Chicago - Hot Streets
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Free Music Notes for Hot Streets
Free Music Review: A step down...
Hit: 3 Stars
Given the circumstances surrounding HOT STREETS, it may be unfair to criticize it too harshly. Nonetheless, I found it a big step down from XI, which was one of my favorite Chicago albums.
It does have its good points. "Alive Again" is a good opener (why wasn't THIS the title track?). The title track, while a little corny on the vocal/lyrical front, has great atmosphere. (I first heard it, as a teenage Chicago fan, while in the back seat of a car going down a deserted road in a rainstorm at 6:30 AM. This was a great way to get introduced to it!) Dacus, while not like Kath in any way, does fine in his guitar & vocal roles; his writing contribution, the rockin' "Ain't It Time," is my favorite track on the album. (In fact I'm surprised not to find other reviewers saying the same thing.)
On the downside, I totally dislike "Greatest Love On Earth" and "Little Miss Lovin'"; these have the rare distinction of being songs I own on CD but never listen to. "No Tell Lover" is schmaltz with really dumb lyrics.
Neither good nor bad, but just weird, is the album's ending. A nice instrumental hook on "Show Me The Way" turns into a chorus sung by... German soldiers?? Kind of funny, kind of haunting, but mostly just weird. What was it supposed to mean?
The bonus track, a version of "Love Was New" with Dacus on vocals instead of Lamm, shows that they were wise to use the Lamm version. It's not that Dacus' vocal is bad; it's more that the melody seems not to have been finalized on the Dacus version. Compare the lines "basic survival" and "taken for granted" between the versions and you'll see what I mean.
BTW, the band did appear in a small picture on the cover of CHICAGO VI, but this was the first (only?) time they were depicted on a cover prominently. Funny thing is, if you fold out the cover so you can see the full picture, Pankow appears at both ends of it!
Free Music Review: Vastly Underrated - Truly The Last "Great" Chicago Album
Hit: 5 Stars
True aficianados and/or longtime fans of Chicago can certainly cite the turbulent year of 1978 for the band: founding member Terry Kath's tragic passing; a shifting of musical trends and tastes; a new producer (Phil Ramone, who was simultaneously finishing Billy Joel's classic 52nd Street album) and the introduction of Donnie Dacus as Terry's replacement. And yet despite all of this chaos, the band produces what is still an underrated gem. I liken it to the 1980 "Drama" album by Yes - a key member is absent, but the band rallies and produces a winner. The remastered sound comes through loud and clear on "Alive Again," one of Chicago's best uptemp rockers since "Dialogue" from Chicago V. Pete Cetera's "Greatest Love on Earth" is the only marginally questionable track on the album, a bit cheesy and contrived (but nowhere as NEAR as bad as the 80s tripe looming on the horizon). "Little Miss Lovin" and the title track are solid, R&B-inflected cruisers. "Take A Chance" features one of Donnie Dacus' better vocal performances. "Gone Long Gone" is a countryish rocker from Cetera. The remaining tracks are also solid, but the album's standout piece is "No Tell Lover," which boasts a gorgeous melody and one of James Pankow's best brass arrangements in years. The song really does sound like a warm summer afternoon in the park.
I saw Chicago for the first time on the tour to support this album (almost 30 years ago!!), and they were absolutely spectacular. Dan Seraphine and Robert Lamm were really the glue of the band in this period. The band would begin to falter and lose focus with the next album (Chicago 13), and ultimately become a robotic manufacturer of cheesy, syrupy adult pop songs. Hot Streets represents Chicago's last great, cohesive and diverse album.
Free Music Review: Kick back and listen
Hit: 4 Stars
Musical historians condemn this album as something worse than the plague. I think part of the reason for that, beyond their dislike of the music on this album, comes from all the upheavals Chicago went through during the recording of this album. The tragic accidental suicide of their singer guitarist, the dropping of the roman numerals for a straightforward album title, showing the band members on the cover, breaking away from their long time producer and so on.
I personally think this is a pretty groovy album. I like the time period (I'm a fan of the 1970's in popular culture), I enjoy the mood of the album, which is slick, but also quite sombre. It's an adult album, like Chicago albums usually are. It might not be as inovative as earlier stuff, but it's a solid piece by real professionals.
Like I said in my title, this is a good album to just kick back and listen to. Close your eyes and relax after a long day at work, have a cold or warm beverage and just let the music wash over you.
Free Music Review: Not alive again but still a fine album
Hit: 4 Stars
Luis Mejia (son) - Being Chicago's first album which brakes their tradition of numbered self titled albums, Hot Streets is respectively numbered as Chicago XII, and also being their first one to feature two fold out photos of the entire band. More respectively, it is the first Chicago album without guitarist and vocalist Terry Kath, who died in January, 1978 of an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot, but still the rest of the band followed their career, as they claimed they still had something to prove, which they certainly had. All in all, Kath's substitute was finally guitarist Donnie Dacus, while not being as talented as Kath, his guitar touches were the ones which made a great contribution into Chicago later trademark sound. It was obvious that all Chicago member were pretty shocked with such an unspected lost, but still, Hot Streets retains a more subtle talent than a lot of their past (and later) albums, one of their most underrated. The album is sometimes refered as one of their weakest and least important, while its musical approach is a much more disco influenced style, they still didn't break through disco music as they did with Chicago 13, although the album is not among their worst works, is far out from being their best. With the album's elastic popcraft detouring into a more disco oriented, funky, experimental, vaguely mellow and meaningless songs, it takes a great deal of talent from the band, and frankly, I would give to it 3.5 stars, although Amazon's system doesn't let me... Hot Streets also represented another point of turn in Chicago, since it's the first album without producer James Guercio, as Chicago stated, they had to fire him because he was too controling, still, while Guercio was a wonderful manager who built their basis into a huge commercial success and more recognizeable songs, the one who substituted him was, noneless genious producer Phil Ramone, who had a better temperament but a firm way of leading the band until their later breakthrough. Anyway, Hot Streets was still a famous release, both among its "radio friendly" style, and its interesting title which may have looked very interesting for fans, as it isn't a self titled release, and a couple of singles made it out, being the two most famous singles Alive Again and No Tell Lover, Alive Again is definitively a rousing opener with a fake out disco intro, its the second most famous song in the album, and of my personal favourites, its fast paced, catchy style and joyful, enjoyable melodies make it one of their most underrated songs, while the most famous No Tell Lover, stands also as an enjoyable, funky, smooth theme, a soft rock song with a wicked midnight groove and slow burning cheating feelings, stands better into the adult contempo style. While the album kept a mellow atmosphere throughout most of its songs, the slightly good but vaguely mellow The Greatest Love On Earth, as well as the unmemorable Love Was New, stand both as the worst songs in the album, though the sazzy rock style of Little Miss Lovin' get pretty close, only eventually saved by Gibb brothers' (Bee Gees) backing vocals contribution. Later On, there is one song that keeps some very firm traces of originality and fierceful performance, and this song is certainly the title track, Hot Streets, its intricate structure while still being a melodic pop song, Lamm's composition of course, keeps the song as one of their most unrecognizeable but bombastic songs, its full of an imaginary creativity and a soulful, cosmic atmosphere. The songs where there are seen Dacus' earliest compositions, abilities and vocal duties are Take A Chance and Ain't It Time, Take A Chance is a song composed by Loughnane, while being the first song sang by Dacus, he has a pretty melodic voice, simply good, average, standard, and after such a hard, raspy and serious vocal duties delivered before by Kath were a lot better, he was even my favourite Chicago vocalist, so I'm just saying that Dacus voice could never be compared with Kath, and Ain't It Me is actually Dacus first composition, he delivers here a fantastic guitar, although the song is too freaky and rocker for my style. The other two songs are Gone Long Gone and Show Me The Way, both stand as fantastic songs, Gone Long Gone is a minor hit, being a country flavoured pop composition, one of their most memorable and remarkable songs, it also shows a beautiful acoustic guitar performance, while the last Show Me The Way stands as a much more experimetal, dynamic song, while not being a very comprehensible effort, its chilly performamce, specially Lamm's synthesized forays displayed on the song, are quite amazing and appreciateable. The bonus track is Love Was New but now sang by Dacus. Hot Streets is still a hard point of discussion among many points of view, mainly regarded as one of their worst, I didn't heard the album as bad as the other reviewers describe, while most of them are quite right, this is not their worst album, much more of a mellow and experimental release.Free Music Review: AAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!
Hit: 2 Stars
What happened to this band? I know the great Terry Kath passed and all, but was going disco the best way to honor his memory?
Man, I'm just picturing one of my favorite bands all wearing leisure suits with their shirts open revealing mucho bling. We miss you Terry...but the band misses you more!!!