The Ides Of March - Common Bond (Reissue) (1971/2006)

The Ides of March's second album was a more wide-ranging yet less consistent affair than their debut LP. On some of the tracks, they were obviously sticking to the Blood, Sweat & Tears-like format that had yielded their 1970 smash hit, "Vehicle." Jim Peterik has even admitted that "Superman," initially released as the follow-up single to "Vehicle" almost a year before Common Bond came out, was an attempt to rewrite "Vehicle," as per Warner Bros.' wishes (though they managed to quote the riff to Jimi Hendrix's arrangement of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" in that track as well). Yet the album also contained the accurate Crosby, Stills & Nash imitation "L.A. Goodbye," which although it missed the Top 40 was a huge hit in Chicago. Bombastic MOR pop balladeering also got a nod with "Hymn for Her," CSN were again aped in "We Are Pillows," and the eleven-minute epic "Tie-Dye Princess" was the band's most progressive endeavor, kicking off with the timelessly dated couplet "Hail hail to the tie-dye princess, hail hail to the tie-dye queen!" All of the tracks from the LP have been reissued on the Rhino Handmade compilation Friendly Strangers: The Warner Bros. Recordings, which also has everything from their debut album (1970's Vehicle) and a few non-LP singles from the period.