But I was wrong . . . but I was wrong . . . real wrong.

Looks like I owe Matthew an apology.  I was not feeling great about Chicago VIII, which I listened to several times yesterday, but it did have "Harry Truman," a song I have always had great fondness for, and after a few spins I will have to admit that even with the very annoying lead vocal track, "Old Days" was starting to work its way into me.  (I credit the songwriting here--by James Pankow 1--as the vocal by Peter Cetera really is QUITE annoying). But other than those two tracks, I didn't feel that the album stood shoulder to shoulder with its predecessors.  And the fact that Cetera was doing lead vocals on 6 of the 10 songs (2 of them shared lead with Kath) didn't help.

And this morning I put Chicago X on, and pretty much from the first note to the last it was Just. Fucking. Awful.  Part of it is the continuing dominance of Peter Cetera as a vocalist--he has five leads on the eleven songs, one of which is shared with a crowd.  But he only wrote two of the songs, so while it's tempting for me to think that Cetera is the man who pissed in the Chicago swimming pool and made us all want to get out of the water, that can't be the whole story.  (And it can't be that the band went to shit after Kath died, either, because he's still alive and kicking and writing songs--albeit only two of them--on this album.)  Although it is true that the lowest point of the album for me was "Another Rainy Day in New York City,"  on which Cetera sings in a mock Jamaican accent.  Probably never a good idea for a white guy to be doing that kind of shit.  

At any rate . . . I still have two albums to listen to, so I suppose things could change for the better, but I doubt it.  Early yesterday--before listening to VIII and still infused with my new love for Chicago--I took a look at the second set of studio albums . . . which takes us from Chicago 13 to Chicago XIV to Chicago 16 to Chicago 17 to Chicago 18 to Chicago 19 to Chicago Twenty 1 to Night & Day Big Band (22) to Chicago XXX and ends with Chicago XXXII: Stone Of Sisyphus.  I like the inconsistency in the numbering, both in terms of gaps in the order and in terms of typography.  I assume that that's not just Wikipedia being slovenly, though I suppose I should check on that.  Anyway, that brings the studio albums almost up to date--there were only two more studio album releases after that . . . with the curious omission of two (yes, 2 . . . or II if you prefer) Christmas albums.  And a whole bunch of collections . . . greatest hits, box, love songs, etc, all of which have numbers.  Anyway . . . I was looking at that second volume and starting to think I might want it, so I started playing the 30 second samples on Amazon. It didn't take long for me to stop doing that.  Jesus, this band went way down.  I'm still kind of interested in the Big Band album, but I will definitely check that out online (thoroughly) before I put any money into it.

And now I have two more albums in this first set to listen to.  I am hoping that there is some lack of suckiness to be found there . . . but I am not overly hopeful, I'm sorry to say.  Sometimes it just bes like that.



1  Pankow also wrote Colour My World," "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" (with Peter Cetera), "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long," "Just You 'n' Me," and "Make Me Smile."