Chicago

Chicago 17 was a peak for the '80s incarnation of Chicago, the ideal blend of Peter Cetera's adult-pop craft and David Foster's slick yet lush production, an album that spawned four huge singles and went platinum six times, turning it into their biggest hit ever. Cetera decided that the blockbuster success of Chicago 17 would be a perfect launching pad for a solo career, so he bolted prior to the recording of Chicago 18 -- but the band didn't pause, hiring Jason Scheff as his replacement and retaining Foster as producer in the hopes of replicating the success of its predecessor. Certainly, Chicago 18 is within the vein of 17, although Foster's production here relies too heavily on synthesized sounds and echoes. The power ballad "Will You Still Love Me?" works in this context, though, and Scheff performs his role as the stand-in Cetera ably, slipping into the allotted spaces in Foster's production and never standing out from the wall of sound. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide