the Beach Boys vs Chicago

Hmmm. I'd say Pet Sounds is better than anything Chicago ever did but it's the only worthwhile Beach Boys record whereas Chicago has at least three excellent albums (I, II, VII) so Chicago it is.

I liked Chicago Transit Authority and Pet Sounds, but I haven't explored either enough to feel comfortable voting in this poll.

Don't play either much - but I respect the legacy of the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations takes some beating for the time!

All I'll get in response is "Huh! You don't even know him!" but I think Mike Love is the biggest prick, as in context of a****le in music.
Despite that, Beach Boys over Chicago. Chicago may have the suites but Beach Boys had the better sweets for a while post Pet Sounds.
Plus If You Leave Me Now is nowhere near a terrible Brian Wilson song.
It would be interesting if Chicago had the family circumstances the Beach Boys had and vice versa. Although that's impossible due to members of a family being in one of the two bands.
Sorry to lower the taste of this great thread, but seriously f**k Mike Love.

What Ivan said--though I have key tracks from each.
My top tracks from each:
BB: Sloop John B
CTA: Saturday in the Park

Of course, each has other strong tracks. But as Ivan implies, in terms of fanbase and importance to rock history, the Beach Boys were almost akin to an American Beatles. They get my vote, despite much of their stuff now sounding dated and cutesy-clean.

And Chicago released a lot of gawd-awful top 40 dreck after their early work. They lost all credibility for me. The Beach Boys, in contrast, had a "safe" image and wrote radio-friendly hits from the start (with a lot of inventiveness on the deeper tracks). Thus, they did not alienate their fanbase in a blatant quest for money by playing to the lowest common denominator.

.........my 2 bobs worth - I used to like the BB when I was young, not so much these days. I never liked Chicago when I was young, but love ‘em now (everything from CTA - 17, I even have one with Jason Scheff on it, 19 ).
Pete Cetera is a much more proficient bassist than Brian Wilson could ever be.

i feel Robert Lamb is quite underrated as a composer and glue in the music business

Icarium wrote: i feel Robert Lamb is quite underrated as a composer and glue in the music business

Glue more commonly comes from a horse than a lamb. Poor joke per usual. I don't know how underrated he is, but I certainly don't think he's a household name. I didn't know who he was, did a google search and came up with a bunch of other Robert Lamb[s], and, fancifully speaking, a story on a man who robbed a lamb curry (an eat and run restaurant incident). And Rob's Lamb Curry Pie recipe looks delicious. Oh, adding composer to the search, I see that there is jazz trombonist and composer called Robert Lamb from Ireland who has worked with the BBC. Oh, a Robert Lamm result came up for the keyboardist of Chicago (an erroneous spell-check correct perhaps -- it happens to me sometimes). My curiosity being piqued by you (I find that the best posts commonly do make one wish to investigate further), I wanted to get to know more about Robert Lamm as I hadn't remembered the name. According to IMDB's description, he is a "Legendary vocalist and keyboardist...." So he's a bit like the King Arthur of the music world, just not nearly as famous as the likes of King Arthur (and there's far more evidence that Lamm is not fictitious). Of course the bio writer mean legendary in the merely famous sense, so I guess he is more famous, at least amongst devotees of certain types of music, then I knew.

Have you heard his "solo" albums? https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/robert_lamm

I'm listening to some music off his Skinny Boy album on youtube and enjoying it. This is a terrible post that needs editing down (comes across as sarcastic when I don't even like sarcasm), but I have to go off to work. I know I'm going to regret posting this ramble later, but I did put a fair amount of time into googling and exploring his music.

Always been a Chicago fan but imho they sorely miss Terry Kath who provided brilliant guitar work, solid songwriting,  and gruff bluesy vocals....