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B’Wana should’ve been the A side. Or they should’ve finished Honolulu or “Boat To Sail” and left IBY in the vault.Lol. Or that it’s one of their poorest releases. It should never made its way onto Made In America. Only Goofus was a worse choice.
As someone who is born and raised in Hawaii, I have to strongly agree with this. I would never admit this in public, but the Beamers' version (the original) never touched me in the same way as the Carpenters' version. Every time I got homesick, I'd play "Honolulu City Lights" (the Carpenters' version) and I'd feel comforted. (Again, this is blasphemous and I would never admit this to other people who live here in Hawaii ahaha!)B’Wana should’ve been the A side. Or they should’ve finished Honolulu or “Boat To Sail” and left IBY in the vault.
While I agree with you that ‘Space Encounters’ would have been a great marketing tool for a new single, ‘Little Girl Blue’ just wouldn’t have worked (especially in 1978). It’s beautifully performed, as always, but it’s not commercial enough. I think it would have suffered a worse fate than ‘I Believe You’.I'm also thinking "Little Girl Blue" could have been released as an A-side in '78, and Space Encounters could have been used to promote that single...
I'm also thinking "Little Girl Blue" could have been released as an A-side in '78, and Space Encounters could have been used to promote that single...
The BGVs that she is referring to were meant to sit differently in the mix than the "waah"s were in "Close to You," which explains why they sound vastly different—for starters.I was listening to the 1978 radio (FM-100) interview with Karen Carpenter where she states
how much she likes I Believe You: "...it had the same type of warmth that Close To You did with all the big, fat vocals and stuff..." (55s).
Now, I have a question. As far as my ears discern,
Why do the background vocals on I Believe You sound much less filled-in' than what you hear on Close To You ?
That is, I do not hear those "big, fat vocals..." that Karen hears on I Believe You !
The background vocals have never sounded right to me.
In countries where “Calling Occupants” was a hit, something that followed that up well could have solidified renewed interest in K & R, or a new fan base. “Sweet, Sweet Smile” was entirely the wrong way to follow that song and the momentum was completely lost. They also didn’t have strong, interesting new recordings to follow “Occupants”, hence a long wait before the completely different “Sweet, Sweet Smile”, which would have totally dissipated the interest of those captured by “Occupants” - then a change of style again with “I Believe You”.Couldn't help but notice that Richard remains convinced that the poor chart/sales performance of this single,
I Believe You, was a result of "the image thing."
In that I must disagree.
As I have described previously, back in 1978 (when I first heard the song on the radio, perhaps twice)
my first instinct was that this song was the wrong way to go--and, nowhere it went.
All these years later--while I enjoy the song as an album cut--I still believe it was a misstep,
having absolutely nothing to do with "the image thing."