Released November 23, 1981 Greatest Hits, Volume II
(1981) Chicago 16
(1982) Release date 23 November 1981 Genres Rock music, Rock and roll | Length 35:49 Artist Chicago Label Columbia Records | |
 | ||
Recorded January 1969 – June 1978 Producers James William Guercio, Phil Ramone Chicago albums The Heart of Chicago 1967–19, Chicago XIV, Night & Day: Big Band, Group Portrait, Greatest Hits 1982–1989 | ||
Greatest Hits, Volume II is the second greatest hits album by the American rock band Chicago, and its fifteenth album overall, released in 1981.
Contents
Background
Following the poor reception of 1980's Chicago XIV, Columbia Records dropped Chicago from its roster and cancelled a lucrative contract that had recently been signed. While the band had begun its association with David Foster and was in the process of building a new identity, Columbia had contractual obligations for a new release. Therefore, the label wanted a sequel to the band's first, and highly successful, hits package which had been 1975's Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits. This sequel, Volume II, featured bare-bones album artwork consisting of a collage of photos from around the city of Chicago. The album lacked liner notes, and it was the only album to lack the band's distinctive logo, aside from a small picture of it from its second album, which appears in the middle of the collage.
Released in November 1981, Greatest Hits, Volume II primarily sampled material from Chicago VIII through 1978's Hot Streets, after which the hits stopped coming, though it also stretches back to pick up overlooked hits from the era first covered by the original compilation album. Appearing just before Chicago's unexpected career revival with Chicago 16, reached #171 in the US. Curiously, though "Dialogue Part I & II" is part of the track listing, Part I of the song is left off, leaving only the Part II outro.
Like its predecessor, Greatest Hits, Volume II has since been superseded by 2002's The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning. Unlike the first volume, it is out of print.
Side one
- "Baby, What a Big Surprise" (Peter Cetera) – 3:03
- "Dialogue (Part II)" (Robert Lamm) – 4:10 - incorrectly listed as "Parts I & II"
- "No Tell Lover" (Cetera/Lee Loughnane/Danny Seraphine) – 3:47 - single edit
- "Alive Again" (James Pankow) – 3:32 - single edit
- "Old Days" (Pankow) – 3:29
Side two
- "If You Leave Me Now" (Cetera) – 3:55
- "Questions 67 and 68" (Lamm) – 3:26 - single edit
- "Happy Man" (Cetera) – 3:15 - exclusive mix which edits out the false start featured on Chicago VII
- "Gone Long Gone" (Cetera) – 3:57
- "Take Me Back to Chicago" (Danny Seraphine/David Wolinski) – 3:00 - single edit
Greatest Hits, Volume II (Columbia 37682) reached #171 in the US during a chart stay of 5 weeks. It did not chart in the UK.
Personnel
Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)
Songs
1Baby - What a Big Surprise3:05
2Dialogue (Part II)4:11
3No Tell Lover3:49