Chicago Songs That Suck: Gimme Five

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It would be easy enough to fill this list with songs from Chicago’s turn-of-the-1990s slickster years. And just as easy to heap scorn on their post-Terry Kath slump in the late 1970s. Instead, we did both.

Presenting the times when Chicago simply didn’t make us smile … the times when their music made us feel sicker every day … the times when we were wishing they weren’t there …

OK, you get the picture: Here are the times when Chicago, well, sucked:

No. 5
“25 OR 6 TO 4,” CHICAGO 18 (1986):

This would be higher on the list except then-newcomer Jason Scheff actually sounds good performing it. The song was rearranged in his key and range. He sounds better singing this version than he’s ever sounded singing the original version live. That being said, the original is a classic. If it ain’t broke … don’t fix it. Especially not if “fixing it” involves MIDI sequencing and drum machines.

No. 4
“YOU COME TO MY SENSES,” TWENTY-1 (1991)

Chicago claims Twenty-1 was recorded for the suits at WB/Reprise. It’s largely bland and pedestrian but at least the horns are a bit more present than they had been on 17, 18 or 19. (20 was a greatest-hits compilation). Unfortunately, the band recorded a musical abomination known as “You Come to My Senses” and then they lost their own senses when they decided to perform it live on the Arsenio Hall show. It was the one and only time any song from this album was ever performed live. It’s a case of one song “killing” an entire album.

No. 3
“FELIZ NAVIDAD,” XXV (1998):

I dig the original version and was actually excited when I heard Chicago would be covering it. Then I heard Chicago’s cover. The original is a fun and catchy Latin-tinged Christmas song. Chicago’s arrangement is a somber, melancholy, funeral dirge. Note to Chicago: Feliz Navidad translates to “Merry Christmas.” Christmas is a holiday celebrating Jesus’s birth or — if one is more of a crass commercialist — a celebration of a mythic over-generous chubby fella in a bright red suit. Did Santa die and the rest of us didn’t get the memo?

No. 2
“BIRTHDAY BOY,” XIV (1980):

Danny Seraphine wrote or co-wrote some brilliant gems for Chicago — “Take Me Back to Chicago,” “Little One,” and “Street Player” were all pretty solid. But with this clunker one wonders if his creative tank had run completely dry. He redeemed himself some with “Sonny Think Twice” on XVI, but even as good as that track was it couldn’t completely erase the memory of how bad this song was.

No. 1
“WINDOW DREAMIN’,” XIII (1979):

Chicago’s nadir. A classic case of either too much coke going up the nostrils or too many hands in the cookie jar. Or, likely, more than a little of each. I’m pretty sure this was/is Walt Parazaider’s only songwriting credit for Chicago ever. There’s a reason for that. This entire list could have been comprised of songs from this album but I didn’t want to clog the list with Chicago XIII songs: “Window Dreamin,'” in my humble opinion, was the worst of the worst on Chicago’s worst and least salvageable album.

Like Chicago? Then you’ll love ‘Saturdays in the Park,’ a multi-writer, song-by-song examination of the music of Chicago found right here on Something Else! Click here to check it out.

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