Continuing my look at the albums of 2005…
I had to include this album in my 2005 rundown because it is one of the most critically-acclaimed releases of that year. However, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois (or Come On Feel the Illinoise!) is a record I’ve just never been able to embrace.
I want to like it. It’s an ambitious indie folk opus by an artist who has a knack for the kind of melancholy music I’m usually drawn to. But it’s way too artsy-fartsy for my taste.
It took 21 years for Chicago to make the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. First eligible in 1995, the Windy City rock band went un-nominated until 2016, when they finally made it in.
Formed in 1967, the band has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, with scores of gold, platinum and multi-platinum records to their credit. At one point in the mid-70s, Chicago had seven albums on the Billboard 200 at the same time. Whatever you think of their music, these guys were huge.
Today’s SOTD is the closing track on Rufus Wainwright’s 2007 live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. As this performance was a song-for-song recreation of Judy Garland’s original 1961 Judy at Carnegie Hall show, it was the final track for her as well.
‘Chicago,’ sometimes subtitled ‘That Toddlin’ Town’ is the less famous of two Chicago songs first popularized by Frank Sinatra. The other is, of course, ‘My Kind of Town.’
Continuing my personal ranking of the 25 movie musicals deemed essential by the American Film Institute…
#7. Funny Girl – 1968
(#16 on the AFI list)
I’ve already written about how much I loved Barbra Streisand’s performance in this great film.
#6. Chicago – 2002
(#12 on the AFI list)
The most recent movie on the AFI list, director Rob Marshall’s Chicago is credited with sparking a revival of the musical genre in the 2000s, after it had been largely relegated to the world of animation.
Meet Me In Montauk 