibly popular, music between 1969 and 1977, and yet have generally not gotten the accolades that bands with that kind of track record receive. Despite selling over 40 million albums in the US and over 100 million albums worldwide, and having 20 US top 10 hit singles (including three No. 1s), and having its best songs from 1969 to 1977 remain fixtures on radio to this day, and having an original lineup with seven incredibly talented musicians and writers who earned the respect of their peers, the band was not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until 2016, and did not have anyone inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame until Peter Cetera, Robert Lamm and James Pankow were in 2017. They were even underappreciated in the FBG geographic countdowns, with only one song selected in the U.S. countdown and none in the worldwide one (for which their albums from 1975 to 1980 were eligible).
As Robert Lamm told Dan Rather in 2021: "For 52 years, it's been very difficult for many people in the music press world to discuss Chicago intelligently or at all, because we are hard to categorize. You can't pin us down."
I tend to like bands with talent (which does not always equate to virtuosic wankery) that try their hands at different genres, and Chicago fits the bill. They boasted three outstanding songwriters in keyboardist Lamm, guitarist Kath and trombonist James Pankow, with bassist Cetera coming into his own as a writer as time went on, and three fantastic singers in Cetera, Kath and Lamm. And they boasted one of the greatest guitarists of his generation in Kath, who was incredibly technically accomplished -- Jimi Hendrix once told the band that "your guitar player is better than me" -- and could play with grit, soul, flash or fire, whatever was called for. His tragic death in 1978 was one of the rock world's greatest losses.
I also like that Chicago envisioned themselves as "a rock and roll band with horns" and never forgot that until the '80s. Unlike jazz, where the horns dominated, or R&B, where the horns punctuated, with Chicago the horns were fully integrated with the rhythm section and sometimes served as counterpoints to the lead vocals. Rarely in their 1969-80 recordings will you hear the "tossed-in sax solo" approach that Krista hates so much.
Also in their favor was that they tried many different genres and experiments despite being a consistent presence on the charts. Helping was that they had multiple songwriters and singers, and a unique policy that the writer of the song was not necessarily the one to sing it. Lamm "cast" singers in his mind while writing his songs. Pankow conducted auditions in the studio, often with all three of the main singers attempting the lead vocal before one was decided upon. Cetera and Kath usually sang what they wrote, but not always.
For a band that had as much success in quality and sales as Chicago did, I think they remain underrated -- granted, some of that is due to the post-Kath material that hasn't aged well -- and I hope this exercise shows how they deserve to be considered one of rock's most important bands.
As Robert Lamm told Dan Rather in 2021: "For 52 years, it's been very difficult for many people in the music press world to discuss Chicago intelligently or at all, because we are hard to categorize. You can't pin us down."
I tend to like bands with talent (which does not always equate to virtuosic wankery) that try their hands at different genres, and Chicago fits the bill. They boasted three outstanding songwriters in keyboardist Lamm, guitarist Kath and trombonist James Pankow, with bassist Cetera coming into his own as a writer as time went on, and three fantastic singers in Cetera, Kath and Lamm. And they boasted one of the greatest guitarists of his generation in Kath, who was incredibly technically accomplished -- Jimi Hendrix once told the band that "your guitar player is better than me" -- and could play with grit, soul, flash or fire, whatever was called for. His tragic death in 1978 was one of the rock world's greatest losses.
I also like that Chicago envisioned themselves as "a rock and roll band with horns" and never forgot that until the '80s. Unlike jazz, where the horns dominated, or R&B, where the horns punctuated, with Chicago the horns were fully integrated with the rhythm section and sometimes served as counterpoints to the lead vocals. Rarely in their 1969-80 recordings will you hear the "tossed-in sax solo" approach that Krista hates so much.
Also in their favor was that they tried many different genres and experiments despite being a consistent presence on the charts. Helping was that they had multiple songwriters and singers, and a unique policy that the writer of the song was not necessarily the one to sing it. Lamm "cast" singers in his mind while writing his songs. Pankow conducted auditions in the studio, often with all three of the main singers attempting the lead vocal before one was decided upon. Cetera and Kath usually sang what they wrote, but not always.
For a band that had as much success in quality and sales as Chicago did, I think they remain underrated -- granted, some of that is due to the post-Kath material that hasn't aged well -- and I hope this exercise shows how they deserve to be considered one of rock's most important bands.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Below is a (somewhat long) history of the band that will put some of what I say in my song writeups in context.
This concept was with the band from the start and germinated with saxophonist Walter Parazaider, who was a clarinet prodigy attending Depaul University with a career in academics and with an orchestra ahead of him if he wanted it, but he found himself just as interested in playing jazz, R&B and rock in the bars and clubs of Chicago. While doing this, he befriended another Depaul student, guitarist James William ("Jim") Guercio, who would become the band's ticket to the big time. In early 1967, when a band Parazaider was playing in, The Missing Links, broke up, he pitched its guitarist Terry Kath and its drummer Danny Seraphine, as well as his friends from the Depaul academic music program, trombonist James Pankow and trumpeter Lee Loughnane, on a "rock band with horns" idea that would draw from both academic music and "street music". Seraphine and Parazaider found keyboardist Robert Lamm playing in the clubs as leader of Bobby Charles and the Wanderers and recruited him. The six-piece outfit christened themselves The Big Thing and had Lamm play bass parts on his organ pedals so they wouldn't need a bass player. They began as a cover band but soon began integrating their own originals, influenced by jazz, soul, R&B, rock and, of course, the Beatles.
Less than a year after forming, the band caught a couple of breaks. One was that they reconnected with Guercio, who had moved to Hollywood and become a record producer. By 1968, he became their manager and producer and convinced Columbia Records to sign them. The second was that they played on a bill with a band called the Exceptions and hit it off with one of its members, Peter Cetera. By this point, they had determined that the bass parts-on-the-organ approach wasn't working and a bassist was necessary, and that they could use a tenor singer to counter baritones Kath and Lamm. Cetera, who provided both of those things, was hired promptly.
Guercio moved the band to LA and renamed them Chicago Transit Authority. While there, the band worked feverishly writing songs (especially Lamm, whose material would dominate the debut album) and got a residency at the Whisky Au Go Go, which gave them connections to a bunch of musicians and industry people. Seven months after relocation, they landed a deal with Columbia. Sessions for the self-titled debut album lasted just five days but yielded so much strong material that Columbia agreed to release it as a double album in exchange for a cut in the band's royalty rate.
The deal paid off. While AM radio didn't quite yet know what to make of the band, the debut album, released in April 1969, became an FM and college radio favorite, thanks to its powerful but eclectic music and the political and philosophical lyrics of many of Lamm's songs. The band built a following among hippies and college students while initially being ignored by mainstream listeners and the music press, though they did earn a Best New Artist Grammy nomination. (Rolling Stone rarely acknowledged their existence until around 1972.) They were supposed to play Woodstock, but Bill Graham, with whom they had a booking contract, moved them to a gig at the Fillmore West to make room on the festival bill for a band he managed, Santana.
By the end of 1969, the debut album had gone gold despite yielding no major hit singles, and would hold the record for most consecutive weeks on the Billboard album charts until The Dark Side of the Moon came along. The band also found itself threatened with legal action by the actual Chicago Transit Authority and changed its name to Chicago.
In 1970 the group leapt from a cult band to a mainstream force with the self-titled (with new name) second album (which everyone calls Chicago II), also a double, yielding the band's first top 10 singles in Make Me Smile and 25 or 6 to 4. Despite the pop hits, the record had parts that were just as experimental as the debut. But individual stardom was tamped down, by design. Columbia's art department designed a logo of the band name that has served as the band's avatar from the second album until the present day, and was almost always featured on the album covers in lieu of band photos. The reason was so that no one would be singled out for stardom and no one's egos would be bruised. Kath and Cetera would eventually chafe at this, but it's one of the things that's allowed the band to stay active for more than 50 years.
It was around this time when the band achieved one of its greatest feats. In the summer of 1970, Graham for the first time was able to book rock bands at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts, and he called on Chicago to replace Jimi Hendrix after he dropped out as one night's headliner. If there is one thing I could point to to answer the question of why Chicago was such a big deal in its early days, it would be their Tanglewood set, which is available on Youtube with excellent sound and picture quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oAoSZ2y1cw. If you are at all interested in learning more about Chicago, this is what you need to check out (in addition to the songs I have selected for this countdown).
Chicago III, which began a tradition of numbering the albums instead of naming them, was also a double with plenty of experimental stuff on it. Its two singles performed well but didn't hit the top 10, so Columbia then dipped back into the first and second albums to generate more hits: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is, Beginnings, Colour My World and Questions 67 and 68. By April 1971, Chicago was big enough to become the first rock band to play Carnegie Hall, selling out a week of shows, and that fall they released a quadruple (!) live album commemorating it. (The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired -- James Pankow said the venue's acoustics made the horns sound like kazoos -- and Live in Japan, which was released in Japan in 1972 but is now available worldwide, is a much better document of their live work from around this time.)
Chicago V (because the live box set, At Carnegie Hall, was technically IV) was the band's first single album and its first to go to No.1, and produced its most radio-friendly song to date, Saturday in the Park. That didn't mean the experiments went away, though. It was, however, the last album where Robert Lamm wrote about politics and revolution. He would turn his focus inward for the rest of the '70s.
Chicago VI established a couple of patterns. No. 1, starting with it, every album until Kath's death was recorded at Guercio's Caribou Ranch in Colorado. No. 2, its singles and almost all subsequent ones until his departure would be sung by Cetera, putting the "nobody is the face of this band" ethos to the test.
Caribou Ranch was also the setting for two ABC TV specials featuring the band that were produced by **** Clark. Clark also had them as the headliners of his third New Year's Rockin' Eve special. None of this would have endeared the band to Jann Wenner and his fellow music-press tastemakers, who thought network TV was as square as could be. (Which was mostly true at the time, but these specials -- Chicago in the Rockies, Chicago ... Meanwhile Back at the Ranch and Chicago's New Year's Rockin' Eve 1975 -- are fun to watch and can be found on Youtube.)
At their commercial zenith, the band was getting bored with their stage show and started adding jazz improvisations to their sets. They enjoyed these so much that most of the band wanted to release an entire album of that. Guercio and Cetera objected, fearing it would be commercial suicide. Chicago VII was a compromise, a double album with 1.5 sides of jazz material and 2.5 sides of pop and rock songs. But IMO it is their last great record, with everyone writing and performing at a high level and some band members taking on new roles. And it produced three more big hits. Brazilian percussionist Laudir de Oliveira, who played on some of Chicago VI and most of Chicago VII, became a full-time member starting with Chicago VIII, reflecting the band's interest in adding a Latin element to their sound.
Chicago VIII, X and XI (IX was a greatest hits album) found the band continuing to churn out hits but becoming more fragmented. Drug use among almost all the members was rampant and almost everyone was vying for their songs to be included, leading to great variations in quality and style. A pivotal moment was the release of X's second single, Cetera's ballad If You Leave Me Now. It became their first US #1 and set the expectations from radio and the label that the key to continued success would be ballads sung by Cetera. This eventually became a detriment.
Less than a year after forming, the band caught a couple of breaks. One was that they reconnected with Guercio, who had moved to Hollywood and become a record producer. By 1968, he became their manager and producer and convinced Columbia Records to sign them. The second was that they played on a bill with a band called the Exceptions and hit it off with one of its members, Peter Cetera. By this point, they had determined that the bass parts-on-the-organ approach wasn't working and a bassist was necessary, and that they could use a tenor singer to counter baritones Kath and Lamm. Cetera, who provided both of those things, was hired promptly.
Guercio moved the band to LA and renamed them Chicago Transit Authority. While there, the band worked feverishly writing songs (especially Lamm, whose material would dominate the debut album) and got a residency at the Whisky Au Go Go, which gave them connections to a bunch of musicians and industry people. Seven months after relocation, they landed a deal with Columbia. Sessions for the self-titled debut album lasted just five days but yielded so much strong material that Columbia agreed to release it as a double album in exchange for a cut in the band's royalty rate.
The deal paid off. While AM radio didn't quite yet know what to make of the band, the debut album, released in April 1969, became an FM and college radio favorite, thanks to its powerful but eclectic music and the political and philosophical lyrics of many of Lamm's songs. The band built a following among hippies and college students while initially being ignored by mainstream listeners and the music press, though they did earn a Best New Artist Grammy nomination. (Rolling Stone rarely acknowledged their existence until around 1972.) They were supposed to play Woodstock, but Bill Graham, with whom they had a booking contract, moved them to a gig at the Fillmore West to make room on the festival bill for a band he managed, Santana.
By the end of 1969, the debut album had gone gold despite yielding no major hit singles, and would hold the record for most consecutive weeks on the Billboard album charts until The Dark Side of the Moon came along. The band also found itself threatened with legal action by the actual Chicago Transit Authority and changed its name to Chicago.
In 1970 the group leapt from a cult band to a mainstream force with the self-titled (with new name) second album (which everyone calls Chicago II), also a double, yielding the band's first top 10 singles in Make Me Smile and 25 or 6 to 4. Despite the pop hits, the record had parts that were just as experimental as the debut. But individual stardom was tamped down, by design. Columbia's art department designed a logo of the band name that has served as the band's avatar from the second album until the present day, and was almost always featured on the album covers in lieu of band photos. The reason was so that no one would be singled out for stardom and no one's egos would be bruised. Kath and Cetera would eventually chafe at this, but it's one of the things that's allowed the band to stay active for more than 50 years.
It was around this time when the band achieved one of its greatest feats. In the summer of 1970, Graham for the first time was able to book rock bands at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts, and he called on Chicago to replace Jimi Hendrix after he dropped out as one night's headliner. If there is one thing I could point to to answer the question of why Chicago was such a big deal in its early days, it would be their Tanglewood set, which is available on Youtube with excellent sound and picture quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oAoSZ2y1cw. If you are at all interested in learning more about Chicago, this is what you need to check out (in addition to the songs I have selected for this countdown).
Chicago III, which began a tradition of numbering the albums instead of naming them, was also a double with plenty of experimental stuff on it. Its two singles performed well but didn't hit the top 10, so Columbia then dipped back into the first and second albums to generate more hits: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is, Beginnings, Colour My World and Questions 67 and 68. By April 1971, Chicago was big enough to become the first rock band to play Carnegie Hall, selling out a week of shows, and that fall they released a quadruple (!) live album commemorating it. (The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired -- James Pankow said the venue's acoustics made the horns sound like kazoos -- and Live in Japan, which was released in Japan in 1972 but is now available worldwide, is a much better document of their live work from around this time.)
Chicago V (because the live box set, At Carnegie Hall, was technically IV) was the band's first single album and its first to go to No.1, and produced its most radio-friendly song to date, Saturday in the Park. That didn't mean the experiments went away, though. It was, however, the last album where Robert Lamm wrote about politics and revolution. He would turn his focus inward for the rest of the '70s.
Chicago VI established a couple of patterns. No. 1, starting with it, every album until Kath's death was recorded at Guercio's Caribou Ranch in Colorado. No. 2, its singles and almost all subsequent ones until his departure would be sung by Cetera, putting the "nobody is the face of this band" ethos to the test.
Caribou Ranch was also the setting for two ABC TV specials featuring the band that were produced by **** Clark. Clark also had them as the headliners of his third New Year's Rockin' Eve special. None of this would have endeared the band to Jann Wenner and his fellow music-press tastemakers, who thought network TV was as square as could be. (Which was mostly true at the time, but these specials -- Chicago in the Rockies, Chicago ... Meanwhile Back at the Ranch and Chicago's New Year's Rockin' Eve 1975 -- are fun to watch and can be found on Youtube.)
At their commercial zenith, the band was getting bored with their stage show and started adding jazz improvisations to their sets. They enjoyed these so much that most of the band wanted to release an entire album of that. Guercio and Cetera objected, fearing it would be commercial suicide. Chicago VII was a compromise, a double album with 1.5 sides of jazz material and 2.5 sides of pop and rock songs. But IMO it is their last great record, with everyone writing and performing at a high level and some band members taking on new roles. And it produced three more big hits. Brazilian percussionist Laudir de Oliveira, who played on some of Chicago VI and most of Chicago VII, became a full-time member starting with Chicago VIII, reflecting the band's interest in adding a Latin element to their sound.
Chicago VIII, X and XI (IX was a greatest hits album) found the band continuing to churn out hits but becoming more fragmented. Drug use among almost all the members was rampant and almost everyone was vying for their songs to be included, leading to great variations in quality and style. A pivotal moment was the release of X's second single, Cetera's ballad If You Leave Me Now. It became their first US #1 and set the expectations from radio and the label that the key to continued success would be ballads sung by Cetera. This eventually became a detriment.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
But the band's biggest setback happened in January 1978, when Kath accidentally fatally shot himself in the head. Despondent over a failing relationship and his role in the band, Kath had been on a days-long drug binge without sleeping, and showed up at the home of the band's keyboard tech, Don Johnson (not the actor). James Pankow: "Evidently, he had gone to the shooting range, and he came back to Donny's apartment, and he was sitting at the kitchen table cleaning his guns. Donny remarked, 'Hey, man, you're really tired. Why don't you just put the guns down and go to bed.' Terry said, 'Don't worry about it,' and he showed Donny the gun. He said, 'Look, the clip's not even in it,' and he had the clip in one hand and the gun in the other. But evidently there was a bullet still in the chamber. He had taken the clip out of the gun, and the clip was empty. A gun can't be fired without the clip in it. He put the clip back in, and he was waving the gun around his head. He said, 'What do you think I'm gonna do? Blow my brains out?' And just the pressure when he was waving the gun around the side of his head, the pressure of his finger on the trigger, released that round in the chamber. It went into the side of his head. He died instantly. Only Terry knows what he was thinking at that moment." He left behind a wife and 20-month-old daughter. His daughter, Michelle Kath Sinclair, made a documentary about Kath's life called The Terry Kath Experience that is very much worth watching.
The band considered breaking up but decided to continue on because Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinson encouraged them to and because the surviving members thought it's what Kath would have wanted. After a rushed audition process, they replaced him with Donnie Dacus, who had played with Stephen Stills.
Around the same time, the band severed its ties with Guercio because they thought he was taking advantage of them. Some reports have stated that their contract with him called for him to get 80% of their revenues, leaving the other 20% to be split among seven or eight band members.
The next 3 years were trying, not just because of the void left by Kath. Radio had become ossified and pressure from the label for the band to modify its sound to the trends of the times increased. Hot Streets (which had an actual title and prominent band photo on the cover in a break with tradition, which was reversed when marketing surveys showed fans preferred the logo on the cover), Chicago 13 and Chicago XIV marked the band's attempts at yacht rock, disco and New Wave, respectively, with diminishing commercial returns; 13 and XIV had no top 40 singles. XIV's producer Tom Dowd de-emphasized the horns, a trend that would continue in the '80s. Dacus was fired after the tour for 13 because he didn't gel with the rest of the band personality-wise. de Oliveira was fired after the tour for XIV because the band decided that Latin percussion would no longer be a prominent part of their sound. He died in 2017 while performing onstage.
The poor sales of 13 and XIV prompted Columbia to drop the band, which ended up on Warner Brothers with even more changes in store. Lamm's drug issues had gotten worse and he took a hiatus from the band, and when he returned, his role was marginalized for the rest of the '80s. To fill the void, the band added singer/keyboardist/guitarist Bill Champlin, who led the cult band Sons of Champlin in the '60s and had moderate success as a yacht rocker in the '70s. And most pivotally, at the recommendation of Seraphine, they began to work with producer David Foster, who shaped Chicago 16, 17 and 18 (XV was another greatest hits album) with a blunt hammer, relegating the horns to an afterthought, emphasizing ballads and adorning the songs with the latest synth-heavy trends in production and arranging. (When Warner picked up 16, they had let it be known to the band that their market research and feedback from radio programmers indicated that songs with horn sections no longer stood any chance of being hits.) This paid off commercially, gaining some new fans, but alienated some older fans. (My wife loves their '80s stuff. I don't.) Robert Lamm told Dan Rather in 2021: "We've had a producer or two that tried to leave the horns out. I think that was a failure, because we are who we are."
It also created another conundrum. The successful singles from 16 and 17 were not only sung by Cetera, but thanks to the advent of MTV, they had videos that featured him prominently. All of the sudden, the band that wasn't supposed to have a face had one. Cetera proposed to the band that they enter into an arrangement like Genesis had with Phil Collins, in which he would alternate between solo albums and group albums. The band, which had toured every single summer since its founding (which continues to this day!), and which had always looked at Cetera, the last of the original members to join, as the junior partner, said no, so Cetera left or was fired, depending on whom you ask. With his replacement Jason Scheff in tow, the band continued to crank out hits, often written by or in collaboration with outside writers, into the early '90s, but the magic of the '70s was gone. Nonetheless, the band persevered and remains a reliable concert draw to this day.
The '80s material gave the band a new life commercially, which we can't downplay the importance of because of all the money they missed out on in the '70s due to their contract with Guercio, but at what cost? Consider the impact on the original members.
Robert Lamm was sidelined as a singer and songwriter, contributing very little to the successful '80s and early '90s albums. By the time he reclaimed his status as the band's principal architect, it had become a legacy act.
The horn players found their role reduced drastically in the studio, and sometimes resorted to playing guitar (Lee Loughnane) or keyboards (James Pankow and Walter Parazaider) just to have something to do. And Pankow, too, was mostly sidelined as a songwriter. They remained essential on the road, but by the time Chicago became a "rock band with horns" in the studio again, their audience no longer cared much about their new material. Parazaider retired in 2017 and announced in 2021 that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Pankow and Loughnane, along with Lamm, continue to lead the band to this day.
Danny Seraphine, despite being the driving force behind bringing in David Foster, grew dissatisfied with the band's direction by the end of the '80s, to the point that he argued that the band should follow the Grateful Dead model and focus on touring, with different setlists (focused on the '70s material) and improvisations every night. The rest of the band disagreed and in 1990 he quit or was fired, depending on whom you ask. He left music for a few years but in 2006 formed California Transit Authority, which includes some Chicago songs in their live shows.
And Peter Cetera had success as a solo artist after leaving Chicago, but like the band, his hits dried up by the mid '90s, and he didn't have the cachet as a reliable touring act to keep audiences coming in large numbers.
There has been much debate about whether Chicago's turn to '80s synth-heavy balladry would have happened had Terry Kath lived. No. 1, I don't think he would have prevented anything had he remained in the band. In the late '70s and '80s, if you wanted hits, they had to sound a certain way -- what that way was changed from year to year -- and record companies were very involved in making sure their singles artists conformed. No one person, especially one from a "faceless" band, could reverse that trend. No. 2, I think there's a good chance he would have left the band by 1982. By the mid '70s he had become frustrated that he wasn't perceived as a guitar hero like Hendrix, Clapton, Page, etc., even though he was every bit the equal of their talent. Even before Cetera, he was the first to chafe at the "faceless" public persona of the band. He was not a fan of some of the poppier material that Cetera, Lamm and Pankow were writing. He was also becoming less interested in working with horns, and about half the songs he contributed to the band between 1972 and his death did not have them. In fact, he was working on a horns-less solo album at the time of his death. One of its songs, Takin' It on Uptown, was co-opted for Chicago XI, but the rest was mostly not completed and has never surfaced.
The band considered breaking up but decided to continue on because Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinson encouraged them to and because the surviving members thought it's what Kath would have wanted. After a rushed audition process, they replaced him with Donnie Dacus, who had played with Stephen Stills.
Around the same time, the band severed its ties with Guercio because they thought he was taking advantage of them. Some reports have stated that their contract with him called for him to get 80% of their revenues, leaving the other 20% to be split among seven or eight band members.
The next 3 years were trying, not just because of the void left by Kath. Radio had become ossified and pressure from the label for the band to modify its sound to the trends of the times increased. Hot Streets (which had an actual title and prominent band photo on the cover in a break with tradition, which was reversed when marketing surveys showed fans preferred the logo on the cover), Chicago 13 and Chicago XIV marked the band's attempts at yacht rock, disco and New Wave, respectively, with diminishing commercial returns; 13 and XIV had no top 40 singles. XIV's producer Tom Dowd de-emphasized the horns, a trend that would continue in the '80s. Dacus was fired after the tour for 13 because he didn't gel with the rest of the band personality-wise. de Oliveira was fired after the tour for XIV because the band decided that Latin percussion would no longer be a prominent part of their sound. He died in 2017 while performing onstage.
The poor sales of 13 and XIV prompted Columbia to drop the band, which ended up on Warner Brothers with even more changes in store. Lamm's drug issues had gotten worse and he took a hiatus from the band, and when he returned, his role was marginalized for the rest of the '80s. To fill the void, the band added singer/keyboardist/guitarist Bill Champlin, who led the cult band Sons of Champlin in the '60s and had moderate success as a yacht rocker in the '70s. And most pivotally, at the recommendation of Seraphine, they began to work with producer David Foster, who shaped Chicago 16, 17 and 18 (XV was another greatest hits album) with a blunt hammer, relegating the horns to an afterthought, emphasizing ballads and adorning the songs with the latest synth-heavy trends in production and arranging. (When Warner picked up 16, they had let it be known to the band that their market research and feedback from radio programmers indicated that songs with horn sections no longer stood any chance of being hits.) This paid off commercially, gaining some new fans, but alienated some older fans. (My wife loves their '80s stuff. I don't.) Robert Lamm told Dan Rather in 2021: "We've had a producer or two that tried to leave the horns out. I think that was a failure, because we are who we are."
It also created another conundrum. The successful singles from 16 and 17 were not only sung by Cetera, but thanks to the advent of MTV, they had videos that featured him prominently. All of the sudden, the band that wasn't supposed to have a face had one. Cetera proposed to the band that they enter into an arrangement like Genesis had with Phil Collins, in which he would alternate between solo albums and group albums. The band, which had toured every single summer since its founding (which continues to this day!), and which had always looked at Cetera, the last of the original members to join, as the junior partner, said no, so Cetera left or was fired, depending on whom you ask. With his replacement Jason Scheff in tow, the band continued to crank out hits, often written by or in collaboration with outside writers, into the early '90s, but the magic of the '70s was gone. Nonetheless, the band persevered and remains a reliable concert draw to this day.
The '80s material gave the band a new life commercially, which we can't downplay the importance of because of all the money they missed out on in the '70s due to their contract with Guercio, but at what cost? Consider the impact on the original members.
Robert Lamm was sidelined as a singer and songwriter, contributing very little to the successful '80s and early '90s albums. By the time he reclaimed his status as the band's principal architect, it had become a legacy act.
The horn players found their role reduced drastically in the studio, and sometimes resorted to playing guitar (Lee Loughnane) or keyboards (James Pankow and Walter Parazaider) just to have something to do. And Pankow, too, was mostly sidelined as a songwriter. They remained essential on the road, but by the time Chicago became a "rock band with horns" in the studio again, their audience no longer cared much about their new material. Parazaider retired in 2017 and announced in 2021 that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Pankow and Loughnane, along with Lamm, continue to lead the band to this day.
Danny Seraphine, despite being the driving force behind bringing in David Foster, grew dissatisfied with the band's direction by the end of the '80s, to the point that he argued that the band should follow the Grateful Dead model and focus on touring, with different setlists (focused on the '70s material) and improvisations every night. The rest of the band disagreed and in 1990 he quit or was fired, depending on whom you ask. He left music for a few years but in 2006 formed California Transit Authority, which includes some Chicago songs in their live shows.
And Peter Cetera had success as a solo artist after leaving Chicago, but like the band, his hits dried up by the mid '90s, and he didn't have the cachet as a reliable touring act to keep audiences coming in large numbers.
There has been much debate about whether Chicago's turn to '80s synth-heavy balladry would have happened had Terry Kath lived. No. 1, I don't think he would have prevented anything had he remained in the band. In the late '70s and '80s, if you wanted hits, they had to sound a certain way -- what that way was changed from year to year -- and record companies were very involved in making sure their singles artists conformed. No one person, especially one from a "faceless" band, could reverse that trend. No. 2, I think there's a good chance he would have left the band by 1982. By the mid '70s he had become frustrated that he wasn't perceived as a guitar hero like Hendrix, Clapton, Page, etc., even though he was every bit the equal of their talent. Even before Cetera, he was the first to chafe at the "faceless" public persona of the band. He was not a fan of some of the poppier material that Cetera, Lamm and Pankow were writing. He was also becoming less interested in working with horns, and about half the songs he contributed to the band between 1972 and his death did not have them. In fact, he was working on a horns-less solo album at the time of his death. One of its songs, Takin' It on Uptown, was co-opted for Chicago XI, but the rest was mostly not completed and has never surfaced.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
I'm reminded of Grand Funk.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
There is definitely some of the same "lack of respect despite popularity" element in play.
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