Much like a majority of the material on 1979’s Chicago 13, this band’s unluckiest of albums, “Must Have Been Crazy” is not a bad song. Musically, it’s kind of catchy and Donnie “Hot Licks” Dacus delivered a bit of Texas roadhouse guitar to the song. It’s a style I don’t think Chicago had ever explored before nor since.
But those lyrics – those uninspired, bland, repetitive and unoriginal lyrics – are aurally painful. I daresay I’d prefer to listen to the Baby Shark song on repeat than listen to these lyrics. Actually, one could argue the Baby Shark lyrics show more originality than “Must Have Been Crazy.”
The vocals are as inoffensive as they are forgettable. Where Donnie’s singing stood out on 1978’s Hot Streets, they’re just kind of “there” on “Must Have Been Crazy.” However, where Donnie’s lead vocals are merely forgettably mediocre, the background vocals descend into a mire of awfulness. Someone call roadside assistance for Peter Cetera: His vocal cords have gone flat.
On revisiting this lemon of an album, one is left to wonder how Chicago 13 ever got released. Maybe Phil Ramone was just too nice. Maybe he was afraid to lay the hammer down on Chicago. But 13 isn’t an album; it’s a collection of maybe one or two passable singles – and a handful of working demos that weren’t quite ready for release, or should have hit the reject bin.
Perhaps with a stronger personality producing the project, a bit more polish and development could have been put into it. The execs at Columbia who green-lit this album’s release “Must Have Been Crazy” if they expected it to slow Chicago’s creative and commercial slide. And it didn’t.
(P.S.: Is it stuck in your head yet? “Baby Shark, doot do do do …”)
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