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The liner notes from The Essential Collection says that Christmas Portrait was released in Oct 13, 1978....the ad above ran in Dec 23, 1978 so in just 2 months Christmas Portrait turned Gold status? How many albums and cassette tapes had to be sold in order to go Gold? I didn't realize it went Gold that quickly, that must have been a huge accomplishment back in 1978 for an artist with a Christmas album, huh?
Not necessarily-an album can sell very well without ever charting.The Billboard Top 200 chart is a reflection of how many copies an album is selling that particular week-it's not an indicator of how many copies an album will sell two months,six months or twelve months down the road.I think that was just a bit of marketing hype by A&M. If it had gone gold so quickly, it would surely have charted a lot higher than its initial peak of #145.
Not necessarily-an album can sell very well without ever charting.The Billboard Top 200 chart is a reflection of how many copies an album is selling that particular week-it's not an indicator of how many copies an album will sell two months,six months or twelve months down the road.
In the case of CP,the album peaked at #145-meaning there were 144 albums that were moving more copies(than CP) that particular week.
For the record-Love Songs peaked at #106 in 1998,yet sold 500,000 copies within five months of release.
Christmas Portrait hit the 500,000 mark in the fall of 1980. A&M misrepresented the term "gold" in that promo ad.But,the album still did very well upon it's release.And,considering that (back then) Christmas albums only sold three months out of the year(early October-late December)-it reached gold status pretty quickly.Yet, as GaryAlan's previous post states, A&M's own publication contradicts the idea that it had already gone gold in 1978. By the time of the ad posted earlier in December 1978, it had only been on release for a couple of months and probably hadn't started shifting many copies until nearer Christmas. While the Christmas season is normally the best sale-wise, this would have to be very very good indeed in 1978 to ensure that the #145 album was shifting enough to go gold whilst only spending a few weeks on the chart.
Re Love Songs, that had nearly six months to build up Gold sales and it did so by spending most of that time on the Billboard 200 hovering in the mid-section. By contrast, Christmas Portrait didn't spend anything like that long on the charts (unsurprising, given that it was a seasonal album), so wouldn't have posted such consistent sales over a reasonable time period and thus couldn't have achieved that level of sales in its initial chart run in 1978/79.
Which was (and is) not exactly an uncommon practice. I remember many a Billboard promo ad touting "the newest gold single" or "the latest #1 album" when said single or album was still en route to stores!A&M misrepresented the term "gold" in that promo ad.
Richard Carpenter,
Anthology Liner Notes (Japan, Red Cover Version):
The Choral Parts were misplaced during the recording of Christmas Portrait and were discovered months later.
The Voices were recorded in 1984 during the making of 'An Old Fashioned Christmas'."
What I find interesting--and, I trust someone will double-check my arithmetic--
is the Original Vinyl Christmas Portrait has 40.02 Minutes of Karen Carpenter vocals.
The Special Edition CD, "...70 continuous minutes of the season's best with Karen and Richard.."
has 41.08 Minutes of Karen Carpenter Vocals.
Interesting.....?
Was there an original Christmas Portrait CD that had the version without the choir besides the West German pressing?
They did a wonderful job transferring the 2-channel over. Ave Maria is the only track that had some warbling at around 1:48. This was an error in mastering I believe that was fixed during the final remix with choir in '84.My latest acquisition, courtesy of eBay. I know it's not Christmas yet but I've already played it from beginning to end twice. Great album!
The albums are structured almost identically with an a cappella leading into an uplifting song "Deck The Halls"/"Happy Holidays" and continuing with the overture. So if one is dull and uninspired, the other is as well. But neither are. Richard's voice is beautiful. Both have exceptional intros. Both albums are at the top of my favorite Christmas albums of all-time.