⭐ Official Review [Single]: 25. "SWEET, SWEET SMILE"/"I HAVE YOU" (2008-S)

Which side is your favorite?

  • Side A: "Sweet, Sweet Smile"

    Votes: 40 81.6%
  • Side B: "I Have You"

    Votes: 9 18.4%

  • Total voters
    49
Druscilla Penny, Remember When Loving Took All Night, Little Girl Blue, Remind Me to Tell You, Because We Are in Love- these are all ones I regularly skip if I'm short on time. When you think about it, it's really very little in such a big (but not big enough) catalogue.
 
Druscilla Penny, Remember When Loving Took All Night, Little Girl Blue, Remind Me to Tell You, Because We Are in Love- these are all ones I regularly skip if I'm short on time. When you think about it, it's really very little in such a big (but not big enough) catalogue.

Druscilla Penny is one I listen to so seldom that when I do hear it, it's a delight all over again. I love it for its charm and because I'm transported back to the time I first discovered Carpenters. The tan album, A Song For You and Now And Then were the three vinyl LPs she had in her collection so when I professed my new found love for the duo, she happily loaned them to me. I was hooked forever more!
 
Druscilla Penny is one I listen to so seldom that when I do hear it, it's a delight all over again. I love it for its charm and because I'm transported back to the time I first discovered Carpenters. The tan album, A Song For You and Now And Then were the three vinyl LPs she had in her collection so when I professed my new found love for the duo, she happily loaned them to me. I was hooked forever more!

I just realised I didn't explain myself properly in the above post - I was referring to my next door neighbour :laugh:
 
I know I chose side B a few responses back, but I just love this particular video of Karen performing Sweet, Sweet Smile. Despite being 3 years into her battle with AN, to me she looks absolutely beautiful in this. I love the way she smiles at Richard during the bridge. She definitely had "IT"!

 
I’m surprised at how many fans dislike this song. I love it!! I think it’s a facet into the Passage of music travel that is highlighted with the Passage album. Karen uses vocal techniques rarely heard on other songs and it highlights her vocal dexterity and adds to the different styles she can sing. The song is fun and the tune is catchy. I can understand if the orchestration is over the top, but we are all fans of the eloquent style of Richards arrangements after 9 years out, and it is well played by excellent musicians. To me, it’s a top song! I think it surprised everyone of its chart placement on the Country charts. I think the album this is taken is one of their best and I have always been surprised of it’s low sales figures. I still think Hush pushed them out of radio play and at least they were being played on Country stations for this song, for Counrty stations are sometimes bigger than Rock stations. This album was too stylistic for easy (except for Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, but it was not a single in the US) and Rock/Pop FM had already quit playing them and AM stations were on the way out. The most publicity for this album that I read was for Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, so most of this album was never heard outside of a fan base, which is a shame. I love this song and I love this album. It is Made In America that I was most disappointed in with the tacky orchestration and poor quality in songs that were chosen. Hush is even better than it. And to think that there were songs better on that fell to the chopping block. At least this one was chosen and it made some noise on the charts.
 
On the positive side, although the LP apparently sold poorly, I did hear
All You Get From Love
Calling Occupants

and,
Sweet, Sweet Smile
being played on the radio quite a bit back in the day.....

whereas, I heard
I Need To Be In Love
exactly ONE time on the radio....ever.....

I am unwavering....Passage... is a great Album !
 
What kills it for me is the arrangement. That tack piano sound and the cheesy violin just ruin it.
Yet, it's this very arrangement, honky-tonk piano, fiddle, etc., which made this recording so successful on the country chart (No. 8 on Billboard hot country singles chart).
 
Am surprised that Richard did not play keyboards on Sweet Sweet Smile and a few others on the Passage LP. He must have been really struggling with his addiction in 1977 and decided not to get help until 2 years later. Met the Carpenters in the summer of 1976 and Richard was very pleasant and appeared to be healthy.
 
I was just listening to both the 1980's A&M Master Plus version of Passage and the 1998 Passage: Remastered Classics HDCD version in Windows Media Player 12, and on the HDCD in 16 bit this song is really muffled through headphones. Even when I switched to my 24-bit sound card Sweet, Sweet Smile while not as bad, it was still muffled sounding, especially compared to the 80 A&M Master Plus version 16 bit version. For some reason the 1998 mastering was really bad on this song (and the whole disc, as I was jumping to the other songs and it sounded like I had cotton batting in my ears with the headphones on top).
 
I was just listening to both the 1980's A&M Master Plus version of Passage and the 1998 Passage: Remastered Classics HDCD version in Windows Media Player 12, and on the HDCD in 16 bit this song is really muffled through headphones. Even when I switched to my 24-bit sound card Sweet, Sweet Smile while not as bad, it was still muffled sounding, especially compared to the 80 A&M Master Plus version 16 bit version. For some reason the 1998 mastering was really bad on this song (and the whole disc, as I was jumping to the other songs and it sounded like I had cotton batting in my ears with the headphones on top).

Agreed. Passage likely only sounds good as an LP. I haven’t pulled mine out in a while so I can’t recall but I seem to remember thinking that at the time. Every CD I’ve heard isn’t as good as it should be given the tech that would have been available at that point. This album should sound fantastic and, at least on CD, it doesn’t.

Ed
 
^^The cassette tape--for those who have it and can play it--- sounds better than the cd, also.
I am listening to the cassette as I type....
 
^^The cassette tape--for those who have it and can play it--- sounds better than the cd, also.
I am listening to the cassette as I type....
Considering the amount of talk recently about 8-tracks, I wonder how it sounds on 8-track, or reel-to-reel?
 
On the positive side, although the LP apparently sold poorly, I did hear
All You Get From Love
Calling Occupants

and,
Sweet, Sweet Smile
being played on the radio quite a bit back in the day.....

whereas, I heard
I Need To Be In Love
exactly ONE time on the radio....ever.....

I am unwavering....Passage... is a great Album !
I had the same experience listening to the radio during those years, hearing the singles from Passage more often than INTBIL. I heard the single A Kind of Hush a good deal, then not much else from that album. I think that O.K. Chorale decision helped nail that coffin shut!
 
Let us quote a few lines from the Billboard article of 1978 (Page 54, Paul Grein, April 1st):
"Carpenters Cracking Country Charts Without Nashville Push"
----

"We've assembled a mailing and tracking list of 500 country stations.
And, less than 5% of them said flat -out there's no way they'd play the
Carpenters' record. That's much better than we'd hoped for."
-----
Harold Childs, A&M's vice-president in charge of promotion, also assembled a four-song Carpenters EP
dubbed "Country Collection" and had 2,000 copies pressed and shipped to country stations and regional
promotion men for the label."
---
Another irony with the record (Sweet,Sweet Smile) is that it built a strong base of familiarity
prior to its release as a single in part because many adult contemporary stations played it instead of the
Carpenters last single, the galactic rocker "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft," which some of
them deemed inappropriate for heavy MOR play."
---
"Richard Carpenter admits to being surprised by the country success of "Sweet Sweet Smile," claiming
he neither gave it its playful fiddle- and -banjo arrangement nor picked it as the single with the
thought of its crossing over."
---
As a result of this hit, Carpenter is considering making an all- country album as the duo's 10th LP for
A &M. It should be released this summer; followed by a double -disk Christmas album toward the end of
the year."
---
Article available on the American Radio And History Site in its entirety.
 
Love everything about SSS!

Does anyone have the Country Collection? If so, can you show us what it looks like?
 
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