Love Songs [Original recording remastered]

Chicago | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 25, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B0006IIPJY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,791 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

In a record-breaking career marked by album sales upwards of 120 million, 21 Top 10 Singles, and five consecutive #1 albums, Chicago ranks as one of the most successful American rock groups ever. On Chicago Love Songs the superstar band proves its fluency in the language of love with 18 favorites spanning 1970-2004, including 12 Top 10 Billboard Pop hits and two previously unissued live gems!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars How Many Times Must We Buy These Songs?, March 12, 2005

By 

Steve Vrana (Aurora, NE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Songs (Audio CD)

After Rhino released the near-definitive 2-CD collection THE VERY BEST OF: ONLY THE BEGINNING in 2002, I was a bit confused by the title. "Only the Beginning?" Hey! Chicago hasn't had a top 40 hit since 1991's "Chasin' the Wind." But LOVE SONGS makes it perfectly clear. That album was only the beginning of repackaging Chicago's material.

There's really little new here if you already own THE VERY BEST OF. "If You Leave Me Now" is a live version with Philip Bailey. Another live version is "After the Love Is Gone" featuring Earth, WInd & Fire. "Never Been in Love Before" is from 1975's CHICAGO VIII. And "Here in My Heart" is a Lenny Kravitz-produced song from 1997's anthology THE HEART OF CHICAGO.

So what other creative ways can Rhino repackage this material? The Terry Kath years? The Robert Lamm-penned songs? Songs from albums whose titles don't contain a Roman numeral?

Don't get me wrong. If all you're looking for is Chicago's love songs--and ONLY their love songs, this is a solid collection. My only problem with this is that it presents the group as a bit too one dimensional.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good collection, BUT......, January 25, 2005

By 

Shane D. Worden (Oshkosh, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Songs (Audio CD)

A little over a year ago I submitted a fairly glowing review of Rhino's reissue of Chicago's Christmas album here on Amazon. My positive comments were based on two factors. First off, Rhino IS a reissue label first and foremost, and it would seem natural that they would want to reissue the Chicago Christmas album after they acquired the band's recorded output. Secondly, Rhino really did the reissue up right with the inclusion of no less than six new songs to augment the album's previous recordings. What's not to love, right?

It's the lack of those two mentioned criteria that I can't be more enthusiastic about the new "Love Songs" release. Rhino's already issued a superb greatest hits collection for Chicago, and this is really not much more than a rehash of that. With the exceptions of "Here In My Heart", "Never Been In Love Before", and 2 previously unissued tracks from the Chicago/Earth Wind And Fire tour from this past summer, (a DVD of which is rumored to be in the offing anyway), all of these tunes can already be found on Rhino's GH collection.

Don't get me wrong, this is a nice cross-section of Chicago's recorded history, and all of the tunes fit in very nicely with the album's Valentine's Day-ish concept. If you happen to be a casual music fan who may not have all of Chicago's previous collections and/or reissues, then by all means grab this up. You can't go wrong with the music.

My negativity stems from the fact that the Chicago diehard fan base has been through so much already with various and assorted hits packages from more than just the Rhino Records label in the name of getting a couple of never before heard items. It's time for Rhino to get to reissuing the remaining Chicago albums, (including the Carnegie Hall album), and putting the "hits plus two" concept to rest. Even Chicago keyboardist/singer Robert Lamm insinuated surprise on his message board when he surmised that there are still "people out there who need this music".

The great white hope for the future is that there has been work progressing on an all-new original Chicago album, with Rascal Flatt's Jay Demarcus in the producer's chair, commencing recently. A new album would certainly help the bitter pill of all these hits packages go down more smoothly as far as I'm concerned! It's been too long since people have been reminded of what a great band Chicago still is, instead of the greatness that their past recordings have illustrated.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ruined a great collection...., July 3, 2006

By 

Michael D. Schultz (Portland, Or, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Songs (Audio CD)

Imagine my horror when I played my new Chicago collection of love songs and found out that If You Leave Me Now was an awful " live " version by another singer!

Not kidding, another group takes over Chicago's biggest hit,
and adds another live song later in the disc!

This ruins the flow of the collection of love songs by Chicago.
That's what I paid for (by mail order) and that's
what I expected.

Otherwise, it's a top-notch collection of all the romantic favorites from a legendary band.

A five star record loses two stars from me, for the weird
screw-up on the two live songs.