I've heard the hits and the deep AOR cuts for decades, but aside from Greatest Hits and maybe Aja, I never dug too deep. On first listen, if asked to sum the whole thing up, it would be something like "A seasoned jazz ensemble in the 70s decided to make a contemporary pop-rock record." Of course, it would be "classic rock" now, but back in 76, it was pretty contemporary.
I've never been a big fan of fuzz tones (too thin and fizzy), and they were all over a lot of lead guitar in the 70s, including here. It doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the playing, but they're not tones I would ever try to chase. For the era, I liked more of the big, round lead tones of Tom Scholz and Barry Goudreau in Boston, and Gerry Rafferty.
Some of the rhythm guitar tracking is a LOT more complex than you would imagine from a general listen of the songs, and that's part of what betrays the jazz roots here. The layers and layers of vocals, creamy as butter, sound fantastic and so much more organic than a lot of the stuff you hear today in similar styles. In fact, that brings forward again one of the best things about 70s music, just how REAL and GROUNDED and ORGANIC it sounds. I think a lot of modern music has lost its way on that front, with the endless quantizing and pitch correction of everything. Those old records always sound like so much more of a PERFORMANCE than modern records do.
And the complexity and frequency of the chord changes (also indicating the jazz heritage) also kind of made me realize just how much of an influence early punk was on rock - this was an era before "all you need is three chords and the truth" had really seeped into the mainstream by the rock and "hair metal" of the early 80s.
A really good listen alongside maybe some classic Chicago, before they started pumping out hit ballads and such.
