I agree. k.d. lang, one of the other voices of the century, tends to put out either lame albums or masterpieces, depending on the producer.
I admit to being predisposed to not care for music like the Carpenters’ (mainstream pop/easy listening): I was born in 1959, and, along with everyone else, joked about how dull and uninteresting they were. While I’m not proud of this, it was understandable: the record companies wanted people who might buy their records to think of them as these clean-cut, mainstream kids, in contrast to the face of pop music in the late 60s. With so many bands growing their hair and waving their freak flags, it probably was a good marketing move to tap into the ‘silent majority’ market.
KC’s death as the first celebrity to die of this weird affliction (I had never before heard of anorexia) tore the cover off the carefully cultivated image. It also made understandable the streak of melancholy in her singing that had been hidden in plain sight.
I have never seen a performer go from ‘total dork’ to being appreciated in such a short time. Richard was a competent songwriter, but the centerpiece of their act was Karen’s voice. IMO, she had one of the two or three greatest female voices of the second half of the 20th century.
After Karen Carpenter’s death, “Rainy Days and Mondays” never sounded the same.
So help me, please don’t shoot me, anyone, but I heard this joke and found it to be pretty humorous.
Where Rock Stars Go When They Die
When Jerry Garcia died, he woke up and found himself on a stage on which a number of instruments were set up. A door offstage opened and in walked Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, John Lennon, Otis Redding and Buddy Holly.
Each musician picked up his favorite instrument and began tuning up.
Jerry walked up to Jimi and said, “Man, so this is what heaven is like.”
Jimi looked at him and said, “Heaven? You think this is heaven?”
At that moment, Karen Carpenter walked in, took her seat behind the drums, and called out, “Okay guys, ‘Close to You.’ One, two, three, four!”
dnr
To which Lennon commented, “At least she’s better than Ringo.”
I know. It’s a cheap (and inaccurate) shot. But I just couldn’t resist.
Karen Carpenter had the most wonderful voice I’ve ever heard. It was haunting and melancholy, and when I was in high school, I would hole up in my room for hours at a time, listening to Carpenters albums over and over. I clearly remember feeling both sad and comforted by the sound of her voice, and this was when she was very much alive. So I don’t think I’m projecting nostalgia through the fuzzy mists of time.
I believe that there was something very special and beautiful about her voice, and I think it would have had the same effect on me even if she were singing in a foreign language. Listening to some of the Carpenters’ songs is still a pleasure. The problem, I think, is that people are comparing their music to art. Are pop songs (or any music) supposed to raise our consciousness, make us think deep thoughts or change the world?
Maybe I’m overthinking this, but stay with me for a minute: we think happiness caused by an appreciation of the majesty of nature or the miracle of life is “better” than the pleasure junkies get when they shoot up. Maybe the way we’ve evolved has made us respond particularly strongly to just the right combination of characteristics of sound, and by an accident of chance, Karen Carpenters voice is the aural equivalent of crack cocaine?
I don’t fault her for not evolving into whatever ‘real’ singers are supposed to evolve into; she (and her brother, who I believe overlaid as many as 36 of her voice tracks on one of their songs) left us some recordings that are really enjoyable listening experiences.
So, I’ve revealed that I’m either insane or just going to great lengths to justify a guilty pleasure, but if you haven’t heard any of their songs, you should really give them a listen. It will probably not change your life, but I’m fairly sure you’ll be impressed at how beautiful a voice can be.
Wow. Twenty-five years after her death, Karen Carpenter is still mourned and celebrated. That’s really something.
As to whether or not Karen Carpenter’s voice raised my consciousness, I’ll admit that you’re way over my head now. But a few years ago I heard her sing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” for the first time. By the end of the song there were tears running down my face. Would I have had the same reaction if she were still alive? Was I responding to the beauty of her voice in that song combined with sadness I still feel at her death? Yeah, probably. I get kind of emotional around Christmas time, anyway. Regardless, it was Karen Carpenter’s voice that moved me to tears. Nobody else, dead or alive, has ever done that.
I always thought Gloria Estefan sounded a little like Karen Carpenter.
…and I’m afraid no amount of drumming or sweet voice makes up for “Calling Occupants…”
Hey, whats wrong with declaring “World Contact Day.” 
Yesterday, I was folding laundry and was surprised to hear Karen’s voice singing from the TV. I poked my head out and saw that one of the taste-impaired people who lives in my house was watching Starsky and Hutch. I figured they’d play a snippet of the song as a joke (“Huh, huh, huh, the Carpenters were so lame!”) but they used the whole thing, and I thought, “Maybe everyone is susceptible to that voice.” It made me think of that scene in Tommy Boy where Spade and Farley are fighting over the radio until they hit a Carpenters song. 
I always thought of that quality in her voice as kindness. Just hearing it made me feel like she was a really terrific person, someone you’d want to know and emulate.
I was going to argue for her good taste until **Mr. Dibble ** brought up Calling Occupants. “oh”. :o
Technically, she didn’t die of the anorexia, but rather from improper recovery from it: she’d been trying to eat, which put a strain on her weakend heart, but more damaging was the medication she took to increase her ability to metabolize the higher consumption.
Basically, she ate too much after fasting too long: not the first celebrity to die from this, if you count the Buddha.
But she did bring anorexia into the national consciousness (much as Rock Hudson’s death a year later raised AIDS awareness), although the majority of deaths from anorexia are not over-achieving young women, but socially isolated old men who stop eating after they retire and become widowers.
Even though she was seriously uncool at the time (this was about 1972 and I was still in my hippie stage), I saw Karen and the rest of the band perform live. I can’t say whether she was skinny or not; she hid at the back of the stage behind her drum kit the whole time. But oh, what a glorious voice! Today, I don’t care if she was uncool to me when she was alive; I just love to listen to her sing.
I also saw the Mamas and the Papas and heard Cass Elliott live, and honestly, for me it’s a tossup whose voice I love more. They both had a magical quality that was so emotional. Their early deaths made even more people realize this, but it was there when they were on stage, too.
Karen’s voice can be addictive alright.
I was a teenybopper when the Carpenters were at their height, and loved some of their songs, but it wasn’t my kind of music as an whole so I never became a fan fan. I did own at least one album (must have been The Singles: 1969-1973) and liked most of the songs. I also had a special fondness for “Bless the Beasts and Children” just because I loved that book and movie and the song reminded me of them whenever I’d hear it.
Several weeks ago I went looking for the Todd Haynes “film” Superstar, which I’d never seen, and started watching it on YouTube. Halfway though I clicked on what I thought was the next installment and suddenly it was live action. Huh, I didn’t know that part of it was live action (thought I) but I kept on watching it. I was 3 more installments in before I remembered that I was supposed to be watching a Todd Haynes Barbie doll movie. Didn’t matter, because by then I was totally engrossed in this cheap and (probably) cheezy TV movie about Karen. It’s something I never would have watched at the time it was on, but that night, I was in Karen mode, and it was about Karen, and that’s what made it interesting.
I followed up the TV movie with dozens of other YouTube videos. If something was too painful to watch, as most of them were (either because of her shocking thinness or the horrible clothes and hairstyles) I just closed my eyes and listened. I spent many many hours in Karen mode that day, and you know, I never did get back to watch the rest of Superstar. One of these days I’ll see the whole thing.
The whole of “Superstar” isn’t available on Youtube. You can download it all here, though.
I think some people confuse them with The Captain and Tenille.
“Muskrat Love”, LOL!
Small story. C&Ts “Love will Keep us Together” was the first song I ever recorded on cassette. I was about 12 years old with a GE cassette tape recorder. What you had to do was press in a red button while simultaneously pressing down the record button and hold the recorder in front of the radio. I still have some of those ancient mix tapes, they still play if a bit muffled after 35 years.
Hey! I liked “Calling Occupants”. If you’ve ever been driving through the desert all night and had it randomly come up on the radio, you would too. Made the hairs raise up on the back of my neck, it did. It was that voice of hers. It had a real ethereal quality.
Follow Slithy Tove’s link and watch the rest of it. It’s a very moving film.
When I was learning audio engineering back in the late 70s, Carpenters albums were the gold standard of studio production, especially recording the female voice. The first time I saw Cedar noise reduction demonstrated at a National Association of Broadcasters show, the demo material was “Rainy Days and Mondays” - it could remove the hiss without damaging Karen’s lovely voice.
Carpenters tribute band name?
d & r
Karen Carpenter is my husband’s favorite femle vocalist ever.