Chicago Chicago II

EU-only 10 CD box containing the first decade of studio recordings by the veteran Pop/Rock outfit. Chicago began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, generating several hit ballads. Once the group began making records, fans rewarded the group with record sales of 100,000,000, 21 Top 10 singles, five consecutive #1 albums, 11 Number One Singles and five Gold singles. An incredible 25 of their 32 albums have been certified platinum. To date, Chicago is the first American band to chart Top 40 albums in five decades - a landmark accomplishment. Housed in a small clamshell box, The Studio Albums 1969-1978 contains 10 CDs in paper-sleeve mini-jackets.

Want to know what the two smartest musicians in Italy think of Bartók's first two piano concertos? Try this disc. With Maurizio Pollini at the piano and Claudio Abbado on the podium, the Hungarian modernist's concertos have never sounded so brilliant. Recorded in transparent stereo for Deutsche Grammophon in 1977, Pollini and Abbado's Bartók with the Chicago Symphony is searingly translucent in orchestrations that favor the winds, brass, and percussion over the strings and piano writing that encourages shock and awe virtuosity.

Really, this is probably Chicago's most underrated and overlooked of their early albums, but full of great material, and certainly one of their finest…

On this CD are 2 Chicago Blues legends presented: Eddie "Chief" Clearwater and Carey Bell.
Once dismissed by purists as a Chuck Berry imitator (and an accurate one at that), tall, lean, and lanky Chicago southpaw Eddy Clearwater became recognized as a prime progenitor of West Side-style blues guitar. That's not to say he wouldn't liven up a gig with a little duck-walking or a frat party rendition of "Shout"; after all, Clearwater brought a wide array of influences to the party. Gospel, country, '50s rock, and deep-down blues were all incorporated into his slashing guitar attack. But when he put his mind to it, "The Chief" (a nickname accrued from his penchant for donning Native American headdresses on-stage) was one of the Windy City's finest bluesmen…

Solti's interpretations held more than surface excitement. In conducting Beethoven, for example, he long held that the symphonies should be played with all their repeats to maintain their structural integrity, and he carefully rethought his approach to tempo, rhythm, and balance in those works toward the end of his life. Solti began as a pianist, commencing his studies at age six and making his first public appearance at 12. When he was 13 he enrolled at Budapest's Franz Liszt Academy of Music, studying piano mainly with Dohnányi and, for a very short time, Bartók. He also took composition courses with Kodály.

This is a good CD to introduce someone to Chicago or to let them know who it was who sang songs like "25 or 6 to 4" or "Saturday in the Park" (perhaps 2 of their most recognisable songs). This collection features exclusively the original (and the best) lineup of Peter Cetera…

The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 is a greatest hits album by American rock band Chicago and was released in 1997. It was compiled to commemorate the group's 30th anniversary of their formation. The idea was to bridge their two eras - the James William Guercio/Columbia Records period of the 1970s and the David Foster/Warner Bros. Records period of the 1980s - on one CD. In addition, the band added two new songs, "The Only One" produced by Lenny Kravitz - a big fan of Chicago, and another, "Here In My Heart" by James Newton Howard. Both of these new tracks were successful in the adult contemporary market; "Here In My Heart" topped the AC charts, and "The Only One" was a top 20 AC hit.

Johann Baptist Strauss II, also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (German: Johann Strauß Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.