The opening piano into the horns on the title track from 2014’s Chicago XXXVI: Now jumps in with the classic Chicago sound right off the bat. The last time Chicago had really captured that classic vibe was on “The Only One” back in 1997.
At first listen, “Now” certainly comes across as Chicago reverting to their classic ’70s sound, with a 21st century sensibility. The arrangement is as delightful and complex as some of their key hit singles of that decade.
Full disclosure: I am a big fan of Bill Champlin, and was not at all pleased when he was shown the door in 2009. I thought I was done with Chicago. Then I heard “Now.” and decided to give them another chance on the strength of this song.
So, I stopped at Best Buy on a cold winter’s day and picked up Chicago XXXVI: Now several months after its release. And I tried. I wanted to like the album based on the strength of the title track. I wanted this former favorite band of mine from which I’d grown estranged to win me back. I tried and tried again — and yet, while I have heard this album in its entirety, I have never been able to do so in a single sitting.
The classic elements of Chicago were there and the band was clearly trying, but there was something missing. While I could hear the music, I felt … nothing. Limp, listless, sterile. It was as if someone had taken a Chicago album and polished and scrubbed it to hospital-level sterility, leaving it with no emotion whatsoever. The results were Chicago songs that sounded as if they’d been recorded by robots, not musicians.
And then, the liner notes revealed the biggest irony of all: “Now” was basically produced by vocalists Jason Scheff and Robert Lamm with a group of sessions musicians. Let that sink in: The best and most “Chicago sounding” song on Chicago XXXVI has the least involvement from the actual band of any song on the entire album.
Even 1988’s Chicago 19, which ignored or buried the horns in the mix, at least employed the Chicago horns when horns were used at all. Yet here on Chicago XXXVI: Now was a “Chicago” song with an in-your-face and very prominent horn chart — a very Chicago-sounding horn chart — being performed by paid stand-ins.
If Chicago XXXVI proved anything, it’s that Chicago needs an outside producer and outside engineer. More objective voices in the studio, people who can provide a constructively critical voice and guiding hand when necessary, might have helped save them for themselves. Absent that, their music suffers from the worst case of self back-patting and general ego masturbation.
And what does it say when the band doesn’t even phone it in for the best track on an album? Instead, they put some sessions guys on the line.
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