Karen Carpenter Unreleased tracks

[Harry]

Here's a little exercise I don't think we've done.

There are nine common Karen Carpenter unreleased tracks. 99% of us have probably committed these to a CD-R or a playlist somewhere in the last decade and a half. In what order did you / do you / put them? Did you sequence them specially? What reasoning did you use?

I will tell you that mine are still sequenced in the order in which I received them.

Harry

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I have mine in the exact order I received them as if there was some kind of reverent in keeping in that order I got them. However I did add 1 to the end which was the finished version of Jimmy Mack.

 

[Song4uman]

I haven't listened to mine in a while....I have them on a CD-R....will have to dig that out and see. Mine may also be in the order in which I received them.
Jonathan

 

[K.C. Jr]

I never downloaded them, so when I do any listening it's just whatever order I find on YouTube. There's one video I usually take (forget the name, but it had something to do with "better quality", I think).
Sometimes, if it's just a track or two, I start with my personal favorite "Something's Missing". Usually I end with "Jimmy Mack", only due to the fact that it sounds rather energetic and keeps my mood up.

 

[Kyle Thomas]

Great question! When I put the tracks on a CD, I decided to make it "flow" as much as I could imagine a new album of Karen's outtakes sounding. Here's the order I chose...

1. Don't Try to Win Me Back Again
2. Midnight
3. Something's Missing
4. Jimmy Mack
5. Love Makin' Love to You
6. I Do It For Your Love
7. It's Really You
8. Truly You
9. Keep My Lovelight Burning

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Great first time post Kyle and welcome to the forum.

I like that order I may have to use that as sometimes a whole different order of tracks makes for a different listening experience.

 

[Toolman]

Same order as I originally downloaded them. There are really only four that I listen to very often.

 

[Eyewire]

I have them in my playlist in the order which is listed in Wikipedia:

Karen Carpenter (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

It never occurred to me to play them in any other order. I will try Kyle's track list and see how that goes!

 

[ullalume]

It was a rare treat when I first got a hold of these . . .maybe 15 years ago. Truth be told the only 2 I care for or Something's Missing and I Do it For Your Love, and to a lesser extent Love Makin' Love To You, so those are the only ones that made it onto my device.

Great topic though.

 

[Jamesj75]

Here is what I've done, in part, based on pairing songs with title links (tracks 3, 4, and 5; tracks 6 and 7) or lyric links (tracks 3 and 4):

1. Midnight
2. Don’t Try to Win Me Back Again
3. Keep My Lovelight Burning
4. Love Making Love to You
5. I Do It for Your Love
6. Truly You
7. It’s Really You
8. Jimmy Mack
9. Something’s Missing

Bonus Track

• Coming Through the Rye/Good Vibrations (w/John Denver)

The sound quality of the bonus track is terrible; and I think that, when John comes in on "Good Vibrations" ("Good, good, good, good vibrations..."), he's singing in a lower key that doesn't flow right. Yet I like that Karen and John performed together. In general, it's bittersweet to listen to Karen's unreleased solo tracks. Still, I'm grateful to have them as well as all that Richard has officially released since Karen's passing.

 

[CraigGA]

This is a hard question since only 3 of them are worthy to be released. Love Makin Love To You, Something's Missing, and Jimmy Mack. The others are too high and show that she was not at her best when they were sung and don't come close to the awesome characteristics of her voice. For these 3 mentioned I could listen in any order. Since the days of iTunes and streaming I pick and choose as my mood permits and I am glad we are not in a restrictive order anymore. It's kinda like tv shows don't need viewed at original broadcast time to be enjoyed. We can watch them on demand!

 

[Chris Mills]

I must be easily pleased as I could listen to any of the unreleased solo tracks in any order. Whoever made them available I would like to say a big thank you, I'm sure it really annoyed certain individuals, but I believe that they deserved a listen by those us interested enough by the Karen Carpenter / Phil Ramone project.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Does anyone know who leaked the tracks? I always thought they were released on purpose by someone who must have been in Ramones camp or who had worked on the project. I could be way off base too. I remember they surfaced when I was new to the net and remember them first being discussed on Ran's old Carpenters forum discussion board.

 

[A&M Retro]

I got my copy when they first surfaced in 2000. I'd have to dig up the original cassette tape to see the proper order. 'Don't Try To Win Me Back Again' was definitely the first one, followed by 'Love Makin' Love To You'.

I personally like all of them. It's great to have something different. The only track that really grates on my nerves is 'Jimmy Mack'. I like the original Motown recording, but the instrumental backing on Karen's outtake sounds like a bad karaoke version to me.

I do still firmly believe that 'Love Makin' Love To You' would have been a surefire hit had it been released at the time. It has a great hook, Karen sounds awesome, and the production is top-notch.

 

[newvillefan]

I do still firmly believe that 'Love Makin' Love To You' would have been a surefire hit had it been released at the time. It has a great hook, Karen sounds awesome, and the production is top-notch.

I'm with you on that - this song should definitely have made the final cut and to my ears was easily the most commercial sounding track of all the songs Karen recorded. I'd even rate it ahead of If I Had You as single material, so to me it's even stranger that it wasn't on the finished album. I guess the title alone was just a step too far, maybe even for Karen but it's alongside the aforementioned song as one of my two favourite cuts.

 

[ullalume]

I have to admit that "Love Making Love To You" just doesn't ring true to me. As one interviewer once said, Karen was like "an emissary from a private world". Her voice was meant to sing haunting poetry with strange detachment, like she wants to believe in a lyric but simply knows better. Hearing her sing about "keeping it up" and "getting it while its hot" make me a little embarrassed. Don't get me wrong, stuff in the Carpenters cannon can do the same thing, like the choir in Make Believe.

It's all very well for artists to grow and stretch, but frankly there's a hell of a lot of talent out there and you need to realize where your strengths lie. It's the difference between having your art connect completely, and it merely registering.

I realize I'm drifting here, and think it was great that Karen did songs like this for her own sense of identity. . .but as a piece of work. . .I'm not sure.

That said, it is catchy and commercial which is probably why it's on my mp3 player.

Laters

Neil

 

[Harry]

Does anyone know who leaked the tracks? I always thought they were released on purpose by someone who must have been in Ramones camp or who had worked on the project. I could be way off base too. I remember they surfaced when I was new to the net and remember them first being discussed on Ran's old Carpenters forum discussion board.

At the time, everyone referred to these as "goofuses" files, so it was someone on some list with a user name with goofus in it. I have no idea who it was in reality.

This is the order in which those tracks were "released" to us back then on Ran's board. The first three occurred in one bunch, then the rest dribbled out over another week or so and this is how those files still reside in my Windows Media player

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Harry, I'm a bit concerned about that list...Jimmy Mack has 4 stars

 

[Harry]

Yes, I wondered if anyone would notice that. There are actually two sets of these files on my computer. The one above it is the actual downloaded mp3 files. The set pictured above are WAV files derived from those mp3's (so that no MORE info would be lost) that I've worked on to improve the sound. "Love Making Love To You" required a bit of phase adjustment, and I think I called up "Jimmy Mack" more times than all the others, hence its higher star rating.

Harry

 

[Murray]

At the time, everyone referred to these as "goofuses" files, so it was someone on some list with a user name with goofus in it. I have no idea who it was in reality.

The files were first uploaded to the internet by a member of the "Furman Park" email list, who had a website called "The House of Goofus". I know the guys real name, but he's not the person who actually "liberated" the tracks from the vault. Several of us on that list were passing them around by mail for months before "Goofus" got them and put them online. I got them on CD-R from a New York-based record producer of my acquaintance in 1999 (no, it wasn't Ramone - this guy worked for Atlantic records). He got them from one of his friends in the industry, but I wasn't about to ask who it was.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I actually remember that Goofus site, it was an actual webpage with the name Goofus in it as I remember or the title at the top. I don't remember who headed up that site but I actually have a Carpenters CDR disc that I made back then (when Ran's forum was all the rage) and on that CDR I have about 6 or 8 Carpenters tracks labeled "Goofus Edit" (edits that I'm assuming were done from this person) which I believe was from the same site. Wow time flies!!

EDIT
Ha posted too soon, Murray's right it was called House of Goofus.
What amazed me back then was these leaked tracks were not some rough hard to hear or scratchy uncovered tracks but they were actually very listenable, unfinished but still in great quality.

 

[K.C. Jr]

I have to admit that "Love Making Love To You" just doesn't ring true to me. As one interviewer once said, Karen was like "an emissary from a private world". Her voice was meant to sing haunting poetry with strange detachment, like she wants to believe in a lyric but simply knows better. Hearing her sing about "keeping it up" and "getting it while its hot" make me a little embarrassed. Don't get me wrong, stuff in the Carpenters cannon can do the same thing, like the choir in Make Believe.

It's all very well for artists to grow and stretch, but frankly there's a hell of a lot of talent out there and you need to realize where your strengths lie. It's the difference between having your art connect completely, and it merely registering.

I realize I'm drifting here, and think it was great that Karen did songs like this for her own sense of identity. . .but as a piece of work. . .I'm not sure.

That said, it is catchy and commercial which is probably why it's on my mp3 player.

Laters

Neil

Wonderfully put, ullalume. I always thought that while the performance was great and her voice amazing, the song "Love Makin' Love to You" really didn't suit Karen at all. She deserved to have something better to show her maturity, something less blatant that could really make you think and then go, "Wow!"

Yes, it may have been her choice, but please hear me out. With a voice like hers, she just didn't need a sexual song to get a hit. Karen could sing anything and make it sound amazing and mature (hello, "Sing"!), but she didn't have to. The purity of her previous work was something that drew me in and made me listen. In my opinion, even the more "adult" songs in the Carpenters catalog had class. The classiness (e.g. "Touch Me..") is what I find missing from some (but not all) of the solo songs.

To me, maturity is not about how shocking you can be or how blatant lyrics are. Maturity is making an impact upon someone's emotions so perfectly, while seeming effortless. It's about creating something that lasts a lifetime, that will be savored for the strength, beauty, and joy. Karen had this ability through her voice and used it well (especially surrounded by Richard's talent for writing/arranging). I wish that there were more singers today who could do that, but sadly, she was one of a kind. I would personally like to remember her for songs like "We've Only Just Begun", "Superstar", and "I Need to be in Love" than a selection from her solo album material.

(This was meant no offense to those with other opinions or tastes)

 

[Chris Mills]

I think there was some kind of determination to get those tracks out regardless of the consequences, which turned out to be something of a revelation, how could Karen decide that her voice was able to convey desires that Carpenters would never portray, it had to be wholesome, or it wouldn't sell.

 

[newvillefan]

The solo version of Jimmy Mack is just horrible, absolute dross that Karen should never have tried. It doesn't suit her voice and isn't even in her key. God knows why Phil Ramone even let her try it out. He was all for taking her away from the 60s remakes like Postman and Beechwood.

 

[Mark-T]

Wonderfully put, ullalume. I always thought that while the performance was great and her voice amazing, the song "Love Makin' Love to You" really didn't suit Karen at all. She deserved to have something better to show her maturity, something less blatant that could really make you think and then go, "Wow!"

Yes, it may have been her choice, but please hear me out. With a voice like hers, she just didn't need a sexual song to get a hit. Karen could sing anything and make it sound amazing and mature (hello, "Sing"!), but she didn't have to. The purity of her previous work was something that drew me in and made me listen. In my opinion, even the more "adult" songs in the Carpenters catalog had class. The classiness (e.g. "Touch Me..") is what I find missing from some (but not all) of the solo songs.

To me, maturity is not about how shocking you can be or how blatant lyrics are. Maturity is making an impact upon someone's emotions so perfectly, while seeming effortless. It's about creating something that lasts a lifetime, that will be savored for the strength, beauty, and joy. Karen had this ability through her voice and used it well (especially surrounded by Richard's talent for writing/arranging). I wish that there were more singers today who could do that, but sadly, she was one of a kind. I would personally like to remember her for songs like "We've Only Just Begun", "Superstar", and "I Need to be in Love" than a selection from her solo album material.

(This was meant no offense to those with other opinions or tastes)

I like the stanzas but not the chorus of LMLTY. Had the chorus been different, I could see a hit without the shock value.