I always liked the Carpenters. They were amazing at cranking out Top 40’s singles. Karen Carpenter was a fantastic drummer. Much like Phil Collins, singing took over her career. Her brother Richard wrote some of the songs and was a very good pianist.
I grew frustrated trying to find the original songs on cd. Richard is a notorious perfectionist and he’s constantly remixed the songs before issuing them on cd. In some cases he’s completely changed parts of the orchestration. IMHO most of the Carpenters “Best of” hit collections are crap (there’s several out there under various names). I threw two in the trash. I’ve been getting by listening to my Carpenters records.
Thank goodness a collection of the untouched, original songs was finally released. Carpenters The Ultimate Collection sounds exactly like the records I bought 30 years ago. Without the pops and clicks.
Looking back thirty years later. How well do you think their music holds up? Is Karen really one of the best female 70’s vocalists? What’s your favorite Carpenters song? Did you ever see them live?
Karen was slowly moving away from the pop sound. She recorded a solo album before her death. It was finally released about 12 years ago. Had she lived, I think Karen’s later career would have progressed into a much richer, mature sound.
I like their music well enough. By that I mean, I like a lot of their songs, but I have never bought any of their albums and probably never will.
Not to long ago there was some ad for Carpenters music and it showed Karen singing, and I was depressed at how skinny she was because of her anorexia.
Anyway, I don’t mind their “pop” sound. Although I tend to think of them more as easy listening. As for a favorite, I don’t know. The first song to pop into my mind was “We’ve Only Just Begun”, but of course the one song everybody associate’s with them, “Close to You” is pretty good too.
Richard’s perfectionism is one of the reasons their recordings are considered some of the best recorded music ever produced. Young people learning recording technology are encouraged to listen critically to their work to hear how it should be done.
I’ve thought for years that Richard Carpenter would be a fabulous guest of the week on American Idol. His skill at picking and arranging songs would really provide a learning experience for the contestants.
I heard a Christmas song by them on the radio last week. Richard should have stuck with arranging and left all the singing to Karen. He was not her in vocal league.
Loved the Carpenters. Karen was an awesome musician. Perhaps if we had known more about anorexia at the time Karen would have found the tools to survive.
Actually the ironic thing was after finally going to the hospital because of her anorexia she gained weight too rapidly which stressed out her, already stressed from the anorexia, heart.
Anorexia usually strikes teen girls. Karen was a normal weight at the beginning of her career. I don’t think she had any eating problems as a teen. She overreacted after seeing herself on tv. It’s true the camera does make people lot a few pounds bigger. Karen got into this death spiral of constant diets, purging, and wrecked her health. Messing with thyroid medicine to increase her metabolism was just nuts.
She stopped playing drums a few years before she died. I think it was because she didn’t have the stamina to do it anymore. Drumming is a really hard, aerobic workout.
I wasn’t bashing Richard. Lucas & Spielberg had the same problem of messing with Stars Wars nearly two decades after it was released.
Fans fell in love with the original Carpenter’s recordings. When you suddenly add a string section, or take away something from a song, the older fans notice. Especially when these songs are classic top ten recordings. I don’t mind changes when an artist covers a beloved hit.
<shrug> I’m glad the original recordings are available in the link I mentioned in the OP.
The Anthology’s and other hit packages released in the past decade or so are the ones Richard messed with. IIRC the liner notes explain what was changed. I can’t check for sure because my copy went in the trash over 6 years ago. I still occasionally play the original records. I have the first five they released.
Of all the female vocalists whose voices I love (Carly Simon, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand), Karen’s voice is my favorite. Their songs were good; catchy, listenable, easy to sing along with or have on as background noise. But her voice, good heavens! That girl could sing.
A box set was released way back in 1992. Awesome, jaw dropping 4 disk set with 67 songs. Includes several unreleased songs. Basically, they cleaned out the basement. There’s some real gems on this one.
It’s called From the Top, sadly it’s out of print now. However, Amazon has 15 used copies for $15 each. I’m sure this occasionally comes up on Ebay too. If you can, try to get a used copy that includes the book that originally came in the box.
The truly amazing thing is that she considered herself “a drummer who sings,” not a singer who plays drums. I don’t know much about her drumming talent, but it just couldn’t be greater than her exceptional singing talent.
IMHO most of the Carpenters “Best of” hit collections are crap (there’s several out there under various names). I threw two in the trash. I’ve been getting by listening to my Carpenters records.
There’s some real gems on this one.
