CHICAGO III

After the huge success of the debut album Chicago Transit Authority and the amazing follow up Chicago II, it looked like Chicago was heading for making some pretty amazing music. I've always felt that their second album was a masterpiece and it was a big influence for me to explore progressive rock because I loved the long epics and multi-part suites on that second album. It took several years to finally get my hands on Chicago III. For some reason, I always had a hard time finding it. It looked as if it would be another one that I would love what with more epics and suites. What a let down it turned out to be, and you might blame that on the expectations I had, but I've tried so hard to love this album and it just doesn't work for me. It isn't as consistently good and too many of the compositions seem to be trying way to hard to be a part of a worthy successor to "II".

Now, there are some great gems here, 3 of which are in the Travel Suite: "Flight 602", "Free" and "Happy Because I'm Going Home". The others are "Mother" and "Lowdown". The other songs just don't live up to the greatness of the previous 2 albums. The thing that turns me off so much is it is trying too hard to be a copy of the second album and it fails more than it succeeds. In fact, as much as I detest the Chicago era when they were hit machines and working for the corporate man, I find the "Hour in the Shower" suite to be the most irritating and awful songs Chicago ever recorded. Though "Elegy" shows some promise throughout it's track, it just doesn't stand out like anything on the first or second albums.

I'm not one of those that think that there weren't any good albums after the second though. I actually consider the gargantuan "Live at Carnegie Hall", and VII, VIII and X great albums too. After that, forget it. Anyway, as far as this album, I can only rate it as being good but not essential. There just isn't much as far as groundbreaking material, too much of a copy from before and not a very good copy either. 3 stars.