The album made it to number three on the Billboard 200,[4] and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on June 21, 1976, a week after its release.

[19] Originally written at the same time as Chicago VII's "Wishing You Were Here",[20] "If You Leave Me Now" was one of the last to be completed and, according to reports, was very nearly left off the final product.

Different band singers tried "You Are On My Mind," but Pankow felt they were not nailing it the way he heard it in his head as the song's composer, so producer Guercio said, "You sing it," and that effort landed on the final album.

[23] Cash Box said of it that "[t]he same mellow vocal blend is here, along with a velvety texture on the horns, but the rhythm section has speeded into a quick samba, decorated with colorful percussion.

[25] Designed by Art Director of Columbia/CBS Records, John Berg, the album art depicts a partially unwrapped chocolate bar with the Chicago logo on it, resembling a Hershey's chocolate bar as it was packaged at the time,[26] and winning for Berg a Grammy Award for Best Album Package.

"It is an album of pop perfection ..."[29] In 2016 Jeff Giles wrote, 'Chicago X may have arrived on June 14, 1976 with a little more spark and overall energy than you might expect from a group that had been on the road for a decade, but it lacked the compositional depth and musical muscle they'd shown earlier in their career.

It was essentially a pop album — not a bad one, outside the somewhat lyrically dunderheaded "Skin Tight" and "You Get It Up," but one that couldn't help but feel a little light when held up against the double-LP sets of years past.