Chicago's 17th album is no doubt a bad one, but is at least not an uninteresting bad record. After all, Chicago was once a good band, and at a basic level, most of the songs are decently-written and have hooks. My personal highlight is second track "We Can Stop the Hurtin," which has great horn parts that hearken back to their jazz-rock past. Unfortunately, the mission of this album was to sell millions of records in 1984, and as such, has a glossed-over, synth-heavy sound that I find unbearable for more than five minutes at a time. The band has moments where they seem to be striving for something longer-lasting, but the sound is totally generic and undercuts their intentions. Songs that should have been good ("Stay the Night") fail to quite get going thanks to the slick and dated production, and the record is ultimately sunk by several identical power ballads that achieved Chicago renewed commercial success, but 27 years later, are just embarrassing. Actually, they were probably embarrassing in 1984, or at least they should have been. Blue bin.
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