Chicago XIV

Artist: Chicago
Label: Chicago Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording reissued
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 703404301420
EAN: 0703404301420
ASIN: B0000021RX

Release Date: 1995-02-28

Chicago XIV

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Album-Oriented Rock (AOR)

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Tracks:

Manipulation
Upon Arrival
Song For You
Where Did The Lovin' Go
Birthday Boy
Hold On
Overnight Cafe
Thunder And Lightning
I'd Rather Be Rich
The American Dream

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Customer Reviews:

Chicago XIV.......2003-05-14

This is the final album before the 1982 comeback, and it contains some great work. After you get around the dross "Manipulation", and "Upon Arrival", you get to hear the most impresssive song on the album, Peter Cetera's "Song For You." This song, along with "Birthday Boy" and "The American Dream" should have been deemed genuine Chicago classics. It's sad that this selection of work came out at the wrong time and got little or no attention from even hardcore Chicago fans.

Vastly Underrated.......2003-05-10

This album has always been the bald-headed step-child among the die-hard Chicago fans who know about it, and that's a shame.
The thing that makes it a standout album is the band's willingness at this point in their careers to experiment and grow. The whole album is a lot edgier than anything they had done since the initial Columbia trilogy.

The lyrics are downright bitter, which, mapped with Chicago's innovative jazz-rock sound, is a refreshing change from the increasingly light pop they had been doing since Chicago X.
The standout track is the first, Robert Lamm's "Manipulation." An amazing, quasi-atonal guitar solo by Chris Pinnick, really trippy meter changes, a really gritty lead vocal by the increasingly marginalized co-lead-vocalist Robert Lamm, funky horns and groovy congas from Laudir de Oliviera. Even Peter Cetera gets to focus on an aspect he is least remembered for: extremely fluid bass playing.

Other standout tracks include the reggae-influenced "Overnight Cafe"; hard-rocking "Hold On"; jazz-rock "Thunder and Lightning"; caustic satire of "I'd Rather Be Rich"; and the nicely under-produced ballad "Song For You."

If the other tracks suffer, it is from an over-reliance on some very ineffective synthesizer sounds. But then, in 1980, they were only two years away from the advent of MIDI and the over-reliance on that which, in the hands of David Foster, would change their sound forever. Chicago XIV is the last stop on the ol' Southshore representing the "vintage classic rock Chicago" sound.

CHICAGO XIV.......2001-02-24

The best you can say is that at least Chicago had touched bottom. this music is terrible! i've seen this in every bargain bin i've browsed through. only buy this to complete your chicago collection and if you see it for less than a dollar. it's that bad!

Bargin Bin Sleeper.......2000-12-31

Chicago's final studio album on the Columbia label is a hodgepodge ranging from good to terrible, and the cover may be it's most innovative feature. With another veteran producer in Tom Dowd taking over the boards from Phil Ramone, the cardboard sound is indicative of the late '70's & early 80's.

After kicking of with Robert Lamm's aggressive, off-tempo MANIPULATION, XIV falls into predominatly Peter Cetera-dominated power ballads for the next 4 tunes. Rescuing the album from total abyss are Cetera's own HOLD ON (a bit hokey today), the same's OVERNIGHT CAFE (still good), and 3 excellent tracks in Lamm's sadly prophetic I'D RATHER BE RICH, the poorly charted single THUNDER AND LIGHTING & Jimmy Pankow's THE AMERICAN DREAM. The epitaph to XIV is unfortunatley one of too little too late, as the music industry was sprialing downward towards technology-driven synth pop, shunning bands with a track record of success & quality musicianship.

Chicago XIV is worth sacrificing the 4.99 you were going to spend on Band Aids in CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid, but not much more.

Chicago, Not Cetera.......2000-07-10

Chicago XIV is the band's effort to recover from the abyssmal disco album. They went back to the basics with Cetera dominating the writing. The songs on this album do have some basic qualities, but the band needed a more aggressive producer to develop the material then Tom Dowd.

Manipulation rips out a mean keyboard theme, some rhymes and a musical bridge. There's not any chorus or resolution. Lamm had a great start to a song here, but no one cleaned it up.

Cetera's sappy Upon Arrival, Song for You, and Where Did the Loving Go? follow. Clearly anticlimactic to the upbeat starter and plainly too much for an album where the band's trying to get back to their roots. Interestly enough, it's about the time Chicago XIV was released that Cetera did his debut solo LP. He obviously put more effort into the work giving top billing.

Seraphine's "Birthday Boy" is a cute song, Just as his "Little One" was on XI. It makes an appropriate closer to the first half of the CD after putting up with Cetera's mess.

The second half of the CD is a marvel to listen to. Cetera rips into Hold On, and Overnight Cafe has a mellow meaness which Cetera performs only as he can. "Thunder and Lighting" (The release from this effort)is cutsie to start with. I'm sorry 3-4 minutes are needed before I get to listen to Pankow's trombone solo. The final compositions, "I'd Rather Be Rich" and "The American Dream" are the best songs Chicago has used to close a CD with to this point. In the former, Lamm shows his ability to rock AND resolve the effort. In The American Dream, Pankow redeems himself for the pathetic "Runaway", which he wrote to close XIII, with a driving uplifting effort which makes a much needed commentary on the affairs of american politics, (the last commentary by the band since album VIII when they did Harry Truman).

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