Customer Reviews

Xiii

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In Chicago 13, every member gets a writing credit. Phil Ramone implements a "democratic" approach to production, resulting in this buffet of 8 different styles on one album.

It took me 20 years to truly appreciate this album. I love to play and listen to it. But I give it 3-stars because these are supposed to be reviews that should help prospective buyers. I have seen, heard, and read reviews on this album ever since it came out, and I do not want to take a chance on somebody buying this and being disappointed.

One wonders what would have happened had Donnie Dacus stayed with the band. I saw them live at the time, and I think his inappropriate stage behavior was a main reason why he had to go. He seems to be finding his niche on this album, only to have it taken away. His in-your-face guitar solo, as the final cut "Runaway" fades, is an effective closure to his tenure with the band.

There are interesting and career-topping instrumental moments on this album, like Lee Loughnane's muted trumpet in Aloha Mama, and James Pankows trombone solo in Life Is What It Is. Man, how I'd love to give this 4-stars.

Nevertheless, I would only recommend that confirmed Chicago fans buy this CD. Or - - - if you are willing to sit down and listen to it, maybe 20 times, before making a judgment, then yes, buy it.

Oops! I forgot about "Closer To You" on the re-issue! This classic rock-jazz Chicago song features a cool Lee Loughnane solo. The addition of this song makes it a near ideal Chicago album, and raises it one star, (which I will do when the edit function allows me to do so!)

This is a funny one. The first time I heard this, I was APPALLED. By 1979 I was sick & tired of the boring monotony of songs with disco beats--and to hear yet another of my favorite band stoop to doing a song with one, in this case, the lengthy "Street Player", was too much. I didn't play it again for another 6 months. After 2 years, however, it surprised me--I started to LIKE it! Once the "fad" had died, I noticed that the "regular" bands who'd decided to try their hands at it had actually done BETTER work than the full-time (and short-lived) "Disco bands". "Street Player" became one of my favorite Disco songs! And frankly, the rest of the album turned out to be far better than HOT STREETS-Donnie Dacus or not. (In photos, the guy just looked SO out-of-place--like a Peter Frampton "clone" amid musicians of an entirely different caliber.) Peter Cetera does more than his share of vocals this time out, yet none of his later trademark "sappy ballads" this time. Instead, upbeat mid-tempo rockers ("Mama Take", "Life Is What It Is" and "Run Away"--the latter would have made a cool single) and a song that sounds like it stepped out of a New Orleans Mardi Gras ("Aloha Mama"). On this and "Window Dreamin'" (Walter Parazaider & Lee Loughnane's contribution, probably the most offbeat rhythm on the album) Cetera warps his voice to become "P.C. Moblee"-whoever THAT'S supposed to be. And Robert Lamm's catchy "Reruns" talks of regrets following infidelity. All-in-all, I've enjoyed this more and more as the years go by-something I never expected. And being big into architecture, the skyscraper cover has long been one of my favorites by the group!

Chicago 13 was the second album that was done with Donnie Dacus, the first of two guitarists the band tried before finding Bill Champlin. It comes after Hot Streets, an album which the band members didn't care for, yet which produced three singles that received good airplay.

Chicago 13 demonstrates the band's ability to adapt its style to different music forms, in this case disco. It also demonstrates how the band's musical experience and expertise clashes with Dacus' immaturish guitar work and music writing. Besides these problems, his strained voice sounded like a second Cetera when the band needed a bass like the deceased Kath or the needed dynamic Champlin to develop the depth of music within its potential.

"Street Player" provides a upbeat jump into the disco realm, although Maynard Ferguson's unparallelled trumpet abilties can't quite masque the drawn out song.

"Mama Take" and "Must Have Been Crazy" provide examples of the differences between Dacus and the band's abilities. Both involve simple concepts: a few chords and solid beats. Yet Cetera in "Mama Take" employs guitar slides, crescendos, and the horns to make a great piece while Dacus only drives his song with cutsie lyric, absent horns and dynamics, into a dry piece which is not Chicago quality.

"Window Dreamin" represents a gem which reflects the underappreciated talents of Lee Loughnee as a song writer. The son uses horns, drive, and flare effectively. Even Cetera's ego, promoting his "P.C. Moblee" voice effects works in this piece.

"Paradise Alley" is a predictable dull tune where you keep waiting for an unexpected development to lift you from your slumber. The rescue never occurs and the piece dulls its way off into nonexistence.

"Aloha Mama" appears Chicago's answer to Cab Calloway in "Minne the Moocher", and it comes off very well. The muted trumpet and the wonderful drum work work well together. It's a highlight of the album.

Lamm's "Reruns" uses a the music pattern to 25 or 6 to 4 as a voiced over bridge between chorus and verse. It has a good flare of the horns which hides the tune's simplicity.

"Loser with a Broken Heart" is a typical sappy Cetera ballet. No further comment.

"Life it was it is" represents a nice easy going tune which provides relief from some other the other weak efforts and prepares one for the CD's finale.

"Run Away" is James Pankow's song-writing career low-point. It's a simple song which unimaginative lyrics song by Dacus. What else needs to be said. Yet somehow it's appropriate for a closer.

This album had elements of creativity yet seemed held back in a strong way. It's like a mediocare dish, with some tastes worth savoring, but leaving one feeling empty.

Although not on of Chicago's best recordings, this CD is a lot of fun! The brass ROCKS, and it's neat hearing Peter Cetera do disco! If you're a die hard Chicago fan, this CD is a must! If you love disco, you'll be amused, so buy it for the novilty. If you like the Chicago songs you hear on the radio, you might rather look at the new "Heart of Chicago" CD's instead!

Chicago has evolved - just like other groups. This particular album showcases where Chicago's respective mind was at in 1979. (Chicago 14 is another favorite of mine - before the David Foster influenced / Peter Cetera hogging the spotlight years.) 13 was an unlucky number for Chicago (as was 14, I guess) and they shouldn't have been. Some of their best work, in my opinion, can be heard on these two albums. As for Chicago 13, yes it is Chicago meets Disco, but only on some songs, not all of them. Personally, I think Chicago was meant to do disco and they do it well on this album. I mean, with the Chicago sound (those magnificent horns led by the wonderful Jimmy Pankow), disco never sounded better. The Chicago horns and the disco beat is a perfect blend. It works! However, this is not "Boogie, Oogie, Oogie" type disco, this is tremendous dance and horn music such as that offered by the equally talented Average White Band. So, I just don't get all of the bad reviews. Bands and artists do not want to put out carbon copies of the albums they just did before. That would be boring. Chicago 13 and 14 prove just how talented and versatile Chicago, as a group, really is. Another thing I like about this album is it spotlights the Chicago horn section, something that was lost in later Chicago efforts when David Foster took over and the horns served as backup to Cetera's ballads. This album is still a group effort. How anyone could not like the infectious "Street Player" which is over nine minutes of superb guitar work and horn playing is way beyond me!

Although many people seemed dissapointed at the time of the release of this album, Streetplayer remains my favourite club song of all-time. The fact that Chicago did disco doesn't matter it's the fact that their only "real" disco song is incredibly good.

Luis Mejia (son) - The '70s were fading away, and the end of the '70s was one of Chicago worst periods of time, While they were still recovering from former guitarist Terry Kath's death, a bunch of problems laid back in the past Hot Streets were starting to be notorious in Chicago 13, mainly those like Phil Ramone unsuccessful, overwheling production, Donnie Dacus not so unexpected departure after the release of this album, the now present more than ever sadness of the former bandmates, and the dissapointing result of Chicago 13, were they put a marvelous energy and such a delightful performance, the album just reaches gold, which turned their doubts into a more serious matter. Critics went really hard on this album, while I certainly agree, they've alway punished extremely hard those non-disco musicians who spect to get something of the era by releasing a disco album, among those artist a person can find Elton John, Rod Stewart, Blondie, George Michael, among others, but certainly Chicago even in just slight efforts of the genre, was the most punished band of all, and specially on this album, it seems that pop artists never learned a lesson about not doing disco if they aren't disco! Still, just as the same genre defines it, pop, is about popular, soft music, and disco was the greatest heat in the '70s, so it was such a transforming genre that pop musicians started to see how good and overwhelming disco music was, and with foolish decisions, they decided to give it a try, needless to say, the result was horrible, and while this is a predictable mistake among most of the pop bands that lived through the 70's, its was also a necessary mistake for Chicago, as their true style and sound forays were yet to be clearly defined, and as the band claimed, "Chicago 13 was our response to how disco music affects us", and some of the bandmates actually liked disco music. All in all, I decided to put 4 stars to this album because it represents their true firm confirmation into pop levels, melodic balladries and adult contempo style, as some of the songs in here are for me a personal delight, with fantastic, well crafted, enjoyable, beautiful, charming, heartful, deep and easy songs throughout the album, still a little bit confusing, and despite the horrible critics this an album that I like and I'll always like. The album's styles swing between disco influenced compositions, delightful pop and their more recognizeable roots on jazz territory. In terms of personal matters, this wasn't too much of a personal demonstration as Chicago VII, but gets close. Entering more into its music, what had always kept my attention in Chicago is their heartful, beautiful pop, and that is certainly displayed in this album, while it only went gold, they are a couple of singles that made it through, and these two are the opening Street Player and Loser With A Broken Heart, both the best songs in the album, Seraphine's Street Player is the first song in the album, is their last (and maybe their only) but most consistent and popular disco composition, its the longest song in the album, and its enjoyable, refreshing and dance structure drifts into your emotions and makes you want to dance to the rythm of the song all night, its the best song in the album, also having jazz legend feature Maynard Ferguson playing a trumpet riff (and don't think I'm a frantic disco fan, as I almost hate the genre, mainly for ruining many splendid rock careers), while the touchy ballad Loser With A Broken Heart is a Cetera composition, this album also marks the return of Cetera's stunningly commercial compositions, the song is a heartful, melodic, soft ballad full of mellow emotions, but I'd wished that it would have had a better sound quality, plus Dacus' hard guitar takes off talent from the song, as it doesn't work out as a power ballad. Mama Take is another beautiful Cetera's compositions, its touchy acoustic guitar performace, uncompromising and emotional moods and catchy rythms make it another fantastic song, while Must Have Been Crazy is Dacus' composition, certainly the weakest song in the album, as Dacus' incoherent and foolish lyrics, plus his excessively guitar centered structure makes the song just a noisy track. The ruminative Window Dreaming remains close of being a disco song, its undertaking style is really enjoyable but is a little bit of a filler, while the later Paradise Alley was a song intended to be in Sylvester Stallone film of the same name, while being certain tensions between the band's opinions about making their first movie theme song, finally Stallone didn't used it but he says he wish he had, while the song remains as an uncompromising, comfortable funky upbeat being a Lamm's composition, and Aloha Mama is certainly a silly song, its excessive funk tune and its idiotic performance and composition really makes it a bad song, although, oddly enough, Chicago claimed that "nobody like us enjoyed playing that song". Then it comes the three last tracks, Reruns, Life Is What It Is and Run Away, Reruns keeps a light but fast paced disco vibe very much alike with the song Alive Again, while Life Is What It Is is a latin influenced, jazzy, smooth and moody piece, it marks their greatest touches from their previous jazzy experience in Chicago VII, and this is very notorious as the song is composed by DeOliveira, and the last Run Away is an elegant but comfortable song, not too much to say about it, the perfect light song for ending the album. The bonus tracks are the funky Closer To You and a moody dance remix of Street Player. In conclussion, this may be considerated one of their worst, most silly and unnecessary works Chicago ever released, but its still very important as it stands in a complete pop, melodic phase, still with an awkward disco vibe, this album remains as one of my personals.

I'm sorry. But this is not Chicago's best work. It's not necessarilly a horrible album, but the Chicago from 6 years before is simply not there. Three songs save this album from being a one star wonder. The first is Mama Take, one of the most underrated Cetera songs during his Chicago tenure. Donnie Dacus's Must Have Been Crazy is his best song from his unremarkable stay with the band. "Loser With A Broken Heart" is a pretty decent Certera ballad. The other songs fall flat on their faces, and are a disgrace to Chiacgo's legacy, especially the incredibly lame "Street Player". Chicago can't do disco.

Chicago 13 comes during a lull for the band--after its massively successful albums in the early to mid 70s and prior to its return to greatness in the early 80s. However, I don't think Chicago 13 is a weak album. "Street Player" is a heart-pumping, exciting disco song that is thoroughly enjoyable. Songs such as "Reruns" and "Mama Take" are fast-paced and brass heavy, and also solid songs. Frankly, not every song is a great hit. However, there are enough decent tracks to warrant 4 stars for the album. Now it's time for "Street Player" to be transcribed for guitar and piano and be added to future Chicago song book collections. It is a very decent song that does not deserve to be lost forever.

Just from the rhythmic,opening "Street Player" you can tell
this won't be traditional Chicago.More then any other more rock
of psychedlisized earlier recording,"13" showcases the band in an
uncharacteristic rhythmic form,unfortunately never to be returned to very long."Mama Take",'Must Have Been Crazy" and "Runaway" are the only standard Chicago fare here and everything else is some varriation on funk/jazz/rock/disco or
any combination between,all with a great beat.The snarling and
lyrically offbeat funk-rock of "Window Dreamin'",the jazzy shuffles of "Paradise Alley" and "Aloha Mama" and the heroicly
vocal rock-disco fusion of "Reruns" are sure-fire highlites.
But what stands out in my mind is the midtempo rock/soul ballad
"Life Is What It Is",a Peter Cetera-led tune that ranks right up
there with "If You Leave Me Now","Baby,What A Big Surpirse" and
even "No Tell Lover"-however because this is a 1979 release and
became lost in the very stupid anti-disco backlash,it's funk-
based rhythm section was ignored as listeners focused in on
the album's overall dancability.Sure Elton John gave us the
"Victem Of Love" album and Rod Stewart gave us "Blondes Have More
Fun" but this fits more or less into the "Black And Blue"-era
Rolling Stones catagory-a funk-rock album caught up in the
turbulant tital wave of disco.Definately not to be ignored!