Chicago-V (1972)

By 1972, Chicago had released three double albums and a quadruple live album, all of them number one on the American charts, and all this in just three years since the band's formation in 1969. For their fourth album, they decided to abandon the double LP format and focus on a single LP. In addition, they opted to shorten the long improvisational tracks and extended suites, replacing them with shorter pieces, always within Chicago's unmistakable style of jazz and rock. Here too, Robert Lamm took a much more prominent role in the songwriting, composing eight of the album's ten tracks, while Terry Kath and James Pankow shared the remaining two. Another significant change is the inclusion of tracks geared towards the more commercial sounds that would become their hallmark in subsequent years, with a soft rock style like "Dialoque (Part I)", while Pankow's "Now That You've Gone" continues the band's previous work. Other tracks in this jazz-rock vein include "A Hit By Varèse", "Saturday In The Park", and "State Of The Union". Meanwhile, the velvety "All Is Well" and "Goodbye" showcase the group's melodic side. "Alma Mater", Terry Kath's only composition, is a powerful gospel piece featuring the driving horn sounds so characteristic of their early albums. With this fourth release, Chicago returned to the top of the Billboard charts, earning several platinum records for their enormous sales.