Toolman
Simple Man, Simple Dream
Last week Rolling Stone listed The Christmas Collection at #16 on its "Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time". Below is their capsule review (complete with factual error). The more things change...
The Carpenters moved a million copies of 1978's Christmas Portrait. It's been doing pitched battle with Anne Murray's Christmas Album for suburban white-bread dominance in "Honey, a new Volvo! You shouldn't have!" Land ever since. The expanded, two-disc 1984 version is a veritable schmaltz blizzard of vaguely terrifying good cheer. It's almost like Christmas was invented for Karen Carpenter to sing about; her milk-bath vocals fit "Sleigh Ride" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" like a reindeer sweater. Richard's soft-rock production and gloppy orchestral arrangements aren't bad either – a kind of warmed-over, sunken-den-Seventies version of Forties merriment.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-25-greatest-christmas-albums-of-all-time-20121219/carpenters-christmas-collection-1984-19691231#ixzz2Fmv6BXx9
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The Carpenters moved a million copies of 1978's Christmas Portrait. It's been doing pitched battle with Anne Murray's Christmas Album for suburban white-bread dominance in "Honey, a new Volvo! You shouldn't have!" Land ever since. The expanded, two-disc 1984 version is a veritable schmaltz blizzard of vaguely terrifying good cheer. It's almost like Christmas was invented for Karen Carpenter to sing about; her milk-bath vocals fit "Sleigh Ride" and "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" like a reindeer sweater. Richard's soft-rock production and gloppy orchestral arrangements aren't bad either – a kind of warmed-over, sunken-den-Seventies version of Forties merriment.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-25-greatest-christmas-albums-of-all-time-20121219/carpenters-christmas-collection-1984-19691231#ixzz2Fmv6BXx9
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook