The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning is a double greatest hits album by the American band Chicago, their twenty-seventh album overall. Released in 2002, this collection marked the beginning of a long-term partnership with Rhino Records which, between 2002 and 2005, would go on to remaster and re-release Chicago's 1969–1980 Columbia Records catalogue.
The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning is notable for combining almost all of Chicago's greatest successes from their entire recording career up to that point, excerpting material from all of their regular studio albums with the exception of 1979's Chicago 13 and 1980's Chicago XIV. Generally considered the definitive Chicago retrospective, The Very Best of: Only the Beginning has proven a lucrative seller, reaching #38 in the US — where it went double platinum, and providing Chicago with their highest UK position since 1970, peaking at #11. Several songs appear in an edited form, presumably to allow the band to include more songs on the CD. Most notable are "I'm a Man", which is missing the Danny Seraphine drum solo, and "Dialogue (Part I & II)", which is presented in its shortened single version.