The Best Of Chicago 40th Anniversary

The Best Of Chicago 40th Anniversary

Formed in its namesake city in 1967, Chicago is the first American band ever to chart albums in Billboard®’s Pop Top 40 in five consecutive decades. In 2002, Rhino entered into a long-term partnership with this extraordinary group to restore their extensive, genre-defying catalogue as well as develop new projects (such as 2006’s XXX, their first new studio album in a decade). Now Rhino adds to Chicago’s legacy and salutes their 40th anniversary with a newly compiled 2-CD collection that spans their entire recording history, from the stellar 1969 debut LP Chicago Transit Authority to Chicago XXX. With a career encompassing five consecutive #1 albums, 13 platinum albums, 21 Top 10 singles, and many other laurels, Chicago is among the most successfully charting American groups of all time.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Buy “The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning” instead.
This is quite a puzzling and pointless release. After Rhino had gotten the rights to Chicago’s back catalog back in the early 2000’s they started re-releasing remastered/expanded editions of some of their seminal albums. A fantastic 2 disc set was then offered in 2002 called “The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning” which offered album versions of almost all of their best known hits instead of the horribly butchered/edited radio single versions. For people who don’t quite want to splurge on the lavish box set, this 2 disc set was great for people wanting the full versions of most of their classic tracks.

Back in 2007 for some reason, Rhino then released a new 2 disc set that only has 30 tracks versus the 39 on Only the Beginning. But the biggest horror is that these are instead of the album versions the horribly edited single versions in most cases.

Case in point, the single edit on here of “25 or 6 to 4″ omits THE ENTIRE SECOND VERSE AND HALF OF THE GUITAR SOLO! Beginnings is present in a little under 3 minute version instead of the almost complete 6 1/2 minute version that is on The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning.

The only thing that this newer 2 disc set can boast is that it does have some of their singles released in the 2000’s but those songs aren’t really that great anyway.

I think that the greatest sin is that each disc doesn’t come close to maxing out the alloted 80 minutes of length that each CD can hold.

So instead of buying this pointless travesty of a release, get The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning instead.

4 Stars WOW
This is one super cd. Better than I was hopping for and brings back all those old great songs of my teens.

Thanks for quick shipping and a perfect product!

5 Stars Great Album…Finally the “Single Versions” are released!!!
Finally Rhino Records gets it right. They finally release a Chicago hits compilation with all their single versions of their biggest hits. Once only available on 45s and now for the first time ever on CD. We already have all there album versions on CD, but never had their single versions on CD until now. Go buy there other rehased over and over compilations if you want the album versions of their hits. However, with the single versions included they could have added a few more songs here. For instance where is “If She Would Have Been Faithful…,” “When Along Comes A Woman,” “We Can Last Forever” or “Chasin’ The Wind.” Still overall this is a great overview of Chicago.

5 Stars Great Memories from Chicago
I have been wanting a compilation of the Chicago music I enjoyed listening to in the 70’s, and this CD was exactly what I was hoping for. I certainly got my money’s worth!

3 Stars Best of Chicago
The best of Chicago 40th aniversary is a very good compilation of Chicago’s hits. However some of the songs have been severly butchered namely Questions 67 & 68 and Beginnings up to some 50%. I’s rather have them leave one song out instead of cutting two songs in half. But all in all it’s a nice compilation for on the road.

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