People were pretty hard on this record. I was ten when it came out and at 44, I still like it. My favorite tune is one that I am not sure anyone else really thought to like, "Oh Thank You Great Spirit". Terry Kath dies in his sleep and notices himself wandering the room looking back at his body. When his spirit "departs", the music transforms from a dream like sequence to a hard heavy "I am a run away freight train" pace. It's just a long, long guitar jam that gets faster and faster until it goes out cold in the end, as in "I just left your world- goodbye". It will make any modern day metal head or 70's prog rocker take notice, even Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) too I bet. Hopefully, Terry is still feeling that way after his accident too.

This album rocks! Chicago can perform many different styles of music. Chicago 7 was a jazz album. On 8, they went for a hard rock sound on most of the tracks. This album contains some great guitar work by the late Terry Kath. The only Chicago album that rocks harder is the first one, the Chicago Transit Authority album. Kath got to cut loose in a big way on that first album. Chicago 8 was a single LP. It's biggest hit was "Old Days". The best of the album tracks include "Anyway You Want", "Hideway", "Ain't it Blue", and "Long Time No See". The music is hard driving and not as commercial as some of their other efforts. Overall, Chicago 8 should be considered in the top 5 of the Chicago albums.

Luis Mejia (son) - When a person recalls Chicago efforts around 1975, the main characteristics among those works is TIRED. In barely 6 years, Chicago had already released 8 different albums, and their excessively full agenda with live performances, they needed a good rest! Even after such a delicate work as Chicago II, its notorious they were still recovering from that production, as even the same album was composed between flying in airplanes, motels, etc, and this was mainly notorious on Chicago III, where it was suspected that the band's talent was already filled. In contrast, Chicago VIII was released after their personal jazz experience in Chicago VII, where they were able to express their joy of making such material throughout their vivid performance and potential, while Chicago VII is not a complete failure, though one of their worst, where their emotion for this new material is barely weak. Chicago VIII is one of their earliest works on a closer territory into their later more consistent pop/adult contemporary genre, it still possesses a truly recognizeable style, where its real talent is reflected on specific moments among the songs. Not as virtuos, creative or inspirational as their past album, although it keeps a different kind of magic, still an experimental one, but you can be sure that this album is much better than the later foolish, funky, disco atmosphere seen in Hot Streets. Anyway, the album keeps its spectatives into a standard popcraft, not their best songcraft among their pop/soft rock beautiful style, while still possessing a comfortable cohersion.Other aspects like very slight jazzy traces left by their previous album, and some rocker features are present. It was also their last album to go on #1 on the Billboard charts, but its notorious that its place on the Billboards was their least enduring, lasting 23 weeks. Chicago VII still have a couple of famous songs in the album, remarking the most famous in the album,Old Days, a nostalgic, uncompromising soft song that went as a hit, peaking at #5, it is the only song in the album which is truly recognized as a very famous song, and certainly the best song in the album, while Harry Truman went also as a minor hit, but its silly tunes, geeky style and ridiculous melodies makes it one of their worst. The album even starts weak with the R&B opening Anyway You Want, its foolish style and Cetera's fatidical emotion takes off a great deal of talent from the song. Oddly, the album quickly gets in line with Brand New Love Affair - Part I And II, and Never Being In Love Before, both fantastic and beautiful songs, Brand New Love Affair is a very slight adult contempo effort, it also resulted in another minor hit, while being a beautiful but uncompromising, orchestrated and powerful song with a strong romantic flavour, and Never Been In Love Before is a Beach Boys' influenced song, while being a poppy, mellow love song, although much lighter. The later Hideway takes its main riff from Mountain's "Mississippi Queen", and its a more hard rocking song, although not a very talented or acclaimed composition, while Till We Meet Again is a brief but consistent love song with a fantastic acoustic guitar performance. Oh, Thank You Great Spirit is Terry Kath's much personnal tribute to Jimi Hendrix, who was actually an early Chicago fan and specially from Kath, the song is a hard rocking, 7 minutes long song with great potential, it even contains a snippet of Hendrix's "Purple Haze", while Long Time No See and Ain't It Blue? are both Lamm's compositions, Long Time No See stays as one of the best and most underrated songs in the album, its a fantastic, powerful composition with the best instrumental performance in the album, plus being the only song containing Parazaider woodwind duties, and Ain't It Blue is a memorable, cathcy song in which Kath and Cetera alternate vocals, is alike with the early Chicago Transit Authority song Dialogue (Part 1 And 2). The Bonus Tracks are some jazzy, previously unissued instrumentals. All in all, this is not Chicago's worst album, although one of their worst comparing it to other masterpieces, it doesn't assemble a very well stablished popcraft, although an enjoyable and quite recognizeable album.

Excellent album, this album was recorded when the band was with its original members Featuring Terry Kathy(Fantastic guitar player) who taught Jimi Hendrex things he did not know about the guitar. The song on this album called Oh thank you great spirit was in memory of Jim Hendrex written by Terry Kathy and perfomed with a lot of heart. The other tracks were well written and featured exceptional brass as only Chicago could deliver. If you are a Chicago fan and have not purchased this album for your collection then you must purchase it now. Chicago at its best!!!!

Eric J Mazzi

I love these bonus tracks. Chicago VIII had always seemed to be missing something to me. After the epic Chicago VII, this effort was, to put it mildly, underwhelming. I disagree that it had turned the corner to too much "pop". Anyway You Want and Thank You Great Spirit are worthy rockers. And a lot of people seem not to get Harry Truman. It's a tongue-in-cheek retro song, a la Your Mother Should Know by the Beatles.

The production throughout is seamless - nearly perfect crafting. The problem is that it all just seems, well, flat. Chicago is a rock-jazz band. You must not follow VII with straight middle of the road rock-pop.

But the three bonus tunes fix that once and for all. And I love Satin Doll. Get over it, folks, and just enjoy it! With the bonuses, Chicago VIII can finally almost attain the heights of VII.

A word, too about the absence of horns. It always surprised me that the purists didn't get that Hideaway and TYGS are a look back to the classic power quartet songs that everybody loves so much from CTA thru Carnegie Hall. It definitely is Chicago!

Laudir is now a full member of the band. They continue to create amid the altitudes of the Rockies, and here, in the middle of their second era, the boys are doing nothing if not having fun. Don't be so serious, everybody! Drop in Chicago VIII, sit back, relax, and smile!

I recommend this album for all music lovers.