Columbia 33900
Producer: James William Guercio
Track listing: 25 or 6 to 4 / Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? / Colour My World / Just You ‘n’ Me / Saturday in the Park / Feelin’ Stronger Every Day/ Make Me Smile / Wishing Were Here / Call On Me / (I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long / Beginnings
December 13, 1975
5 weeks
Chicago never wanted to be known as a singles band, so it must have been a bit ironic when Columbia compiled the band’s popular singles for a greatest-hits album in late 1975.
As it happens, Chicago was ambivalent about singles on a number of levels. In particular, they were never crazy about the way their songs were often edited for a single release. In fact, Chicago started recording shorter songs because they “got sick and tired of songs getting chopped up,” says drummer Danny Seraphine. When Seraphine first heard the edited version of “Make Me Smile” on his car radio while driving on the Ventura Freeway in Los Angeles, he almost drove right off the road.
Even with the band at the height of its popularity, its songs were still being edited. The versions of “Make Me Smile” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” included on Chicago’s Greatest Hits are the edited single versions. The rest of the tracks on the album, however, are presented as full-length album cuts, including “Beginnings,” which clocks in at nearly eight minutes.
“25 or 6 to 4,” the band’s second hit and the lead track on Chicago’s Greatest Hits, is perhaps the most misunderstood Chicago track. “It’s a song about writing a song,” explains Seraphine. Keyboardist Robert Lamm, who penned the song, was having trouble writing a song. ” ’25 or 6 to 4′ in the morning is the time in which the song was written,” Seraphine says.
Chicago’s Greatest Hits features songs from the band’s 1969 debut, Chicago Transit Authority, which peaked at number 17, through 1974’s Chicago VII. Since Chicago VIII had been released earlier in 1975, Columbia opted to leave that album’s hits off of Chicago’s Greatest.
Chicago’s Greatest Hits, like its predecessors, sports the band’s trademark Roman numerals in its title. Seraphine says it was producer/manager Jim Guercio’s idea to number the LPs. “He felt if there were numbers on them, it would give them a sense of timelessness, like volumes of encyclopedias.” While the band occasionally strayed from the concept for an album, the following LP would then pick up the numerical sequence.
Chicago’s Greatest Hits shot to the top of the album chart in a mere three weeks. It was the group’s fifth consecutive Number One album, a feat matched only by Paul McCartney and Elton John, and surpassed only by the Beatles.
Although the band had managed to top the album chart five consecutive times, Chicago didn’t have as much luck on the Hot 100. As of late 1975, the highest-charting Chicago single was “Saturday in the Park,” which reached number three on September 23, 1972. Chicago would finally land the elusive Number One single with “If You Leave Me Now,” which hit the top of the Hot 100 on October 23, 1976. However, Chicago X, the album from which that single was culled, made it only to number three, snapping the group’s streak of Number One albums at five.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 13, 1975
1. Chicago IX—Chicago’s Greatest Hits, Chicago
2. Red Octopus, Jefferson Starship
3. Rock of the Westies, Elton John
4. Windsong, John Denver
5. KC & the Sunshine Band, KC & the Sunshine Band