In 2006, the band Chicago find themselves in much the same place they were back in 1982. Then, as now, they were artistically and commercially adrift. It had been several years since they'd had a real radio hit, and they were, apparently, one of the record industry's lowest priorities. Enter producer David Foster, who, while recording the band's 16th album (titled - wait for it - Chicago 16), proceeded to, ahem, lay the smack down. He asserted his own craft and vision all over Chicago's songs, reining in their trademark horn section, scooping out any hint of jazz still left in their sound, polishing all the edges to a nice marbly pop sheen. The result was an album that still raises the ire of many of the band's earliest supporters; but Foster's touch worked wonders for their record sales, and Chicago 16 set an artistic template for the band that kept them on the radio, and in the upper reaches of the pop charts for the next 10 years: Chicago Version 2.0.
I count myself as a fan of the band's earlier work. But I also loveChicago 16. Which is why I really, really want to like the band's latest album Chicago XXX. Because, if I don't, I wonder, what will that say about me? Am I just another cranky Chicago purist who can't deal with change in a band that, contrary to just about everyone else with the kind of longevity they have achieved, seems virtually changeless. We might as well face it. Change comes hard to Chicago. But it may come harder to Chicago fans.
For those keeping score, Chicago XXX is the band's first new studio album of all original material since 1991's failed Chicago 21 (or Twenty 1 as it was awkwardly enumerated at the time). Of the 8 records the band has "counted" in the last 15 years of their existence, 5 have been compilations of sorts (2 single-disc companion greatest hits collections, a box set, a double-disc greatest hits compilation, and a double-disc collection of love songs); one was a big band theme covers album, and 25 and 26 were a Christmas record and a live album respectively. In essence: lots o' product, very little actual "art" - inasmuch as you can call what Chicago does "art" anymore. The (reputedly) closest thing the band had to a claim on the "A" word was a record called (somewhat unfortunately, when you think about it) Stone of Sisyphus, which, alas has gone unreleased. (And which, if it is ever released, faces the very real hazard of having been more interesting as an unreleased record.)
Chicago XXX may be all new - but, like any of the parade of hits collections the preceded it, it's calculated to sell. The front cover is an image of a construction worker carving an "XXX" into a concrete walk, and, as someone who works tangentially to the construction industry, the image struck a nerve. Because you can almost hear the bureaucratic wrangling that went into the fabrication of this album. The e-mails and voice-mails and Fed-Ex packages full of punch lists and client review comments, budget memoranda, expense reports, and product submittals drive the songs forward as much as the band do with their instruments. This is the kind of album that makes you wonder if the band's senior partners (singer-keyboardist Robert Lamm, and the horn section of Walt Parazaider, James Pankow and Lee Loughnane) gave clocks to Bill Champlin and Jason Scheff for 20 years of loyal service.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. A touch cynical maybe, but that doesn't preclude the possibility that listeners might actually enjoy it. And, in fact, with Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts producing - an influence that is both self-consciously "radically" current, and self-consciously "currently" safe - Chicago have reinvented themselves as a calculated hybrid of their former two selves. Fans of Version 1.0 will be surprised and pleased at just how prominent the horn section is on this album, especially on the uptempo tracks that make up almost two thirds of the record - especially the Steely Dan-ish "Better", the funkified "90 Degrees and Freezing" and Champlin's "Already Gone" which fades out on an extended contempo-jazz work-out that stretches the song to the 7-minute mark. Likewise, fans of Version 2.0 will find comfort food in the power balladry of singles like "Feel" (which bookends the album in two different versions - the "hot single mix" and the "w/ horns" mix - begging the question, since when are "hot singles" and "horns" mutually exclusive?), "Why Can't We" (a duet with Shelly Fairchild), and "Love Will Come Back" featuring all of Rascal Flatts.
But additionally, the band have set out to woo the kids of the 21st Century - a dubious mission for a band who looks as grizzled as these guys do in the portraits that form the centerfold of the booklet. The guitars (courtesy of Keith Howland... and others including Stone Temple Pilots' Dean DeLeo on "Better") rock harder and sound more raw on songs like "Where Were You", and they've worked in some generic electronic rhythm textures that sound recycled from sessions for an Avril Lavigne ballad. But the most alarming change to come with V.3.0 is the way Bill Champlin's voice is recorded. For the last 25 years, it's been one of the most recognizable, stabilizing, and beloved sounds of the band, but on this record, it's all over the place. Here there's a bit of country twang, there it's as moody and adolescent as those guys from Lifehouse and Hoobastank. And on the ballads, he sounds like an old man trying to be Brian Littrell. Very depressing.
On the other hand, Robert Lamm lets his age and experience serve him well. His smooth, jazzy baritone is deeper and rougher around the edges, but he works these new bits of character in his favor on "Come to Me, Do", the record's simplest and most immediately appealing number - and also, unfortunately, Lamm's only solo composition here. The song has an uncommon warmth that suggests that Chicago need not do so much blatant pandering to the next generation to preserve their beloved institution. Maybe, if they, y'know, just played music, it would all work out.
It's hard to give a grade to Chicago XXX this early in its life, because, clearly, the album was conceived, modeled, designed and constructed to produce hit singles. Its artistic success is inexorably linked to its commercial success. If it's not a hit, it'll simply get written off and forgotten. But if it is, I better watch out. Twenty years from now, some young whippersnapper will be writing long Epinionated screeds about cranky old farts like me who totally misunderstood and underappreciated Chicago XXX back in the day. But I'm not worried.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Chicago XXX" by Chicago
Rhino Records
Released 3/21/06
Produced by Jay DeMarcus
59 min.
SONGS: Feel (Hot Single Mix) - King of Might Have Been - Caroline - Why Can't We - Love Will Come Back - Long Lost Friend - 90 Degrees and Rising - Where Were You - Already Gone - Come to Me, Do - Lovin' Chains - Better - Feel (w/Horns)
When Chicago exploded onto the music scene with their stellar 1969 double-LP debut, Chicago Transit Authority, the band s innovative fusion of up-fron...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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