Chicago X (affectionately called "the Chocolate Album" by fans) is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Chicago. It was recorded at Caribou Ranch and it was released by Columbia Records on June 14, 1976. The album made it to number three on the Billboard 200, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 21, 1976, a week after its release. It was the band's first album to be certified platinum, on September 14, 1976, and has since been certified multi-platinum. In honor of the group's platinum album achievement, Columbia Records awarded the group a 25-pound bar of pure platinum, made by Cartier. (Billboard magazine reported it as a 30-pound bar.)
Chicago X was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and it won a Grammy Award for Best Album Package.
The album produced Chicago's first number one single in the United States, "If You Leave Me Now". The single went on to win two Grammy Awards: for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus, the band's first Grammy Award; and for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists, for arrangers James William Guercio and Jimmie Haskell. It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. It would later go on to be featured in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V on the Los Santos Rock Radio station.
After recording Chicago VIII in a state of exhaustion, Chicago did not return to the studio until the spring of 1976, feeling refreshed after a substantial break away. Chicago X was released on June 14, 1976, to a receptive audience, giving Chicago a number three album on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and their first album to chart in the UK in years, at number 21. This was the group's most pop-oriented effort up to that point given that every song on the album starts with the 3-minute mark, coming in stark contrast to the lengthier and more complex compositions of the albums that had preceded it.
"If You Leave Me Now" was one of the last to be completed and, according to reports, was very nearly left off the final product. Band member Walter Parazaider has been quoted as saying he heard the song on the radio while cleaning his pool and initially thought "it sounded like McCartney," not realizing it was his own band's work. The song became the band's first number one hit in the US and the UK. Some band members felt the song's success changed the public's perception of the band, leading to more demand from Columbia Records for ballads, although Robert Lamm has since acknowledged that the band had started moving away from their politically-oriented music into the mainstream years earlier, beginning with 1972's Chicago V.
In 2002, Chicago X was remastered and reissued by Rhino Records with an early rendition of Chicago XIV's "I'd Rather Be Rich" by Lamm, as well as Kath's "Your Love's An Attitude" - both cut in 1975 - as bonus tracks. This album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic.
Designed by Art Director of Columbia/CBS Records, John Berg, the album art depicts a partially unwrapped chocolate bar with the Chicago logo on it, resembling a Hershey's chocolate bar as it was packaged at the time, and winning for Berg a Grammy Award for Best Album Package. The cover design is labeled "chocolate bar" on the band's official web site.
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26 июн 2024
