47. Chicago 17 by Chicago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eTnCIy6Rtc&list=OLAK5uy_meQE5iP9DTYhSVEC6S_uhOqesgrLH7v1I
This album came out in May of 1984, so it is connected mainly to a few post-high school memories during the summer and my freshman year at Ricks. One of my fondest memories related to this album is driving with HondoJoe and his brother John in Arimo and listening to John sing made-up-on-the-spot lyrics to "You're the Inspiration." Since that night, I now sing "You're the Perspiration" anytime I hear that song.
I'm sure that I danced to "You're the Perspiration" at the one date I went on at Ricks, but I'm also sure I was too busy regretting that I'd gone on the date to really enjoy either the song or the dance. "Stay the Night" was definitely not a dance song they would have played at Ricks, and neither was "Hard Habit to Break." "Along Comes a Woman" wasn't all that danceable, so "You're the Perspiration" is probably the second Chicago slow song that I ever danced to--the first being a slow dance with Mary Barlow to "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" from Chicago 16, which is #162 on my Top 200 list, which is also the top ranked Chicago song on that list. The only other Chicago song on that list was "25 or 6 to 4," and that's because it was a favorite pep band song. None of the songs from this album were included on my Top 200 list, but this album altogether is one of my Top 60 albums because of how much I listened to it in 1987 and 1988.
You see, after spending 25 months on a mission to Sweden, I came home to America on a flight from Copenhagen to Chicago. I was supposed to have been on a flight from Copenhagen to Salt Lake City, but because my group missed our original flight out of Copenhagen, we ended up getting rerouted and put in first class seats on another flight to the states--with the only people on the flight sitting in front of me being the pilot and co-pilot. One of the things I enjoyed the most about that first class flight was that I was finally able to listen on the headphones to whatever rock music I wanted and be 100% guilt free. And as we descended out of the clouds into the Chicago airport, I thought it would be a good idea to listen to the Chicago channel. That's right, they had an entire music channel on that flight devoted to Chicago music. I loved that feeling of being back home in America so much, that I decided that I was going to buy some Chicago albums and listen to them during the summer. But I never did buy any Chicago albums. Instead, I raided my sister's music collection and made a bunch of pirated music tapes of Chicago albums. And it turned out that during that summer and during my sophomore year at Ricks that I gravitated to listening to Chicago 17 more and more. And when I met Julie at the end of my last semester at Ricks, it was one of the tapes that got played a LOT in the black step-side Chevy pickup on our dates from April 1988, when we started dating, until we got married in August 1988. So this album now is forever associated in my mind as a "make-out" album from 1988. (Yes, there are a few other make-out albums on this top 60 list. What can I say. I liked to kiss my future wife.) So that is why even though this album came out in 1984, it wasn't until four years later that I REALLY began to like it.
Besides the four aforementioned singles, this album has some other solid tunes with "We Can Stop the Hurtin'," "Only You," "Please Hold On," and "Once In a Lifetime." I don't dislike "Remember the Feeling," "Prima Donna," or "Here Is Where We Begin," but they've got such stiff competition from the other 8 songs on this album that they don't really stand out that much.
Fun fact: This was the last Chicago album with Peter Cetera. And based on a documentary I saw about the band, I think that fact is particularly fun for both Peter and the other members of Chicago.
Other fun fact: Chicago 17 was the band's best selling album. They had several other hits after Cetera left the group, which shows that it wasn't the one-man band Peter probably thought it was. Their most recent studio album, Chicago XXXVI: Now, was released in 2014, which continues to sound like Chicago. They just keep on doing what they do.
Wait. I lied. But only kind of. Chicago also put out a Christmas album in 2019. But do Christmas albums really count? I suppose they do for the purposes of counting Chicago album numbers-- which this one clocks in at number 37. Will they make it to 40? If it were any other group, I'd say probably not. But with the way the band works--always bringing in new members to replace old ones that left, retired, or died--there's a chance that Chicago will be around long enough to hit album number 40. They've got 11 current members and 14 previous members, but only 3 of the founding members are still around, and only two still play with the band at concerts. So it's definitely different from the band we grew up with in the 70s and 80s, but they still somehow manage to make songs that have that distinctive Chicago sound. But I highly doubt they'll ever see the success of Chicago 17 ever again. Also, I highly doubt I'll get Julie to make out with me to a Chicago album ever again. Clearly, both Chicago and me peaked in the '80s.
If you were to ask: "What is the quintessential 80's album?" I doubt many people would answer, "Chicago 17," but maybe they should. Wow, this album takes the flavor of the 80's, distills it, and burrows it right into your veins.
ReplyDeleteWhen I listened to the album, I found that the first five to fifteen seconds of (almost) every song fit nicely into one of three categories: 1) Songs I knew from the radio ["Stay the Night," "Hard Habit to Break," "Along Comes a Woman," "You're the Inspiration,"] 2) Songs that sound like a variation on the theme from "Airwolf" ["We Can Stop the Hurtin'," "Only You," "Please Hold On,"] and 3) Songs that sound like they could be done by the LDS answer to Air Supply, Afterglow: ["Remember the Feeling," Once In a Lifetime," "Here Is Where We Begin,"]
The only song that doesn't fit into these three categories is "Prima Donna," which sounds like an outtake from a Bryan Adams album.
Even the video for "You're the Inspiration" reeks of 80-ness, with its wannabe-Madonna/wannabe Billy Idol couple. (And is it just me, or does Peter Cetera have a punchable face?)
Still, even though I hadn't thought of this album or any of the songs on it for many, many years, it's a pretty solid album. What can I say? I love the 80's!