⭐ Official Review [Album]: "PASSAGE" (SP-4703)

How Would You Rate This Album?

  • ***** (BEST)

    Votes: 10 9.3%

  • ****

    Votes: 55 50.9%

  • ***

    Votes: 35 32.4%

  • **

    Votes: 7 6.5%

  • *

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Total voters
    108
One other thing I've noticed, and I'm not sure whether you could see it on the photo's, but the mono side appears to be shorter than the stereo side, in terms of the grooves. There's more blank space at the center of the record than on the stereo side.
 
tomswift2002 said:
One other thing I've noticed, and I'm not sure whether you could see it on the photo's, but the mono side appears to be shorter than the stereo side, in terms of the grooves. There's more blank space at the center of the record than on the stereo side.
Click to expand...
My guess would be that even though both sides are saying it's the edited version, the stereo side is probably the longer version.

Tom can you read any numbers etched into the run off on the mono side?
 
I can make out "JAM" in the run off, followed by what appears to be either an "I" or a partially inscribed "F" or "E". Depending on how I tilt the record, one way it looks just like "I", but if I tilt it away from me, it looks like it might have part of the top and middle arm in the letters "F" and "E", but the arms are not long enough to distinguish which letter. When the record is tilted towards me it looks like "JAME", but tilted away it can look like either "JAMI" or "JAMF".
 
Ok thanks Tom. I'm not familiar with Canadian pressings, I thought it might have been etched with the words mono or stereo in the run off.

Do you have a turntable to see it the stereo side is the longer vs the mono side being the true edit?
 
The run off on the mono side also has 12335-0-19.

The stereo side has A&M123355-M6 (or the last 5 might be a S) followed by what looks like an isosociles triangle on its side with the numbers 103141, and farther along, there appears to be a hand-written "m" with an extra tail.
 
A short history of Steve Eaton
By Amy Atkins
August 2011
Excerpts:
"Decades ago local musician Steve Eaton lived on a hill outside of Pocatello in a home he jokingly refers to as
"the house that The Carpenters built." He would drive to gigs in a Mercedes 350SL.
The 64-year-old Idaho native is now a fixture for the wealthy blue-hair/business-suit set.
Almost every Thursday night, you can find Eaton behind the piano, performing jazz and blues in the bar inside Chandlers Steakhouse.
Eaton's lifestyle is far more modest than it was back in the '70s. But the royalties he receives from songs he has written, including
"All You Get From Love Is A Love Song," which The Carpenters recorded in the late '70s, means that he can afford to "work"
one or two nights per week.
Those royalty checks, although smaller than in years past, are also reminders that Eaton has had--and continues to have--a fruitful career.
------
Back in the day, my songs by The Carpenters and Art Garfunkel were on the radio," Eaton said.
"By the time I moved back to Boise, no one remembered me.
"I was embarrassed to say, 'This is a song I wrote for The Carpenters.'
It made me feel like a geezer, so I reinvented myself and became a jazz piano player."

More:
Taking a (Fat) Chance »
 
GaryAlan said:
A short history of Steve Eaton
By Amy Atkins
August 2011
Excerpts:
"Decades ago local musician Steve Eaton lived on a hill outside of Pocatello in a home he jokingly refers to as
"the house that The Carpenters built." He would drive to gigs in a Mercedes 350SL.
The 64-year-old Idaho native is now a fixture for the wealthy blue-hair/business-suit set.
Almost every Thursday night, you can find Eaton behind the piano, performing jazz and blues in the bar inside Chandlers Steakhouse.
Eaton's lifestyle is far more modest than it was back in the '70s. But the royalties he receives from songs he has written, including
"All You Get From Love Is A Love Song," which The Carpenters recorded in the late '70s, means that he can afford to "work"
one or two nights per week.
Those royalty checks, although smaller than in years past, are also reminders that Eaton has had--and continues to have--a fruitful career.
------
Back in the day, my songs by The Carpenters and Art Garfunkel were on the radio," Eaton said.
"By the time I moved back to Boise, no one remembered me.
"I was embarrassed to say, 'This is a song I wrote for The Carpenters.'
It made me feel like a geezer, so I reinvented myself and became a jazz piano player."

More:
Taking a (Fat) Chance »
Click to expand...

He's got nothing to be ashamed of. All You Get From Love Is A Love Song is a terrific song! It gets played a LOT at my place. It's a shame it didn't chart higher or receive a luscious 5.1 channel surround sound SACD treatment.
 
All You Get From Love Is A Love Song was the first Carpenters song that I really fell in love with. I remember lying in bed, as a young kid, the night that my parent's got our first CD player, and the first two albums they bought on CD were Carpenters The Singles 1974-1978 & Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (Volume 1). They didn't play Dylan's album that night, but they played the Carpenters, and even though I was suppose to be a sleep, when the CD got to Love Song, I knew that I had to re-hear that track again the next day. I think the bongo's and the sliding-comb sound really appealed to me. And as I recall, the next day my brother and sister and I listened to the CD while playing Super Mario 3 on the NES (we had turned the TV's sound all the way down).
 
Eyewire said:
He's got nothing to be ashamed of. All You Get From Love Is A Love Song is a terrific song! It gets played a LOT at my place. It's a shame it didn't chart higher or receive a luscious 5.1 channel surround sound SACD treatment.
Click to expand...
Because I love AYGFLIALS so much I started listening to other Steve Eaton stuff and I really love it. I even a copy of Hey, Mr. Dreamer (which I think other Carpenters songs could potentially have been mined from, including the title track). He's a very talented singer/songwriter.

tomswift2002 said:
All You Get From Love Is A Love Song was the first Carpenters song that I really fell in love with. I remember lying in bed, as a young kid, the night that my parent's got our first CD player, and the first two albums they bought on CD were Carpenters The Singles 1974-1978 & Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (Volume 1). They didn't play Dylan's album that night, but they played the Carpenters, and even though I was suppose to be a sleep, when the CD got to Love Song, I knew that I had to re-hear that track again the next day. I think the bongo's and the sliding-comb sound really appealed to me. And as I recall, the next day my brother and sister and I listened to the CD while playing Super Mario 3 on the NES (we had turned the TV's sound all the way down).
Click to expand...

"All You Get From Love Is A Love Song" is my favorite post-Horizon Carpenters song. Of all their singles it's the one I think that deserved a better fate (it's better than a #35 song). It's upbeat, with a great arrangement by RC (better than the original - which I how judge Carpenters songs - Richard improved Eaton's version), great vocals by KC and a happy sound. The promo video for is also my favorite Carpenters video. It almost has the opposite of the "Beechwood" effect. Just as thoughts about the Carpenters' version"Beechwood 4-5789" can be accompanied by negative feelings because of the cheesy "Happy Days" video of it, complete with an ill-looking KC, for me the "All You Get From Love Is A Love Song" video is the opposite, it looks like a jam session at A&M, everybody's grooving and into the music (even Richard) and Karen looks healthy and upbeat (physically at least). It makes you feel good about the song as a whole.

The question that I've had about Passage is that despite his personal issues Richard obviously put time into giving new arrangements to AYGFLIALS and other album cuts, but when it came to "Man Smart, Women Smarter" (which I consider the worst ever released Carpenter song), it is almost an exact match of Richard Palmer's version from 1976. I expect better from RC than that. It's like there was no attempt to improve in any way a song they probably shouldn't have recorded to begin with (it sounds like a "Goofus" level joke song - not helped by the fact that Karen even did a cheesy duet version of it with Suzanne Somers in the "Space Encounters" TV special - the same special they did an even cheesier "Goofus" bit in).

I have to believe even if it was just an outtake from a previous album (like the bluesy torch song "Ordinary Fool" they had sitting in the vault) - that RC had a better song somewhere to put on Passage rather than a derivative arrangement of "Man Smart, Women Smarter".
 
Both Man Smart, Women Smarter and B'Wana She No Home I've found to be very odd choices, since for me, a person who grew up in the 90's, both songs feel as though they are from different era's than even the rest of the Carpenters repertoire. "Man Smart" feels like it could've been from the 1950's and was some joke that, today almost sounds sexist, while "B'Wana" sounds like a slavery song from the 1870's, or sometime when slavery was legal in the US.
 
Revisiting the various threads pertaining to Singles gives me pause to ponder:
Passage is probably my third favorite Carpenters' Album (excluding Christmas),
and, this due to the peculiar fact that only a few of the songs on this album were
truly intended to be released as a "Single";
risks were taken--not always totally successful,
but, still "...the most satisfying one they've yet made...." (quoting Tom Nolan's Liner Notes).
Even so,
Two Sides
ranks in my Top Ten of all Carpenters' songs--and, it should
have been released as a Single.
 
I was just looking at the 2006 Japanese Box set on Grant-Guerrero's site (which I'm surprised hasn't been updated with the new box set), and I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that in Japan the B-Side to All You Get From Love Is A Love Song was Eve from the Offering/Ticket To Ride album. I guess the Japanese didn't want to have I Have You as the B-Side to 2 direct single releases (according to Wikipedia, I Have You was the B-Side to Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, which was the last single from A Kind Of Hush in Japan). But why did they go so far back at that time?
 
This album has got to be in my top 3 favorite Carpenters albums! Two Sides, B'wanna, Sweet, Sweet Smile, and All You Get From Love Is A Love Song are my favorites off the album. Also, I absolutely love the album cover! Definitely my favorite album cover of theirs!
 
Funny in the past few days i had the album cover put in a special LP presentation frame and put it on my wall - i love that cover so much.
Can't work out how to post a pic on here though
 
Does the single/shortened version of Calling Occupants have the radio dial changing and the "all hit radio!" dialogue? I'm trying to get those two without the Peluso dialogue, and the word "radio" fades out after he's begun talking.
 
Mary Beth said:
Does the single/shortened version of Calling Occupants have the radio dial changing and the "all hit radio!" dialogue? I'm trying to get those two without the Peluso dialogue, and the word "radio" fades out after he's begun talking.
Click to expand...

The single version has a short piano intro and straight into Karen's first line. No DJ in sight :)
 
newvillefan said:
The single version has a short piano intro and straight into Karen's first line. No DJ in sight :)
Click to expand...

Oh so that would mean that there is no dial turning :/ I'm trying to make it sound fluid (for a project I'm working on) but Tony's voice comes in before K&R's little jingle ends.
 
Mary Beth said:
Oh so that would mean that there is no dial turning :/ I'm trying to make it sound fluid (for a project I'm working on) but Tony's voice comes in before K&R's little jingle ends.
Click to expand...

I can give you what you're looking for, just so long as you don't use it to promote something that your selling that might violate copyright, as we've had a lot of that here in the forum.

Please check your PM inbox :)
 
I just listened to the disc today, if I could change my rating, I'd give it four stars instead of three.
 
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