Customer Reviews

Chicago 17

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are many bands that basically have spanned my entire lifetime and continue to produce music - but Chicago is one of those bands. At the writing of this review, Chicago has been a band for 37 years. During this period Chicago changed its musical style a great deal - they started out as one of the first bands of the rock era to incorporate a horns section as a regular part of the music. They then went through some transitions and wound up being a very successful Adult Contemporary band. Many will criticize the changes, but one way to think about it is that the band basically was successful within two genres of Rock. In addition, how many bands can claim to have a their most successful album 17 albums into their career. Better yet, how many bands make it to a 17th studio album? "Chicago 17" is that album. While some say Chicago abandoned their roots with "Chicago 17", I tend to disagree. I think Chicago just evolved - and there are still some places where they stayed true to their roots.

When I look at Chicago, I can break the history of the band into four eras. These eras are closely tied to the producers that Chicago worked with. The first era is the 'James William Guercio Era'. This covers 1967 - 1977 (Albums "Chicago Transit Authority through "Chicago XI"). This is the classic era of Chicago in which the horn sound was very much at the forefront of most of the music. The second era is the 'Transition Era'. This covers 1978-1981 (Albums "Hot Streets" [Chicago 12] through "Greatest Hits Volume 2 [Chicago 15]". During this period the band did two albums with legendary producer Phil Ramone and one with Tom Dowd. It was during this period that the band picked up the pieces after the tragic death of Terry Kath and began to explore different avenues - such as incorporating a disco sound into their music. While the Guercio Era had commercial success, the Transition Era was more of a struggle both commercially and critically. Thus the third Era brought in producer David Foster for the 'David Foster Era'. This era covered 1982-1987 (Albums Chicago 16 through Chicago 18). It was here where the band began to move toward an Adult Contemporary Sound. Many criticized this change, but Foster got the band back on track commercially and still respected Chicago's brass horn roots. In the Fourth Era covering 1989 to the Present ("Chicago 19" to present), this the 'Modern Era'. Chicago worked with producers Chris Sandford, Ron Nevison, Bruce Fairbairn, and Roy Bittan. This was the era where Chicago completely transformed into an Adult Contemporary Band, moved away from its brass horn roots, and for the first time - had a dependence on third party songwriters. "Chicago 17" falls in the heart of the "David Foster" era. This is an album that clearly has Foster's footprint on it - and is a reason why it was successful.

One thing that is most noticeable about Foster's music is that it has a certain style. His keyboard arrangements have a distinct style that makes it easily recognizable to be "David Foster" music. I can't say this is style is something very tangible, but it does become obvious when you listen to his music. This is especially true when you compare this style to the work that Foster did as a solo artist and producing/writing other artists such Lionel Richie (Foster wrote "The Only One" from Richie's "Can't Slow Down" album). In Foster's music, the keyboards are the dominant instrument, but often there is a wide variety of instrumentation - especially an infusion of horns and guitars. Thus, the "marriage" between Foster and Chicago is a natural fit. Make no bones about it - "Chicago 17" isn't old Chicago. The horns and brass section are in a secondary role, but they still play an important role.

The two most popular songs are the adult-contemporary ballads "Hard Habit to Break" and "You're the Inspiration". These are two songs that have Peter Cetera on lead vocals and he doesn't a solid job on lead vocals. There were also two other singles released, "Along Comes a Woman" and "Stay the Night" - also featuring Cetera on lead vocals. Of all the songs released as singles from this collection, I think "Along Comes a Woman" was the best. Not only does it have some great horns (some of the best on the album), but all of the instruments sound real crisp. Cetera's vocals are right on the money as well. While "Hard Habit to Break" and "You're the Inspiration" have more of a David Foster-feel, this song seems to break away from the mold. On the other end, I have never been a fan of "Stay the Night". This song doesn't have a "Foster-feel" either. This song contains no horns, but this is not the problem - this just isn't a very good song.

The strongest song on the album is the second track, "We Can Stop the Hurtin'", This song has more of an R&B feel and doesn't sound like the trademark David Foster tune. This song has some of the best harmonies of any of the tracks on the collection. It also contains some great horns. Other very good songs include: "Prima Donna" (this song is from the movie "Two of a Kind"); the R&B and jazzy "Please Hold On" (featuring Lionel Richie helping out David Foster with songwriting), "Only You" (more terrific harmonies), and "Once in a Lifetime" (this song takes a little to get into, but once you do - it's terrific". These lesser-known songs are actually the collection's strength.

Overall, this might not be the old Chicago and might not have the old-style horns of the early days - but this album does show that Chicago evolved into something special. Big selling album or not, there is still some good music. I'd recommend this collection

This was the second album that I ever heard by Chicago, and after having listened to all of theire others over the years, this remains to this day my favorite. All of the songs on this album click in a way that sends shivers down my spine. "Along Comes a Woman" is the best of the hits, but the others, "Stay The Night", "Hard Habit To Break" and "You're The Inspiration" still carry over well. The non-hits carry quite a bit of weight behind them, too, with "We Can Stop The Hurtin'" and "Please Hold On" rocking. For a good heart-felt ballad "I Remember The Feeling" is a good song to listen to. The other songs show great song writing ability including tunes by Robert Lamm and Peter Cetera. David Foster's ability to produce a great album is very evident here. A must have for any type of fan of Chicago to have. As an added bonus, if you have this on cassette, two tracks, "Prima Donna" and "Please Hold On" have different variations of them, making them even greater songs.

This late-80's release features some of the band's best and dynamic love ballads. While some "purists" might scoff at the MOR sound, under lead Peter Cetera, this listener finds the group to be in great form.

A combination of excellent instrumentation, enjoyable vocals, and captivating lyrics makes this a welcome entry in any one's musical library.

The 80's and Chicago: Two of my favorite things. Of all of the 80's Chicago albums, this is my favorite of the 5. Most fans think that the band stuck completely with ballads when the 80's hit. They're wrong. On this album, there are 2 rockers: 'Stay The Night' and 'Along Comes A Woman'. While 'Stay The Night' didn't have horns, it had a great beat. 'Along Comes A Woman' _does_ have horns, though. You can hear them from the second verse up until the end of the song (There is a better, yet slightly shorter version of this song on 'The Very Best of Chicago: Only The Beginning'). Both songs, along with the rest of the album, are crammed with synthesizers and drum machines, 2 80's artifacts that I love up to this day! This was the band's highest selling album ever. Listen to it if you don't believe me. If only Peter Cetera stayed with the band after 1984...

The songs on this album were the soundtrack to my high-school career. Some are critical of this album as being too much a pop album crafted by Diane Warren and David Foster. Surely Chicago took a turn in the pop direction with 17. However, this is a classic album just as many of their previous ones are. 'Does anybody really know what time it is?' spoke for a generation, but so did 'Hard Habit to Break' and 'Stay the Night'. This album (and to some extent 16 before it) saw Chicago re-invent themselves as pop-rock, power-ballad band. And, in my opinion, it worked. Had they gone on making the music they made in the 60's and 70's, this great band might not have survived the 80's and 90's. The result of their re-invention of themselves is a sound as unique as their original one. Any collection of 80's music would not be complete without at least 2 or 3 songs from this album. It will live on for a long time as a true classic. When the new greatest hits album was released (late 2002), I dusted off good old 17 to reminisce. Not surprisingly, I still knew every word to every song...almost 20 years later! That is a testament to an aging man's memory, but also to the timelessness of Chicago 17!

This is Chicago's biggest selling album, and no wonder - each of the ten songs are wonderful examples of 80s pop/rock. The four hit singles ("Stay The Night", "Hard Habit To Break", "You're The Inspiration" and "Along Comes A Woman") are all great, but the rest of the album (with the exception of "Please Hold On" which is the weakest track on the album) is even better. "Only You" and "Once In A Lifetime" are the last great Pankow tunes to see the light of day on a Chicago album, Robert Lamm returns from the void he disappeared into for "16" with the fine "We Can Stop The Hurtin'" and "Remember The Feeling" has to rank as one of the finest Chicago ballads ever - even if part of it's appeal is that you haven't heard it 10 000 times on the radio, unlike "Habit" and "Inspiration". That only leaves "Prima Donna", a surprisingly maligned tune that rocks nicely and actually has reasonable lyrics too (not to mention vocals).

Overall this is as good an album as the first three double albums with Kath, even if it's barely comparable soundwise or artistically. Indeed, if you're looking for the very best of Chicago's commercial profit-driven era, you need look no further than this album.

As a fan of Chicago since it's "Beginnings", I feel compelled to say that this album ranks among the top in their catalogue. While CTA, II, VII remain some of my favorites, I find that there are really 2 different Chicagoes.. the "before Kath" and the "after Kath"... I feel that I should mention here that Street Player is perhaps their most underrated song. ANWYAY...

Chicago VII still remains my favorite of all time. BUT this album combines the freshness (for it's time) and talent to provide for a very listenable ablum. I can't think of a track on this disc that I would purposely skip. I love them all.

It's 2005, and having seen them in concert (especially with EWF) several times recently, if they would release a new album, just to prove to all the non-believers that they still have it! That might just top this!

Even though Chicago has been in the music business for 17 years releasing 5 #1 albums, this album has had more recognition on the charts, radio, and grammys than any Chicago album ever in their history. David Foster won a grammy for best producer for this album, and he did an excellent job on it. The album contained 4 huge radio hits "Stay the Night", "Hard Habit to Break", "You're the Inspiration", and "Along Comes a Woman". Personally I think the music video for "Stay the Night" was a bigger hit than the song it's self on the radio. "Hard Habit to Break" which contained Peter Cetera's vocals and the grammy award winning vocals of Bill Champlin was an excellent song and should've won the grammy for best record of the year, but intsead won the grammy for it's string arrangements. "You're the Inspiration" was an okay song but was pretty huge on the radio, and like "Stay the Night", "Along Comes a Woman" was a huge radio hit but the music video in my opinion was a better success which was a tribute to the movie "Casablanca" with Peter Cetera dressing up like Humphrey Bogart, and the rest of the band members dressed in tuxedo's scattered around in the orchestra and the dance floor. I'm glad Robert Lamm came back to sing lead on 2 songs ("We Can Stop the Hurtin") and ("Only You"). Here is what I think of all the songs.

1. Stay the Night- Real good rocking song with Peter Cetera singing lead and both him and his brother Kenny Cetera singing the high pitched background vocals. Lots of Keyboards and synthesizers, but no horns.

2. We Can Stop the Hurtin - Finally Robert Lamm comes back to sing lead on this really awesome rocking song. Richard Marx and Donny Osmond sing the background vocals and yes the horn section does play a part in this song.

3. Hard Habit to Break- Probably Chicago's best ballad of all time. Peter Cetera and Bill Champlin sing the vocals. The vocal arrangement on this song was very well arranged. The song is mostly keyboards, guitars, and synthesizer, but it contains a small part of the horn section and strings were perfromed at the end.

4. Only You- An okay song/ballad that contains both Robert Lamm and Bill Champlin on vocals. Bill Champlin proves that he can hit the high notes with his gusty vocals. This song contained a lot of Synthesizer and a weak horn section.

5. Remember the Feeling- A song that should've been released as a single, but wasn't. It was written by both Peter Cetera and Bill Champlin, but was sung by Cetera. Again this was a ballad dominated by keyboards and strings and no horn section.

6. Along Comes a Woman- A REAL good rocking song with ROCKING horns. Peter Cetera sang lead with the rest of Chicago singing background vocals. The guitar work on this song was well noticed and performed well.

7. You're the Inspiration- A slow Chicago ballad that is an OKAY song but was in my opinion WAY overplayed on the radio. Peter Cetera sings lead and both he and his brother Kenny sing the background vocals. Again another Chicago ballad with keyboards, strings, but no horns.

8. Please Hold On- Probably the best song on the album that best resembles the work the band did way back in the past (with the exception of the drum machines!) Bill Champlin sings all the vocals on this song and this song has the best horn arrangement on the entire album.

9. Prima Dona- There's nothing I can really say about this song. I think it's the only song on the album that really doesn't sound like a song that could be released as a single or on the B side of a single. Peter Cetera sings lead, but the horn section is alive on this song unlike some of the other songs on this album.

10. Once in a Lifetime- Another song that I think should've been released as a single. Bill Champlin's vocals are as strong as they ever were and Peter Cetera provides vocals as well. The song starts out with synthesizers and keyboards. The guitar work is excellent and even though there is a very small string arrangement, the horn arrangement is dominating the song like it should. I especially like the vocal arrangement at the end of the song with Peter Cetera and Bill Champlin harmonizing together.

This song contained many songs on the album that were hits or could've been hits. The one things is that all those songs were ballads and were sung by Peter Cetera. It doesn't surprise me that he left the band the next year to pursue a solo career where he actually became more successful than Chicago over the next several years recording several hits songs, many which were ballads.

I've heard complaints that a lot of bands started to lose their individuality and sound the same in the 80's with overproduction and too much synthesizers & drum programming. That's certainly the case here, yet in SPITE of that, CHICAGO 17 is an album I've come to love, and I feel was a major improvement over CHICAGO 16 in the songwriting department. While their ballads around this time all start to sound the same (a problem at concerts when it takes half the song for me to be sure WHICH one they're playing) they shine here with the rock tunes. My faves here are "Stay The Night", "We Can Stop the Hurtin'" (Robert Lamm shows he hasn't lost it! --but has anyone ever been able to make out Donny Osmond singing back-up on this?), "Only You", "Along Comes A Woman", "Prima Donna" (both of these by Cetera & M. Goldenberg) and James Pankow's "Once In A Lifetime" (hey, I'm a romantic!). I only wish they'd include the single version of "Along Comes A Woman", as that remix was even MORE hi-tech in sound.

Chicago 17 (1984) was a landmark album for the group in many ways. For one, it further propelled their comeback off of Chicago 16. The album released four hits: "Stay the Night, " "Hard Habit to Break," "You're the Inspiration," and "Along Comes a Woman." The first three songs are very strong and firmly established Chicago with the next generation.

Secondly, it was the first time that Chicago was on MTV.
Undoubtably, the record label released those songs that Peter Cetera sung since his voice was so recognizable. With the exposure that MTV gave Cetera as the frontman, it is no doubt that he separated from the band no long after the album's release.

Finally, it was the second album in a series (Chicago 16-18) that was produced by David Foster, a huge name in the recording industry. With Foster, came a series of new studio musicians (Richard Marx, Donny Osmond), as well as song writers (Steve Kipner, Lionel Richie).

What I've always appreciated about Chicago is the balance that each of the members gives the band. There have always been three main singers, in this case they are Robert Lamm, Bill Champlin, and Peter Cetera. Each has a unique singing style and range, giving the band a nice balance; unfortunately, that's not what listeners hear on the radio. Out of the ten songs on the album, Cetera solos on half of them.

The other thing that I've liked about Chicago is the balance in songwriting. Each of the main members - Cetera, Lamm, Pankow, and Champlin - tend to lean towards a specific style of composition, which again, provides balance and interest. Lamm's influence is very apparent in the progressive jazz tune "We Can Stop the Hurtin;" Pankow tends towards funk/fusion in "Once in a Lifetime," a tune that almost has a hip-hop beat to it; Champlin excels with a more bluesy feel in "Please Hold On", and Cetera's pop style was felt in all of the hits and "Remember the Feeling." The band Toto also shares this strength and when one reads the liner notes, you'll find that both bands share members back and forth, beginning around 1982.

Not to belabor my enthusiasm for the album, but it also hit me at a key point in my youth. I was a sophomore in high school and very involved with playing trumpet in concert band and piano in jazz band, not to mention that my band director was a huge Chicago fan. "Chicago 17" was my first exposure to the band and hearing the brass and keys really inspired me to continue on both intruments, ultimately making teaching music a career.

The difference between the CD release and the original LP are two songs: "Please Hold On" and "Prima Donna." Both of the CD versions are alternate takes - not necessarily better, just different. Hopefully Warner Brothers will do like Rhino has done with the first fourteen albums and re-release "Chicago 17" with the original versions and the alternate takes.

Undoubtedly, "17," "18," and "19" propelled the band into the ballad arena - something they eventually got sick of. "Chicago 17" still retains the essence of the "old Chicago" that diehard fans remember. Not that "18" and "19" are bad - they just are much more radio-focused. If you purchase this CD, you'll be well-pleased.