Chicago V

Expanded & remastered. The band's first single-LP album, includes the crossover hit 'Saturday In The Park' and nine more original tracks, plus bonus tracks 'A Song For Richard And His Friends' (studio without vocals), 'Mississippi Delta City Blues' (1st recorded version with scratch vocal) & 'Dialogue (Part I & II)' (Single version). 2002.

Though it may not have been clear at the time, Chicago's fifth album marked something of a turning point for the most successful American rock act of the 1970s. V was not only the band's first single-disc release, but, incredibly, its 11th LP worth of music in just three years. That Herculean workload may have watered down their previous studio album (III), but it also seemed to teach them a few important lessons as well. Here they manage not only one of their biggest hits (the joyous "Saturday in the Park"), but a stubborn, focused retrenchment of their most adventurous musical instincts in the bargain. That notion is clear from the intentionally ironic opening of "A Hit by Varese," through cuts like "While the City Sleeps," "State of the Union," and the autobiographical "Alma Mater," which bristle with the band's jazzy instincts and avant-garde influences. Even the album's other Top 30 hit, "Dialogue (Part I & II)," remains one of its more unusual chart entries. This digitally remastered new edition contains three bonus tracks (a Terry Kath noise-guitar-powered, previously unreleased studio take of "A Song for Richard and His Friends," the gritty outtake "Mississippi Delta City Blues," and the original single edit of "Dialogue") as well as Don Heckman's new liner notes, which feature insightful comments from several band members. --Jerry McCulley