Greatest Hits, Volume II (Chicago album)

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Greatest Hits, Volume II
Greatest Hits, Volume II cover
Compilation album by Chicago
Released November 23, 1981
Recorded January 1969 - June 1978
Genre Rock
Length 35:49
Label Columbia Records
Producer James William Guercio,
Phil Ramone and Chicago
Professional reviews
Chicago chronology
Chicago XIV
(1980)
Greatest Hits, Volume II
(1981)
Chicago 16
(1982)

Greatest Hits, Volume II is the second greatest hits album by American rock band Chicago - their fifteenth overall - and was released in 1981.

Following the commercial flop of 1980's Chicago XIV, Columbia Records dropped Chicago from their roster and cancelled a lucrative contract that had recently been signed. While the band had begun their association with David Foster and were in the process of building a new identity, Columbia put together a sequel to their first - and highly successful - hits package, 1975's Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits, basically a contractual-obligation effort. The bare-bones album artwork (merely a collage of photos from around the city of Chicago, no distinctive logo) and lack of liner notes support this.

Released in November 1981, Greatest Hits, Volume II primarily samples 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 their original compilation album. Because it appeared just before Chicago's unexpected career revival with Chicago 16, this set performed very poorly at retail, only reaching #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Like its predecessor, Greatest Hits, Volume II has since been superseded by 2002's The Very Best of: Only the Beginning and is out of print.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Side one

  1. "Baby, What A Big Surprise" (Peter Cetera) – 3:03
  2. "Dialogue (Part II)" (Robert Lamm) – 4:10 - incorrectly listed as "Parts I & II"
  3. "No Tell Lover" (Peter Cetera/Lee Loughnane/Danny Seraphine) – 3:47 - single edit
  4. "Alive Again" (James Pankow) – 3:32 - single edit
  5. "Old Days" (James Pankow) – 3:29

[edit] Side two

  1. "If You Leave Me Now" (Peter Cetera) – 3:55
  2. "Questions 67 and 68" (Robert Lamm) – 3:26 - single edit
  3. "Happy Man" (Peter Cetera) – 3:15
  4. "Gone Long Gone" (Peter Cetera) – 3:57
  5. "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.

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Year Chart Position
1981 Pop Albums 171