Reviews (page 8 of 8)
OK as background music but I wouldn't consciously decide to listen again.
Over an hour of meandering guitar and drum solos with no discernible focus.
Decent musicianship but a lack of songs and far too long
Starts off nice enough. Turns into a slog quickly. Not a fan of these long songs with big solos at the end.
A bit self indulgent in places, clearly good musicians but the album didn't do much for me.
5
Tja, ik ken Chicago toch vooral van de latere periode toen ze meer AOR maakten. Dit is toch echt voor de liefhebbers. Schiet teveel kanten op. Wel afgeluisterd, maar zal dit niet snel nog een keer draaien.
Not enough, "Hard to Say I'm Sorry," or, "If You Leave Me Now." Not a fan.
I do not like this very much.
Fair to middling. Not particular my bag.
Generic, inoffensive 60s rock. It's not bad really, just boring.
This started off strong for me. My love for big horns was kicking in strong, and then they just kept going with the brass and I started getting a bit of listener fatigue. Then came "Free Form Guitar," and at that point I was like get fucked Chicago, and that became the first song on this entire list that I skipped before finishing. Like get over yourself guys, no one wants to hear that for 6 minutes and its not even interesting experimentation. Any ways, back half was pretty unremarkable. The only standout for me was "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" Overall it just felt a little uninspired to me. It's like taking the 10th best bands from the swing, jazz, hard rock, and blues genres and trying to form a supergroup. Nah.
You know, I think I would like a lot more of this album if not for the wild, out of place, forever long intros. See like on Beginnings, I don't mind the extended outro, but a whole minute of the same groove just to do a super slow fade out? come on! Free Form Guitar is one of those tracks critics love and I don't get because its not pleasant to listen to. I'm docking a star for a 14 minute jam song at the end.
I do not like this band
Not sure I really care for this album. Nice music but it reminds me of music they used to play at the super market while you shop. 5/10.
Wow, this really showed me how unfamiliar I am with early Chicago. A couple of familiar tracks made it fun here and there. Too many guitar solos for me.
struggled with this one. I kind of figured Chicago would be bad, given that after living there for 8 years, you never heard anyone really talk about the band, even in a city that is obsessed with itself. The sound felt like old school big band 'modernized' for the seventies. I like other Jam music so I kept trying to give this another chance, but it just never got there.
well old stuff again. Kickt mich nicht mehr wirklich.
It was okay. Kinda weird. Didn't like the freeform song.
The musicianship and simple chutzpah to put Free Form in there saves this from being offensively bad, but it's quite bad. It sneaks under the radar, which should perhaps be a point against it. Utterly uninspiring.
free form guitar ruined this for me :/
Picture yourself at the train station, you ask a stranger "Excuse me, do you have the time?" He gazes at you as he pretentiously replies "Do any of us really know, what time it is? "Haha, yea cool thats so deep...anyway if I could just get the time so I can get out of here?" "Oh sure, just let me ...*8 minutes of pretentious shredding*" Was really excited when I heard horns but unfortunately just felt like a mash of instrumententation. Most self indulgent record ive ever heard. Instrumental music that doesn't fit the song mixed with weak lyrical ideas that shouldnt have made it out of a highschool textbook. As a lover of prog music, Im sure this made a great influence to the bands I love, but thank god this isnt where the genre stayed.
Awful. I couldn't make it past the guitar solo. Ridiculous, indulgent, and horribly un-cool.
Not for me. 1/5
Just not my cup of tea. Jolly jazz rock with horns.
Ass
Free Form Guitar is one of the worst sounds I've ever heard, could genuinely be used as torture.
its just okay. kinda a weird mash-up of everything you know about jazz but like with a weird twist on it. idrk how to describe it, its like air supply created a jazz band.
huhhh, schon coole Momente, aber hat mich insgesamt nicht überzeugt, auch einfach soo lange tracks teilweise
Also, shouldn’t have changed their name.
A three part album for me. It started like a 70's variety show orchestra. It could easily have been Ronnie Hazelhurst or Norrie Paramor. Then the guitarist started getting a bit bold (better). Then the guitarist (and everybody else) totally lost the plot. The whole album is just too self indulgent, long and drawn out. It could and should have been a single album, though I'm not sure it would have been that much better. It's difficult to believe that this is the band et Cetera that was shitting out the easy listening houswife friendly ballads a few years later. I'm not sure which incarnation I hate more.
Soms kan ik me er mega aan ergeren
Well this was bad in a bad way, but I have to thank it for one thing only. I was thinking in almost every song "why hasn't the producer told them to leave something out?" Whether it's the drummer constantly putting flourishes where they aren't needed (and I mean constantly), songs that go on about 100% too long (most of them), the track that is solo guitar. Some reviews are rapt in amazement that it was performed without effects pedals, as if it wouldn't have sounded better without a guitar or any recording equipment. When they threaten to break into a tune, it makes you wish they were playing one of the insipid songs that ended up bring their legacy. But no, it always goes back to sounding like a double album of the pinball music from Sesame Street. It would have got two stars if it wasn't for the "I can make my guitar sound like I'm throwing it down the stairs for 6 minutes" track. What do I have to thank it for? I wondered which producer was responsible, and a wiki link took me to the same guy's year owning the Caribous of Colorado soccer team who genuinely had the most unhinged kit I have ever seen. Seriously worth checking it out.
Old sitcom opening music.
Yuck. Started funky then degenerated into "just for me" jazz. The dissonance is grating. The worst part is there are great moments, but are ruined by the WAY TOO MUCH of it all.
45. :(
Not for me personally
I didn’t enjoy this
often subverting my expectations, sometimes in exciting ways and sometimes, like in free form guitar, by attempting to literally assault me with sound. and look i get some experimenting but jesus christ what the fuck never really got over that. some of the music is fine but i will never purposefully return to any of this. awful. i've written this review as i wait for the interminable final song to end (holy fuck how are there still four minutes) and now i absolutely fucking hate this
I just dislike the idea of Chicago. Just too much noodling around. Sorry - I guess there are people who love this and see the playing as being a reason to do so. Not for me
40
It’s like if you built a jazz band out of the kids that played in a rural high school jazz band
Well, this album was a chore to listen to. It started out nice, but very quickly it devolved into self indulgent performant masturbation. It insists upon itself.
Cabaret levels of self indulgence that results in some of the most stale and forgettable music I’ve ever heard. Maybe they copied pop hits or maybe vice versa (I’m assuming a decent mix of both), but every chord progression here is familiar in a way that just makes me want to listen to something else. Free Form Guitar was when it started to sound cool to me, until it started sounding like he was failing notes in Guitar Hero. Liberation had me thinking I’ve made it finally, but it drags on and on with endless solos that, for all their skill, don’t ever sound interesting. Out of a score of 25, this gets a 6 to 4.
Spotify is describing this band as Jazz-Inflected Prog-Rock That makes it a hard NO for me I knew the late 60's were a strange time, but the 1001 album challenge is really throwing up some artists who's music has not aged well over the last 50 years!
Just terrible man. At least pick an album with their hits, even if the hits are shitty.
Bleuugh. That's for the smooth stuff. As for that pointless guitar bashing effort, its unimaginative and doesnt add anything to this dull record.
Just no
Instrumental top, musicas longas.
I’m trying to give every album a chance here, but man, I just hated this. There’s a certain kind of white guy blues that I just can’t handle and this is the epitome of that. Standout track(s): None
Demasiados solos
Free form guitar was painful. The rest of it was pretty boring. Even I'm a man went on too long. Not for me. 2/10
Stopped the last track to come and write this and for some respite from the awful noodling. Dreading going back.
Jazz rock blows
This is too much. Not for me sadly.
Not for me
This is… obnoxious. I tried, I really did and squinted at it like maybe I was missing some deeper meaning. But nope: The only word that fits is pretentious. Yes, it’s well produced. And yes, it’s probably technically “well executed.” But none of that helps when the whole thing sounds like someone tried to make soul music, albeit with less soul. And then there’s the phallic Free Form Guitar - a track so aggressively annoying, it physically hurts to listen to. if you’re releasing a debut album that clocks in at around 80 minutes, you should definitely have a lot to say. These guys didn’t. Unless “we’re horny, we own pedals and we brought a brass section” counts as a message. You kind of have to admire their confidence though.
I very much did not enjoy this.
1 stern
I hate Chicago and this is a bloated pretentious album.
It was fine, but I kind of got tired of it.
Major headache. Never again!
OMG this goes on longer than the paleolithic era. The music is pretty prehistoric too: a late sixties jam band except there are horns and everything goes on four times as long as it needs to. When I learned that Peter Cetera was in the band, responsible for some very deep eighties musical crimes, its fate as a one was sealed.
1/5 just couldn't get into it
Sigh. This is what happens when young white men have too many music lessons and start to think of themselves as real 'musos'. they all like to think they can play jazz, which is really just an excuse to show off the chops they have acquired., but it does tend towards self-indulgence. A tendency towards lengthy improvisation and a liberal sprinkling of fancy jazz chords does not a jazz band make. And, ironically, the hard-earned technical skills tend to wash the urgency out of their attempts at rock and roll (the roll is typically in very short supply). Chicago are an early and, unfortunately, commercially successful example of this tendency to 'professional musicianship' that makes so much 'rock' music of the 1970s so un-fucking-listenable. I mean, really, this album (mostly) sounds like the house band for an early 1970s TV variety show. This is not _that_ different from a James Last record when they 'rock' out (proof point; just take a listen to their cover of Hawkwind's Silver Machine: https://youtu.be/gF2ODWluPlY?si=6eiMKA6tA0MbhJGC). I can hear that Terry Kath was clearly influenced by Jimi Hendrix (Free Form Guitar, anyone?), but his highly competent playing doesn't have the excitement of Jimi. And personally, I find Walt Parazaider's oft repeated anecdote that Jimi once told him that "your guitar player is better than me" frankly offensive. I cannot believe that ever happened. God only knows what possessed them to release a double album. But if you trimmed all of the fat off this record (i.e. at least half of it), there might be a passable rock album hidden in there. But it is just a fair copy of actual exciting bands that were playing at the time. Hendrix and Traffic are the obvious influences, but I'll leave identifying others influences as an exercise for the reader. It came as no surprise that this was produced by James Guerico, who was also responsible for Blood, Sweat and Tears' second album. I constantly confuse those two bands, as they are cut from the same cloth. It is boring dross. And this album doesn't even have '25 or 6 to 4' on it, so beloved of school brass bands. I would much rather listen to a ropey school band roughly blast their way through '25 or 6 to 4' than endure the glossed up, over-polished, under-sexed, watered-down, professionalized wallpaper music of Chicago Transit Authority. And the worst of it is that it sold! It was not just "sterile and stupid" (to quote Robert Christgau), but they convinced major record labels that this is what we wanted to listen. It fostered decades of further pap, not only the 30-odd records Chicago subsequently released (including a 4-LP live boxset, god help me), but countless other bands of professional musicians who thought that could release commercially appealing supposed 'rock' albums that also showed off their chops. Toto and Journey and Asia and Kansas and the Alan Parsons Project and Steely Dan and the whole yacht rock genre and so, so many other terrible bands. Chicago Transit Authority is a malign cancer that metastasized across the music industry. It is neither rock nor jazz. It is lukewarm, and I spit it out of my mouth. 1.5 stars, rounding down for the terrible influence. I think I have some hand-me-down Chicago albums in my collection. I think I need to pull them off the shelf and file in the bin.
Oh, I really don't like this kind of noodly-doodly jazz-rock. This is truly horrible. I never want to hear this album again.
Lasted 4 minutes into introduction.
Err, no
Yuck what's this muck can't stand it Yuck
Awful
This is the first album I didn’t even get all the way through. Too jazzy for me.
I detested this. Self-indulgent, most songs are cheesy and boring to start with, then go about 2-3 minutes longer than they should.
Oof did not like this one at all. It was so tough to listen to the entire thing, each song seems to never end Rating: 1.3
could i write poetry to this? n
Started strong, became unironically unlistenable as it moved along.
meh.
I don't think that this album is quite long and annoying enough. 1 star for a half assed job at a completely dogshit album, and instead only having a pretty shit album.
Only because zero stars or minus stars weren’t an option
p181. 1969. 1 star. Frankenstein-esque blend of jazz and rock for stoned hippies - farting horns, squealing guitars and cowbells. No-one needs multiple 5 minute+ tracks of repetitive guitar noodling, regardless of how well it is done. And "Free Form Guitar" is wankage of the first order. Thank God for punk.
Oj. Píslargangan mín að klára þetta ógeðslega albúm.
One of the worst things I've heard.
By white people for white people. At time it sounds like funk music, but often times sounds like white old fart music. Play it in your headphones while you're gerrymandering.
Not for me at all. I made it through the entire album while I worked but there were definitely moments where I wanted to tap out.
Jazz
Ghastly. The vapid and empty sound of UmS Imperialism
I didn't really care for it. It seemed more like random noises thrown together. That may have been the intent, but not for me.
chicago really spends MULTIPLE tracks on this record explicitly yelling at the listener like “AY YO LISTEN UP. THIS IS THE REALEST SHIT YOU WILL EVER FUCKING HEAR. IF U DONT GET IT YOU SHOULD DIE.” and then immediately after they’re like just kidding teehee 7 minutes of Guitar Noise™️ :3
I truly thought I would love this- remembering Saturday In The Park. There were moments when the harmonies reminded me of The Bee Gees. But overall, tedious & too much ‘noodling’ for my taste.
The actual songs here are fairly good. Too bad this album has so much guitar wankery. It literally ruins a good album. If it weren't for all the extra jerking off, this would be a 4.
this is way too jazzy
Did not like, worse than expected
Appalling. Nearly switched off during the ‘Free Form Guitar’ thing as it is like nails on a blackboard. And that last track is 14 AND A HALF MINUTES LONG!!! Jesus. The only reason I forced myself to listen all the way through is because that is the spirit of the project. The worst of technical musicianship. My ex probably likes it
Fuck me what an awful album to sit through, and i skipped through parts of most songs. It's genuinely left me with a stress induced headache, those horns were absolutely relentless. Even the keys were grating and I've never felt grated by keys before. The corny uppity vocals fucked me off like nothing else too. It is so hard to imagine any situation where it would be appropriate for a person to put that on and listen to it for pleasure. I know I should listen to each album in its entirety but I am not physically capable of listening to all of this. To describe it as grating doesn't even begin to cover it, this album has rattled me. Fuck this album. 0.5
Boring
Crap.
Dunno
Sucking the semen out of a frog passes the time better than listening to this steaming heap of cow shit.
This album starts well but quickly goes downhill. It's not bad per se but just feels disconnected. Some songs feel like noises put together to try to make them sound coherent.
Boring naff soft rock. Very bland addition to this list. Sounds like the band grew up listening to show tunes
De "Chicago" solo conozco una canción (ya sabes cual). Esto está fuera de mi interés y no se me ocurre a quién le puede gustar de manera general. Me gusta el jazz, rock progresivo, música de los 60 y 70, pero esto no. Se va a quedar en 1 estrella y gracias.
With the exception of the lead single (‘Do you really know what time it is?’), this album is a whole bunch of nonsensical pretentious noodling by CTA. 1/5
Mixed bag, lost stars for twidley guitar tracks
Awful
vilket mög
Horrible jazz-pop-rock fusion.
1-2 okay songs maybe i just dont understand
Nope!
Chicago fucking blows
I could not get through this album- it’s so muso flexing with no subtlety and sounds like it’s music for American tv shows- the brass sections are so overwhelming it makes you almost want to commit suicide - I hate everything about this- yes Chicago became one of the biggest bands ever - this sounds dated and boring and at times like nails on a blackboard
Musik für amerikanische Fernsehserien, an die sich niemand erinnert. Da hilft auch kein eingestreutes artsy Gniedelfeuerwerk. 1.3
1/5 not at all.
A cross between widdly 70s rock and brass band music, just what the world needs.
and i thought wyoming was white
This was not a good start to my day. Mindless meanderings, devoid of melody or direction. Some of it was reasonably innoffensive, and after a couple of tracks I was thinking, maybe 3 stars - but who thought 'Freeform guitar' or 'Poem 58' were worthy of inclusion on an album for sale to the public? It just made me cross. Complete rubbish.
Il y a de beaux instruments mais qu'est-ce que je me fais chier. Je peux pas mettre autre chose que 2. C'est terne je ressens rien, c'est juste pas ma musique. Intéressant quand même : le début du drone metal dans "Free from guitar" ? Sans déconner la dernière "Liberation" réunit tout ce que je déteste dans le jazz : des notes sans fin, ça n'en termine jamais
Not my cup of tea
(boring a bit)
Meh
an hour and a bit i'll never get back. self indulgent muso wank.
Dog shite
Extremely self indulgent. Comes across to me as being calculated to the point of boredom. It is also excessively long (are debut double albums ever a good idea?). The longer it went on the more I just wanted it to be over, which isn't a good sign. A special mention also for "free from guitar" which made me grit my teeth and grimace 'finger nails on chalkboard' style. It would be a 2, but that knocks it down to a 1.
Nope.
1 - Gerade ist hier Tiefphase
ja, ne, echt nicht. Danke. Heute kein Foto für dich. Dafür verschwende ich nicht meine Zeit. Richtig sauer gerade.
awesome playing. but jazz rock.... not my thing
70's game show music, and not the funky kind.
God. This went on and on.
Hated it.