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:
“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.
“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.
“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?
“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.
“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.
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“You Get It Up” and “Skin Tight” were in the running for the list, what kept them off was that the horn charts on both songs are actually kind of fun and catchy and ALMOST make up for some rather atrocious lyrics and in the case of “Skin Tight” some of the worst vocals Peter Cetera has ever recorded (aside from the PC Moblee atrocities on XIII)
“No Tell Lover” was pretty darn awful, too.
I actually like “No Tell Lover.”
“The Greatest Love on Earth” on “Hot Streets” however is painful to listen to. I think a kitten dies every time someone listens to that one.
“No Tell Lover” = “Feliz Navidad,” without the Spanish lyrics and Yuletide theme. Which, of course, makes “Feliz” so very much worse.
Can we include “Glory of Love” on the list even though it was a Cetera solo work? I mean, it was so bad that it needs to be included on a list somewhere.
I actually like “Glory of Love.” Peter may sing saccharine love songs but at least he sings them because he wants to be singing them. There’s conviction in his vocals.
When Chicago did ballads after Peter left they were trying to score a hit. Their post Peter ballads are limp and lifeless and lack any conviction or emotion.
Wow. I’m not sure I had ever heard the remake of 25 or 6 to 4. That song and video are everything that was bad about the mid- to late 1980’s.
As a child of the 80s, unfortunately, the remake was my first exposure to “25 or 6 to 4.” I heard that before I ever heard the original. I liked it at the time… 1988 or so but after my tastes matured and I heard the original… there was no comparison.
It sounds like Depeche Mode hooked up with Peter Cetera’s less vocally-talented brother and the producer of Chicago’s mid-1980s stuff, picked up a couple out-of-work trombonists, recycled a guitar riff and some sound effects from pretty much any mid-1980s song, threw it into a mixing program of some sort, and this was the result. I mean, toward the end, you even have a guitar riff that sounds like it is straight out of a 1980s Michael Jackson song.
Marty, there’s a reason for that last part: The guest guitarist on the ’86 version, Steve Lukather, was also on ‘Thriller.’
Mike Landau and Buzz Feiten also played on Chicago 18. But I’m pretty sure you’re right and that Lukather did the guitar solo on the “25 or 6 to 4” remake. Toto was in the same studio right down the hall working on Fahrenheit when Chicago was recording 18. Jason Scheff mentioned in an interview awhile back that Chicago actually invited Toto into the studio to listen to the “25 or 6 to 4” remake after they recorded it. Apparently Jeff Porcaro’s reaction to it was, “That’s bold!” (and not necessarily in a good way).
Since you are obviously an anti-80s person, your opinions about it are anything but objective. It’s hard to take you seriously.
I would actually put this list in reverse. Window Dreaming is a guilty pleasure, and hardly the worst on this list. Birthday Boy has some awkward lyrics, but good production to makes it listenable. You Come to My Senses is arguably the worst song Chicago ever recorded, but to remake the classic 25 or 6 to 4 like… that, well, that should guarantee it a #1 spot as the worst Chicago song ever.
There were some good songs on 18, what were they thinking releasing 25/6-4 as a single with a high production video – especially when it was redone in such a polarizing manner (perhaps if they redid it in an 80s rock or metal style rather than a techno pop style, they could have gotten away with it)?! At most, it should have remained an album track, if not just a B-side to at least give it some rarity value.
I’m so glad that “Free Form Guitar” was left off the list. Terry Kath contributed immeasurably to the band, Chicago, despite the loaded gun fetish.
Don, of course “Free Form Guitar” was left off the list. That’s a beautiful love song from a man to his guitar. It’s pure unadulterated emotion in its most extreme form.
Amen, brother…
http://somethingelsereviews.com/2010/09/02/deep-cuts-chicago-transit-authority-free-form-guitar-1969/
There were far worse songs than” Window Dreamin”. “Vote for Me” or “Critic’s Choice” are two that make you want to run for the antacid.
Anything after their 2nd album!
The premise is “when good bands do bad things,” but Chicago, Supertramp, and Genesis were not good bands.
Uh, Chicago was a great band. What are you talking about?
Even some of Chicago’s “worst” moments aren’t all that bad, which to me shows that they are one phenomenal band….. I agree that “Birthday Boy” is completely awful and horrible…… I actually do like “You Come to My Senses” a lot though, at least the album version…. I used to not like it when it first was released, but in recent years it’s grown on me – actually it’s a great song….. Chicago XIII, while perhaps one of their “worst” albums (though not as bad as XIV), still is in itself kind of a classic with some redeeming moments: Robert Lamm’s “Reruns” (I actually love that song by Lamm on the verses and Cetera on the chorus), Laudir’s “Life is what it is”, and even Danny Dacus’ “Must Have been crazy” are pretty good tunes…. and “Street Player” is a classic horn “riff” that’s been sampled by rappers in recent years.
p.s. Walt Parazaider did cowrite a couple of the instrumental tunes on Chicago VII…. “Devil’s Sweet” being one of them. So Walt’s songwriting isn’t all bad lol.