Chicago Transit Authority

2/10 The epitome of noodling. Disgusting, pointless, pretentious crap. The opposite of Jimi and Jimmy and the Beatles, despite trying to include itself in the same brackets. Horrible relentless horns that give you no space to breathe. A criminally overlong two star album that loses a whole freakin star due to Free Form Guitar and Liberation.

Albums like this should come with a warning sticker, like those "Parental Advisory" ones... Something like: "Warning! Album contains excessive noodling, free form guitar jams and jazz wankery! Not suitable for people who like three minute pop songs! May annoy you, your wife, pets and children!"

Its an ok album. Didnt find anything greatly, and its just the base of rock but i respect!

Enjoyable, a pleasant listen

#287/1001 🇺🇸 Let jazz be jazz and rock be rock. I can't get on with this record, there is a horrible smugness to it. Musically proficient, but don't they just know it. Best Track: I'm a Man.

Never been a Chicago fan and that fact remains even after sitting through a whole album

I unabashedly like Chicago, but most of my experience with them revolves around the Peter Cetera era of the band. I hate soft rock as a general rule, but Pete Cetera era Chicago soft rock does something for me. But this is kinda awesome. If you played this next to Peter Cetera era Chicago, I would not believe they were the same band. Turns out this Chicago did have some balls after all (forgive me, Pete). This is not the Chicago I thought I liked, but a much different prog rockier Chicago that I still really like. 8/10

Strong start with funky jazzy rock fusion. I didn't hate the trumpets. Didn't really like the Freeform Guitar, Hendrix did it better. But respect the experimentation. How they evolved into a cheesy 80s ballads band is a mystery.

This had its moments, and I genuinely think it's good music, that doesn't hold my interest. Anyone rating this a 5, I get it. Just not hitting that way for me.

didn't like it at all

Not really my cup of tea. But the jazz is nice.

I have a degree of respect for this, but it has little soul and I wasnt into it

Is this the same band that did ‘If you leave me now’? I’ve avoided them for decades because of that song. Funky, if a bit too long, with too many guitar solos. Would have got 4 stars if it wasn’t for that awful screaming guitar track

Main takeaway: the longer I stare at the word 'Chicago', the stranger it looks. Anyway, not much emotional connection to the album, but it's upbeat. Lots of horns. Indulgent at times, very backgroundy at others, occasionally insufferable (Free-form Guitar) and sometimes (Questions 67 and 68) kind of great, in a slightly cheesy way. Too long, but interesting along the way, and worth at least one listen.

no peter cetera??

A funky rock classic. Love Chicago.

10/14/26. Very soulful, loud, and uplifting in a lot of spots with this album! Chicago is a very solid band and always enjoy their music when it comes across.

Dope

1 song is enough.

When the first couple songs featured the trombone so heavily, I thought this was going to be a 5/5 album. However, when the trombone usage waned, so too did my interest wane. Not a bad album by any means, and plenty of good stuff here; just not enough trombone for a guy like me.

Groovy funky and "horn"y. I guess this is a pretty classic (1969!) album I've certainly never listened to from front to back. Lots to enjoy. Also (like so much funky improvisational jammy music) it can get pretty boring and tedious. Overall, fine and cool I guess?!

Would be 5 stars but for the Free Form Guitar track.

I don't want to live in a world where "Free Form Guitar" is left off this. I really mean that.

Quite jazzy and technically extraordinary

it was ok

Phenominal album. A big jazzy rock pop jam band, done beautifully. Terry Kath is a monster on guitar, "Free Form Guitar" is one of the most insane pieces of music I've ever heard, and it was made it 1968 without using pedals! I grew up hearing Chicago on the radio a lot, and playing their songs on Rock Band. Love love love this record

3.5

The agency that oversees the public transportation system in Chicago, Illinois.

★★½

In my ignorance I was expecting 80s rock, which in retrospect was because I was confusing them with Boston - an understandable mistake in my opinion - but what I got was an epic, genre-blending wall of sound from start to finish. Starting with a big band jazz sound, then gradually morphing into guitar-led, jazzy, bluesy rock. Sure, the solos go on longer than strictly necessarily but I enjoyed every minute of this. It's the sound of a band making music they enjoy, and to hell with choosing a genre.

Sound: Experimental, brass-driven Lyrics: Romantic pop Highs: "Introduction," "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?," "I'm a Man" Lows: "Free Form Guitar"; also, it could have been a single LP

The debut double album that announced seven musicians blending rock, jazz, and classical influences with a horn section as the primary voice — rawer and more politically engaged than the polished pop the band would eventually become, the protest era energy audible throughout in ways the later catalog quietly retired. This is Chicago before Chicago became a soft rock institution, and the difference is significant. The horn section is the central achievement — Peter Cetera's bass and Terry Kath's guitar anchoring a brass lineup that gives the whole thing a texture rock bands weren't attempting in 1969. Kath's playing throughout is the surprise, the extended improvisation showing a guitarist operating at a level that the band's later commercial success obscured completely. "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" and "Beginnings" make the case for what the band could do when the jazz influence and the songwriting found each other most convincingly. The honest limitation is the free guitar — seven minutes of improvisation that earns its place for a specific kind of listener and tests the patience of everyone else. The double album format that allows the best moments their full ambition also allows the self-indulgent ones to run unchecked, which is the occupational hazard of 1969 rock ambition and the reason this lands at four rather than five.

As with most bands in the late 60s that survived through the 70s there are a lot of changes sonically. This feels like the most interesting version of Chicago. Beginnings is an amazing song. There is a lot to choose from though

This one is really growing on me. I think the first time I listened to this I didn’t quite know what to make of it. This time I really enjoyed it. Only on the second half did it start to slip for me. The first half was solidly a 5. And I enjoyed a great deal of the long play. But the cohesion just isn’t there on the back end. It feels a lot more like stuff thrown together than a developed concept. 4 Boolean: True

Someone needed to tell their guitarist to chill out!

It’s fine but it goes on forever and becomes annoying

Dad rock!

Chicago Transit Authority was quite a nice surprise of an album. Chicago describes themselves as a rock and roll band with horns and that definitely is not wrong. This album is definitely jazz rock in the truest sense of the term and it is some really good jazz rock. The vibes were all completely there, the guitars, bass and trumpets were all great and it's one of those albums where the length of the songs didn't bother me that much but that could be because jazz is a genre that lends itself to longer songs much better than a lot of other genres. I will say that i could have done without Free Form Guitar considering that was just 6 minutes of Terry Kath messing around with his guitar but overall, this was a great album. Best Song: Beginnings Worst Song: Free Form Guitar

not for me but I liked the long crunchy guitar solo actually, lol

I love this album. Early Chicago is amazing. Terry Kath is your favorite guitarist’s favorite guitarist. I have grown to appreciate Free Form Guitar more and more over the years as I have picked up guitar myself. How does he do that? And the songwriting is just incredible. All the band members are fantastic. This was their DEBUT?!?! Poem 58 has always been my favorite. I absolutely love the repetitive riff in the second half, one of my favorite riffs! I’m going to go ahead and rank all the tracks: 1. Poem 58 2. South Carolina Purples 3. Beginnings 4. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? 5. Questions 67 And 68 6. Introduction 7. Listen 8. I’m A Man 9. Liberation 10. Free Form Guitar 11. Someday 12. Prologue The last side isn’t my favorite, but the first 3 sides are more than perfect, so it’s an easy 5 star regardless. Oh and well timed album for the fall season. It’s always been a fall album in my mind for whatever reason. Maybe because that’s when I first listened to it all those years ago

Thought I would like this but it feels try-hard.

Chicago Transit Authority hieß die Band aus Chicago, Illinois, nur auf diesem einen Album, danach genügte der Kurzname. Eingespielt wurde das Debüt Ende Januar 1969 in den Columbia Recording Studios in New York, produziert von James William Guercio, im April erschien es bei Columbia als Doppelalbum. Für eine unbekannte Band war das ein ziemliches Risiko. Musikalisch ist es Jazz-Rock mit Bläsersatz, in dem Funk, Soul und Blues ständig mitspielen. Am besten ist die Platte, wenn sie nicht zu viel will. „Questions 67 and 68“ und „Beginnings“, beide von Robert Lamm, summe ich nach Jahrzehnten immer noch mit, „Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?“ hat dieselbe Leichtigkeit. Die eigentliche Überraschung ist Terry Kaths Gitarre, rau und ohne Rücksicht auf Radiotauglichkeit. „I'm a Man“, im Original von der Spencer Davis Group, wird hier zum ausgedehnten Jam. Nicht jede Länge muss sein, an ein, zwei Stellen in der zweiten Hälfte hätte ich gekürzt. Bei diesem Tempo fällt das kaum ins Gewicht. Dass die Band später glatter wurde, macht dieses rauere Album für mich eher wertvoller. Wer Chicago nur von den Balladen der Siebziger kennt, sollte hier anfangen.

leuke interessante nummers maar free form guitar die pakt me wel

Cheesey and not in a good way

very good, I like the almost Rock Jazz fusion to some of these songs, I like this kind of classical rock style.

could not get through it also did not find it cohesive

This is a 5 without Free Form Guitar

Goed begin - tegen het einde een beetje nerveus soms

Why do we need "Free Form Guitar"? Who is this for??? I feel like this album starts off so strong and has its moments but then just gets bogged down with noise and totally off-the-wall stuff that makes it so hard to get through. Man I really wanted to like this album more.

It was generally ok until the free form guitar songs which mostly sounded like engines revving and I was convinced I had been transported outside a biker bar. I don't need all of that experimentation and playing to be highlighted in a major album release.

While I like Chicago….i would never have any of their albums on this list. Not even the great (and deliciously cheesy) Peter Cetera era.

if someone tells me chicago is their favorite band, i'm gonna tell them that free form guitar is my favorite chicago song. not that chicago would be anyone's favorite band, but if they somehow were, then that's how i would respond.

I guess I never listened to Chicago before. Just thought they were another classic 70s/80s rock band that wasn't my taste. Still not my jam, but way more jazzy jams than I was expecting.

Love the big brass sound, but could probably use about 20% less extended jams with a bit more actual song.

I like Intro and Beginnings, will need to listen more. 2.7 Learned this is Chicago's debut album

This is just dull, I had alreay list all will to live by the end of the second song. The outros are tedious and my god ‘Poem 58’ not happy being a dull instrumental introduces boring vocals after 5 minutes of noodling. Not to worry ‘Free Form Guitar’ takes it to the next annoyingly step by doing what it says on the tin. And my god if the rest wasnt enough a 14 minute last song. Oh the humanity.

Anything remotely prog-rocky and / or jazzy is not my cup of tea at all, so I fully expected that I’d hate this. I was wrong. I found parts of it utterly irresistible: the horns, the entirety of “Introduction”, the backing vocal - especially on “Poem 58” - and the fact some of it sounded almost Doobie Brothers-esque. Others were just a bit too on the nose to be anything but complete wanky nonsense (see: “Free Form Guitar”). As with a lot of albums of this genre, it’s far too long, and I didn’t enjoy the second half at all as much as the first. It’s probably a (surprise) 3.5* for me, but with enough issues to make me go down rather than up.

Part of the first track really, really reminded me of the incidental music from Animal Crossing. And then it went all noodly proggy. Which was odd. At the opposite ends of the spectrum, I do like Does Anybody Know What Time It Is and I'm A Man (at least the bits that weren't extended jamming), but Free Form Guitar was absolutely pointless and completely awful to listen to. It was a bit like Bill and Ted's guitar playing had been randomly plonked in the middle of a very long album. I like enough of the funky keyboards and bass that this escapes the indignity of a 1⭐... but only just. Needed someone to sit then down and say "Now where can we trim the fat?". 2/5

"Chicago Transit Authority" is a mixed bag: some songs continue to connect with listeners, while others should never have left the recording studio. If the album was half as long, it might rank among the all-time greats; as it is, comprising a few popular singles and some (unnecessarily) long instrumental tracks, it has definitely dropped to second-tier status, maybe lower.

CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY - Chicago (1969) - 7/1001 Are we deadass? This made the list, but Chocolate didn't? I love Chicago, but c'mon, man - this shouldn't be their entry on the list. It's gotta be 2 or Chocolate. CTA isn't a /bad/ album, but when compared to their later work? This is just vanilla ice cream.

A really great debut effort by Chicago, back when this was a self-titled album. There is a good level of consistency throughout the album, ties of the original rock and roll sound mixed in with jazz and progressive elements. All-together it makes for a great listen, though some songs don't appeal as much as others. The highs are pretty high, but the lows are also pretty low. Favorite Song: Questions 67 and 68 Score: 79/100

Great album. Fun listen

Good album som all favs . Glad this came up

What the hell was that guitar song?

Sounds like what a talk show band plays between commercial breaks

Takes too long to get going and I just didnt' really feel it.

This went on for too long and I couldn’t tell you what song was the best, but I did enjoy it. Solid pre funk rock, great horns, talented instrumentalists, and mostly filler free. I didn’t need the feedback solo or the live tracks at the end, and cutting that might’ve brought it close to a more digestible album. I think their later, more radio friendly stuff, is easier to get in to than this.

Good album - love the horns

A comically long album but when you play this good, how could you stop?? This was a fun listen and though it took a while, it didn’t take away from the experience.

Kinda great: they were a political band!?! With long electric guitar noise pieces!

Well I’ve finally snapped. Full disclosure my day has been a bit long and it’s not even noon. But between the excessive length and unnecessary guitar work I just cannot stand this album.

⭐⭐⭐⭐- Skickliga musiker men väldigt polerat. Kom in i det här albumet med att jag inte skulle tycka om det men några lyssningar senare så kan jag konstatera att jag nog gillar det. Hade önskat lite mer grit men kan bara konstatera att jag nog tycker det är helt ok nästan lite guilty pleasure. Velar mellan en stark 3a eller svag 4a men det blir en svag 4a för att jag succesivt gillar det mer och mer och att det är fett med blås. Bäst är Introduction, Question 67 and 68, Listen, South California purples, I'm a man

Decent stuff, a band I want and already wanted in the past to revisit for sure, but this lacks me the highlights so far, so if nothing super cool happens - it's another 3. Really weird - in theory I should love Chicago but they're just about alright to me

jazzy, funky, bluesy - nice; let down by track 7 "Free Form Guitar" which surely should only be part of a live show !

If soft rock was a genre they would be the leaders. This album has its musical moments but overall I’m not sure I really like much here. It’s either cheesy or unnecessary. That’s all.

I didn’t care for this album. It was far too jam band-y for me. Having said that I did enjoy Poem 58 and Free Form Guitar.

Take Parliament, remove most of the funk. Replace that funk with equal parts jazz and rock, and you get CTA. If you've heard Chicago before, you know kinda what you're getting, but this is before they got tight with the radio friendly soft rock sound. Spotify streams the remaster, which you can safely stop at "I'm A Man". Although, in order to get the full jazz feeling of the album, listen to "Liberation". "Free Form Guitar" was a choice. I enjoyed Einsturzende Neubaten more, at least it went somewhere. The whole thing felt a little too jazzy for me and way too noodly. My Rating: 2/5

I don’t know never dig these fellers

This shit sounds like my daughter's show choir competition.

This was not the sound I expected from Chicago, but it was surprisingly good. However, pretty much every song could do with being 2-3 minutes (or 4, in some cases) shorter as not only do the songs overstay their welcome, but the whole album starts to drag before too long.

CHICAGO MENTION... walked back and forth under the L tracks several times today with this album playing through my headphones. Felt very cool and meta about it. Had fun with the music itself as well, with a one-track glaring exception in the middle (you get one guess which it was) that means I can't possibly give it all five stars, even with the bonus points for the title

Brilliant. These kind of albums is just why I do 1001 albums!

Wow. The Windy City. My goodness.

Okay and chill

Not for me. I didn’t like this.

this one has a lot of power, some of the jams are excessive, but overall very cool

Their best album, IMO.

My poor brain can't quite decide what to make of this record. On the one hand, the progger in me enjoyed the more 'out there' elements (Poem 58), and the brass was fun to listen to, but it does at times feel like a soundtrack to a forgotten West End musical. I kept expecting them to burst into Jesus Christ, Superstar, and that's not a good thing. Something about the vocals just didn't sit well with me. And as others have said, Free Form Guitar simply doesn't belong on the record. In fact, it doesn't belong on any record. What were they thinking? It's an odd album, and ultimately, I like odd albums, so I'm glad I listened.

Horrible feeling I had Chicago mixed up with Boston before I started listening. Those expectations played havoc with my brain. No soft rock but some odd big band progish melange which I didn't enjoy at all. Perhaps I should revisit but it wasn't very interesting and life is short.

Introduction was surprisingly very good, love that - usually you get filler with that name. Does Anybody Really Know is iconic and the one I'd heard the most. Beginnings was jazzy and uplifting. Questions 67 and 68 jammy and fun. Poem 58 insane jam. I'm a Man crazy jam as well, nice collection of vibes across the album. Very good listen, amazing talent on guitar, drums, bass and vocals throughout

I don't even need to listen to this one again to write a detailed review on every track, but I'll never balk at the chance to listen to it again anyway. I grew up on this album and it heavily shaped a lot of my music taste I think. I remember absolutely blasting Poem 58 in my mom's car thinking it was the greatest music anyone had ever created. Introduction has been a longtime favorite of mine to drum along to. The drum solo in I'm A Man is pristine. Free Form Guitar was an always-skip for me for a while but I've developed an appreciation for it after getting into noise music, and I feel like that song might've played a part in that. Liberation is an all-time great ending track. Nearly 15 minutes with basically no vocals and just energetic instrumental music. That weird interlude where it's just noise but then we come back with more energy than ever and end on some of the sickest drum fills that still influence my soloing today. I'll stop now I think, but I would give this album 6 stars if I could.

Good album, lots of talented instrumentals. Too many songs were way too long to be 5 stars. Good listen, good rating, but will not be listening again most likely

Double-album debut, huh? That's fairly presumptuous. Let's see if they can deliver the goods. Nope. Everything about this album is overly long. There are some undeniably great moments on the singles, but even those tracks are in desperate need of some thoughtful radio editing. Beyond that, the blaring brass, the never-ending noodling, the free form guitar (or whatever the fuck that was) - this love child of two of my least favorite genres (jazz and progressive) really had no chance with me. *As an aside, and in light of how many acts have multiple, multiple entries on this list, I truly cannot overstate how absolutely asinine it is that THIS was the one and only one album chosen for Chicago. C'mon, Robert. A truffle-hunting hog could do better.

I know nothing about this band. Never gave them the time of day. i was thinking I would find this interesting enough to actually link some songs to them. Silly me. This was awful.

Oops all sounds by the end but I liked the beginning!

I'm a sucker for jazz, so the album started strong. It then quickly devolved into mostly instrumental blues-rock with stellar guitar play. The occasional singing was quite good too. And then... Oh boy. Imagine asking a half-broken Harley Davidson to play a "guitar" solo. My ears are fucking bleeding, please, for the love of all that is holy, bring your motorcycle to the garage and give me my music back, I implore you. I have made farts that were more harmonious than this crap. Thank God they start making actual music again after that. And they end on this phenomenal 14-minutes track, "Liberation". Pure unadulterated talent. It's hard to understand why they included the experimental "Free Form Guitar", it sounds so out of place, I don't get it. Well, it doesn't sour the whole album at least, but it tries very hard to do so.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together

funky, groovy, completely unnecessary solo guitar jam in the middle of the album.

Chicago is...good?

Pretty cool instrumentals and musicianship.