Top Artists – Chicago

Rick Beato Explains What Makes This Chicago Song Great

More of the Music of Chicago

One of the most difficult rock albums to find good sound for, bar none – it’s by far the toughest nut to crack in the entire Chicago catalog. We awarded it the title of artist’s worst sounding album.

This album spawned three top 10 singles and can sound very good on the right copy. Finding that copy, though, can be incredibly difficult — that’s why you won’t often find top copies of the album on our site.

 

Peter Cetera Was A Monster

Not many musicians qualify for the list of Most Underrated, but Peter Cetera should be right up at the top. His bass playing alone — forget his singing, which is as good as any pop singer of his generation — qualifies him for Most Talented (but for some reason) Overlooked Musician. The huge bass sound Peter got out of his axe is the meat and potatoes of this album.

Talk about beefy bass; this album, like their first, can really deliver rock-solid bottom end, at least on the tracks that were properly recorded, mastered and pressed, which is not many.

Again, it’s hard to believe this is the same guy that sang and played on ‘Hard To Say I’m Sorry’. His jazz-rock chops anchor the rhythm section with the kind of energy a band with as many pieces as this one needs. Chicago boasts seven top players, but Cetera’s brilliance cuts through on practically every song.

360 Original or Red Label Reissue

Both can be good. Years ago when I last did the shootout I tried to guess the label for the copy I was hearing, for fun more than for anything else. I have to admit that my batting average was not much better than chance.

The 360s tend to be a little fuller and smearier, but plenty of red label copies sound that way and some 360s don’t, so trying to match the sound to the label was even more pointless than usual.

When comparing pressings in a shootout it’s too late for the label to have any predictive value. We’ve already bought the records, cleaned them all up and now just want to know what they actually sound like — not which ones might be the best, but which ones are the best. The time for guessing games has passed. Of course, if we do actually figure out what the right stampers or labels are, this helps us next time around.

Chicago – Chicago VI

More Chicago

More Pure Pop Recordings

  • An outstanding copy of Chicago VI, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound of the brass on any Chicago album is key and these sides have the horns sounding clear and really jumping out of the speakers
  • VI was propelled to the top of the charts for five full weeks by two of the band’s best tracks: “Just You ‘n’ Me” “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day”
  • 4 stars: “Chicago VI is an undeniably strong effort – supported at the time by its chart-topping status…”

The background vocals on these sides are breathy and clear, a far cry from the typically smeary, dark voices we heard on most of the pressings we played, all originals in this case.

More often than not the brass lacks bite and presence, but these sides had the Chicago horns leaping out of the speakers. What is a Chicago record without great horns? Without that big bold sound you may have something, but it sure ain’t Chicago.

The sound of the brass on any Chicago album is key — it has to have just the right amount of transient bite yet still be full-bodied and never blary. In addition, on the best of the best pressings you can really hear the air moving through the horns.

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Chicago II – Why Does Side Four Tend to Be the Best Sounding Side?

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Important Lessons We Learned from Record Experiments 

There is one, and really only one, major problem with the sound of this album — too many overdubs, meaning too many generations of tape on too many instruments. There are easily three and four generations of tape on some of the tracks, probably more, all causing compression and a loss of transient information.

When the drums sound like cardboard boxes being hit with wet noodles it’s because they recorded them early on and then bounced their tracks down to another track and then bounced that track down to another track until what’s left sounds like a cassette tape you made of a song playing on the radio.

Yes, it’s that bad.

Best Evidence?

Side four. Side four is on most copies almost always the best sounding side. It’s also the side with the simplest arrangements, which means it probably has the fewest overdubs. The second track on side four is an obvious example. It’s mostly just bass, drums, flute, vocal and guitar, sonic elements which would more or less fit on the eight tracks of their eight track machine.

Listen to how real and immediate the sound is. You don’t hear that sound on the rest of the album because the rest of the album has multiple horn overdubs, multiple vocal overdubs and all kinds of percussion overdubs everywhere you look. Foreigner used 48 tracks to record Dirty White Boy. Chicago had eight to record their much more complex arrangements.

The result? They found themselves running out of tracks over and over again, resulting in reductions and further reductions, piling losses upon losses. This album is the poster boy for bad planning in the studio.

Not So Fast

Or is it? To our surprise we actually did manage to find at least one amazing side for each of the four sides of the album. Of course almost none of the hot sides mated with any of the others, meaning that the only way to get a complete album was to have at least two copies from which to play the best sides.

Meaning that bad pressing quality and bad mastering quality had to have been the principle cause of the mediocre sound of many of the copies we played. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that the stampers found on the best copies are sometimes the stampers found on the worst.

What Stampers Mean

Stampers mean something, but sometimes, as is the case here, they don’t mean much. (If you don’t know that by now you probably haven’t done that many big shootouts on your own. Can’t blame you — without lots of helpers in the cleaning and needle-dropping departments they’d be an even bigger pain than they already are. Even with three people involved it can still take almost all day, and that’s if you just happen to have ten or fifteen copies handy. It took us about two years to find that many, shopping at multiple stores weekly.)

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Turntable Tweaking Works Its Magic Once Again – “I’m sitting in shock!”

More Hot Stamper Testimonial Letters

Hi Tom,

Just wanted to give you a big thank you for the commentary on turntable tweaking. I constantly learn important advice on the audiophile subject from your website. I check it everyday.

Lately I have been thinking my audio sound was lacking. It didn’t sound as good as I remember it. After reading the turntable tweaking advice, I reset up the tonearm. VTF, VTA, and azimuth.

I have “magic” in my sound now.

Listened to some Neil Young, [Ten Years After] A Space in Time. Very Tubey.

Listened to my Miles Davis Kind of Blue. It sounded better than I ever heard it. I’m sitting in shock!

The killer was Chicago 2. I love 25-6-to 4 so I was blown away and normally I’m not interested in the rest of that side of the album but I sat through the rest of it and was enthralled by the vocals. Memories of Love is one track I was never interested in but it sounded so good I loved it.

When you want to listen to every record in your collection, you know you’ve done something right.

Anyway I want you to know we audiophiles appreciate the time you take to put up your advice and commentaries. I just got a huge upgrade and it didn’t cost me a cent. Only some time and I learned a little more.

Thanks a bunch, 
Steve E.

Steve,

You are more than welcome!

Thanks for writing,

TP

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Chicago II – The Poster Boy for Bad Planning in the Studio

More of the Music of Chicago

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Chicago

There is one major problem with the sound of this album — too many overdubs, meaning too many generations of tape on too many instruments. There are easily three and four generations of tape on some of the tracks, probably more, all causing compression and a loss of transient information. When the drums sound like cardboard boxes being hit with wet noodles it’s because they recorded them early on and then bounced their tracks down to another track and then bounced that track down to another track until what’s left sounds like an cassette tape you made of a song playing on the radio. Yes, it’s that bad.

Side four tells the story. Side four on most copies is almost always the best sounding side. It’s also the side with the simplest arrangements, which means it probably has the fewest overdubs. The second track on side four is an obvious example. It’s mostly just bass, drums, flute, vocal and guitar, sonic elements which would more or less fit on the eight tracks of their eight track tape recorder.

Listen to how real and immediate the sound is. You don’t hear that sound on the rest of the album because the rest of the album has multiple horn overdubs, multiple vocal overdubs and all kinds of percussion overdubs everywhere you look. Foreigner used 48 tracks to record Dirty White Boy. Chicago had eight to record their much more complex arrangements.

The result? They found themselves running out of tracks over and over again, resulting in reductions and further reductions, piling losses upon losses. This album is the poster boy for bad planning in the studio. (more…)

Chicago Transit Authority on MoFi – Or Is It The Glade Spray Mist Septet?

More of the Music of Chicago

UPDATE 2020

The last time I played a copy of the MoFi Chicago debut was about twenty years ago. My all tube system was much darker and dramatically less resolving than the one I have now, having made score upon score of improvements since then.

I suspect I would not be so kind to the MoFi today, and in that way I would surely be much more in agreement with Roger than I was about ten years ago when his letter arrived.

Our good customer Roger wrote to tell us of his Chicago shootout which included the MoFi, some later pressings and our Hot Stamper. Here is his story.

HI Tom

Got a chance to listen to your Chicago Transit Authority hot stamper and compare it to regular US and MFSL pressings. It has been a while since I last listened to this recording, but I listened to a lot of Chicago; Blood, Sweat, and Tears; and The Ides of March when I was in high school and college. I loved this music back then, as short-lived as it was, unfortunately.

Maybe this was because my two brothers played horns in concert bands, as does my youngest son now. A real shame that Chicago, at least, morphed into a whiny, wimpy, sappy Top 40 radio ballad band after their first two records. Anyway, it was fun listening to it again.

I recently picked up a couple of US copies of CTA to compare against my Mobile Fidelity version and the hot stamper. Both regular US copies had later Columbia labels, and had I only heard these, I might never have listened to this record again. Dull, compressed, murky, detail-challenged would be descriptive words for both copies. Muddy bass and absolutely no highs, I mean none.

The MFSL version did not have this lack-of-highs problem. In fact, it sounds like a lot of MoFi’s, the treble completely overcooked, sounding like cans of spray mist being actuated and overwhelming the rest of the music. This has to be one of the most hideous recordings in existence. With the MFSL version, Chicago has been transformed into the Glade Spray Mist Septet, with a psst psst here, a psst psst there, here a psst, there a psst, everywhere a psst psst. Arrggg! I was getting more and more psst off listening to this sonic detritus. Unless you have a Mattel Close-And-Play record player, how can anyone listen to this thing? Did MFSL engineers moonlight as gunnery sergeants on the artillery range? And the MoFi’s complete lack of bass left the overwhelming treble out to hang and dry. Unreal.

So the Hot Stamper was next, and you know what, it sounds like my son’s high school concert band (only a lot better but don’t tell him). After the MoFi, the highs sounded somewhat recessed, but more in line with the rest of the sonic spectrum. There was real bass weight, maybe not the lowest bass, but good just the same, and the midrange was much more full and weighty, something this recording needs. Trombones sounded like trombones and saxes like saxes. So perhaps the hot stamper will make my new regular record rotation now and my listening room won’t smell like a Glade pine forest. (more…)

Chicago – Chicago II

More Chicago

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from first note to last on this outstanding copy of the band’s sophomore release
  • Big, rich, and present throughout, with real Jazz Rock energy – this is just the right sound for this album all things considered
  • One of the most difficult rock albums to find good sound for, bar none – it’s by far the toughest nut to crack in the entire Chicago catalog
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The contents of Chicago II underscore the solid foundation of complex jazz changes with heavy electric rock & roll that the band so brazenly forged on the first set.”

*NOTE: On side three, a mark makes 8 moderate pops at the beginning of Track 1, Fancy Colours.

This album spawned three top 10 singles and can sound very good on the right copy. Finding that copy, though, can be incredibly difficult — that’s why you won’t often find top copies of the album on our site. (more…)

Chicago – Chicago VIII

  • With a Triple Plus (A+++) Shootout Winning side two and a seriously good Double Plus (A++) side one, this copy had some of the best sound we have ever heard for Chicago’s 8th album
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • Not a favorite with the critics, but that did not keep the fans from buying plenty of copies, sending the album straight to Number One
  • Harry Truman was the first hit single, followed by Old Days (which went all the way to #5)

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Thoughts on the Sound of Chicago II from an Early Shootout

More of the Music of Chicago

Chicago-Loving Audiophiles of the World, gather round, this is the week [sometime in 2010] we took on one of the toughest challenges in all of Analog Rockdom — Chicago II.

Ever played one? Then you know that the average copy of this album is an unmitigated DISASTER. The smeary sub-gen brass alone is enough to drive you from the room.

To a list of the album’s faults you can confidently add some or all of the following: blurry out of control bass; opaque veiled mids; rolled off highs, or no highs, whichever the case may be, common to virtually every pressing you find: plain old distortion; and, last but not least, the kind of compressed, lifeless sound that manages to make even the best songs on the album tedious.

And that’s not easy to do — this one album spawned not one, not two, but three still-catchy tunes that get played plenty these days.

This Copy

Two Super Hot or Better sides for three and four, which is very unusual, and two other quite good sides for one and two, making this a consistently good copy all around. Let’s break it down.

Side One

A+ to A++. Better brass transients than most of the 360 copies, but lacks the fullness those pressings have going for them. Horns are present and lively, voices a bit thinner than ideal.

Side Two

A+ to A++. Just the reverse of side one (see why it’s so hard to predict?). Big and Rich sounding, with lots of tubey magic, but a bit too smooth.

Two big hits on this side: Make Me Smile and Colour My World.

Side Three

The Real Sound, finally! Clear extended top, transparent and spacious, breathy vocals, big bass — it’s doing it all. One copy of all the pressings we played had a better side three. This one murdered the others.

The big hit is on this side: 25 or 6 to 4. Also Fancy Colours, one of the best songs on the album.

Side Four

WAY off the charts. Without a doubt the best sound on the entire album. No copy sounded better. It’s White Hot.

Side One

Movin’ In
The Road
Poem For The People
In The Country

Side Two

Wake Up Sunshine (Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon)
Make Me Smile
So Much To Say, So Much To Give
Anxiety’s Moment
West Virginia Fantasies
Colour My World
To Be Free
Now More Than Ever

Side Three

Fancy Colours
25 or 6 to 4
Prelude
A.M. Mourning
P.M. Mourning
Memories Of Love

Side Four

It Better End Soon
1st Movement
2nd Movement
3rd Movement
4th Movement
Where Do We Go From Here

AMG Review

The contents of Chicago II (1970) underscore the solid foundation of complex jazz changes with heavy electric rock & roll that the band so brazenly forged on the first set. The septet also continued its ability to blend the seemingly divergent musical styles into some of the best and most effective pop music of the era.

Letter of the Week – “I played the hell out of my CTA and Chicago 2 back in the day when they came out. Never sounded anything like this.”

More of the Music of Chicago

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Chicago

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,   

Received my Chicago 2 Hot Stamper last night. Played side 4 A+++ first. Didn’t expect it to sound so amazing. Reminded me of my Miles Davis Kind of Blue where you say zero distortion, zero compression. No shrillness, no muffled vocals, just clear music. All instruments come through with clarity. Relatively quiet too. And this goes for most of the 4 sides of the album.

I played the hell out of my CTA and Chicago 2 back in the day when they came out. Never sounded anything like this. Thanks for a super record.

Steve E.