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Whistle Stopper - Stone of Sisyphus (XXXII)
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List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $6.95
Your Save: $ 12.03 ( 63% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Rhino Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0081227993016
Label: Rhino Records
Manufacturer: Rhino Records
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Rhino Records
Release Date: 2008-06-17
Studio: Rhino Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: it was worth the wait
Comment: Waiting since 1993 for this to be released was a small price to pay for this work of art. Had Warner listened to the artists, this would have been a smash hit with fresh new sounds and a chart topper. This is simply Classic Chicago like you have never heard before.
No true fan should be without this masterpiece that is sure to go gold or better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: You definitely won't be bored (unlike XIV, 19, 21, etc...)
Comment: I dare to say that even if you are not a hard-core Chicago fan, you will at least not be bored by any track on this release. But fix the order - put "All The Years" at #1, then everything else, as is, after that. And yes, you need to scour the Net and/or Newsgroups and find "Get On This," make it Track # 11. It's sorely needed to balance out the disc once you get to Track #6 & beyond. While some of the tracks get well into wild and wilder, there is no denying that the band was truly wanting to return to its' roots and and the backing horn arrangements are absolutlely some of Jimmy Pankow's finest. I was in High School when Chicago VIII and Harry Truman was out, and "All The Years" is a perfect 30-years-on version of what happens when the optimism of Harry Truman is replaced by realism. The title track just busts out with power - very much like how "Alive Again" on Hot Streets pulled them out of the rut they had gotten in with the lackluster X and XI albums. Next we have Bigger Than Elvis. This may be one of the two best songs Jason Scheff has ever written, transcending his predecessor. After Hot Streets, Cetera's songs always made me want to reach for the insulin they were so sugary, but Bigger Than Elvis made me reach for the tissues. To understand the song, though, you need to know Scheff's father was Elvis' bass player, and so I being a amateur musician as well as my own father is, makes this deeply touching. Then we're snapped into "Sleeping in the Middle of the Bed Again". Possibly the wildest Robert Lamm composition ever. Who says white guys don't have rhythm? So it's "Chicago does Rap", but with the brilliant horn arrangement in the background, it works! MahJongg has often been dismissed as just 'funk', but again, the background horns make it groove. After this, we get to the other great Scheff song - Let's Take a Lifetime. Surprised this hasn't hit the Christian stations. A young man is faced with a tempting situation at end of a day or date, and he declares the best thing for he and his girlfriend is to "take a lifetime" and go to bed in separate rooms. Powerful. That is followed up with "The Pull", which talks about what so many people in or past their 40s experience - a Pull - towards the past. The remainder of the tracks (except for the one they left off!) are similar to other Chicago albums of the late 80's-90s, and not standouts, but lyrically above average. About "Get On This" - the hard rocking drive of this track coupled with the judicious use of the background horns would make it a welcome respite from the previous tracks 6- 10. And it has an awesome hook on the Chorus. No telling what mental lapses made Rhino drop this track - it's not the Credits as Dawayne Bailey was co-writer of the title track as well. And if it was any of the 'edgy' religious references, I think "Sleeping" negates that argument, case closed. The bonus tracks are all OK, but as has been said repeatedly, it wasn't worth them dropping Get On This to put these fillers in here. Overall, I feel this disc is on a par with Night & Day, while completely different material, the same energy if not more is there. And nothing they have released since then has come close.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Post-Cetera Album
Comment: As the title says, this is by far my favorite album of theirs since "Chicago 17." It is really too bad that it was shelved for so many years. Talk about creativity! I mean, this stuff is good! It's extremely diverse, different musical styles ranging from hip-hop to driving rock to unique instrumentation incorporating flute and bass clarinet. Not only that, but the brass is back in FULL FORCE! Finally! You will not be disappointed with this album, I guarantee!
About the album...If you're a fan, then you know the history of the album, why it wasn't sold until now, and the circumstances that lead up to it. You can find all of the specifics online or read through my reviews of Chicago's albums "16-19." In a nutshell, supported by their producer Peter Wolf, Chicago went back to what they did in the early 1970's with a modern twist. Breaking away from the formula-pop, they did what they wanted. The title track and the album's name derives from Greek mythology about Sisyphus who was cursed to roll a huge stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down before reaching the top - feelings about what the band had towards corporate rock. Warner Brothers didn't like it and so it was shelved.
About the music...I like just about every song on this album, which is rare for me. As a whole, the melodies are extremely catchy and well written - it's not boring, in otherwards. There's lots of thematic material here, too. Outside of the typical love themes, many of the songs lyrically reflect the negative sentiments towards the politics that musicians face with the guys that sit behind the desk in corporate music- the title track, "Plaid," "Sleeping in the Middle of the Bed," (Chicago's only rap tune) and "Cry for the Lost." "All The Years" beckons back to their CTA days and one of the best ballads on the album is a tribute to Jason Scheff's dad called "Bigger Than Elvis" - great backing vocals here!
My favorite tune is "Plaid." It opens with flute and bass clarinet in 12/8 time with congas and bongos in the background. The chorus incorporates quite a few jazz harmonies, particularly in the vocals. Later, during the instrumental bridge, the band goes into polyrhythms - the rhythm section is playing in 3/4 time while the brass is in 6/8. Crazy!
Chicago was quite progressive for the early 1990's, branching out into the hip-hop area. "Sleeping..." is one of their weaker tunes - according to Robert Lamm, the rap part being the result of struggling to come up with a melody. "Mah Jong," however, is one of their better songs. The band does an incredible job incorporating the brass lines with the hip-hop beat. This song certainly would have been a hit had Warner released it.
My other favorites are the title track and "The Pull." Both songs begins with a great brass intro that flows into the verse. The verses builds with each successive measure up to the chorus, as it should, but the final chorus - amazing! The brass come back for a soli at the end, Lee Loughnane wailing on those high notes - totally awesome, especially if you're a brass player like myself.
This album may not suit every taste, but at the very least, I hope you take an opportunity to listen to the samples. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: What a disapointment!
Comment: Wow, what a disapointment this album is! Same old, over produced, garbage they've been making for years now! They even rap on one of the songs, and this is supposed to be a good thing!!?!? I've tried to listen to this a few times, and it does not grow on you. Chicago should just call it quits now if this is the stuff they are going to keep putting out! Do not buy this album!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best studio Chicago album in ages. Shame it took so long!
Comment: Back in the early 90's I was a big Chicago fan. They had kind of moved past the ballady stuff they had in the mid 80's, and became an interesting band again. However, they were still mostly dominated by the ballad. So after Chicago 21 in 1991, the band issued a statement saying they wanted to move away from that kind of music, they wanted to do something new, something they really "wanted to do". So they started work on what became this album. However, the record label didn't like it. The entire story is fairly convoluted, but the band and the record label didn't see eye to eye, so the band said "the heck with it", and took their record and didn't deliver it, or the label refused to release it (depending on who you talk to) Either way, it never came out. As the years passed, and more albums came out, Sisyphus became something of a legend. The band refused to talk about it, the tracks were never released, and it was widely bootlegged.
I had a copy of this for a long time, and really did enjoy it. It was rather experimental, didn't sound like "usual Chicago". In early Spring of 2008, I was rather shocked to see it on the coming list from Rhino records. This was cool, because the boot I had was "OK", but it's never the same as a cleaned up version, properly released. On top of that, the official release has four demo versions of tracks. I didn't listen closely to see if they were bootleg versions or not. Additionally, there's one track that remains from the bootleg that is not on the final version, so it's not 100% completed, but that's a nitpick, really.
The album is great. It still sounds like "Chicago", but not like any traditional Chicago sound. There's a lot more funk and bass in this recording. Several tracks are quite awesome. Thing is, it's probably not for everyone. While I really like the recording, it has that feel of "acquired taste". If you're a Chicago fan though, you probably would like it. Take a shot.
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Editorial Reviews:
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"Sisyphus has attained legendary status among rock critics, Chicago fans, those who’ve heard parts of it and those who have only read about it." —from liner notes by Bill DeYoung
Formed in its namesake city in 1967, Chicago is the first American band ever to propel albums into Billboard®’s pop Top 40 for five consecutive decades, and is among the most successfully charting U.S.-grown acts of all time. Now, another page in the band’s history is revealed with the long-awaited release of Stone Of Sisyphus, the once shelved album that has attained legendary status among fans and critics alike. Recorded in 1993 and originally intended as Chicago XXII, the disc marked a return to the genre-transcending, adventurous fusion of sounds that defined the group’s 1970s-era heyday. Three tracks from it surfaced on Rhino’s 2003 Chicago box, but the album itself is previously unissued—now, this momentous release also features four incredibly rare bonus tracks.
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