⭐ Official Review [Album]: "LOVELINES" (SP-3931)

HOW WOULD YOU RATE THIS ALBUM?

  • ***** (BEST)

    Votes: 18 20.0%
  • ****

    Votes: 48 53.3%
  • ***

    Votes: 15 16.7%
  • **

    Votes: 8 8.9%
  • *

    Votes: 1 1.1%

  • Total voters
    90
I noticed something of interest today:
I have two "Memories" 45- Singles of...
Honolulu City Lights....
One of the Singles has #AM-8667-A,
The other has this #75021-8667-7, in addition to a barcode.
Well, I was unaware that different promo pressings existed; so perhaps this song was
better received--or, anticipated to be received--than we are aware of ?

It's a great little record !
 
I noticed something of interest today:
I have two "Memories" 45- Singles of...
Honolulu City Lights....
One of the Singles has #AM-8667-A,
The other has this #75021-8667-7, in addition to a barcode.
Well, I was unaware that different promo pressings existed; so perhaps this song was
better received--or, anticipated to be received--than we are aware of ?

It's a great little record !

The AM number is the earlier of the two pressings. I believe the 75021 version came after the sale to PolyGram when the catalog numbering scheme changed to the 75021 prefix.
 
I had meant to bring this up long ago, somehow forgot (old age ?),
but, in the song
If I Had You,
there is one lyric, three times Karen sings,
"...again..."
where I think her voice is far too high--and, too loud--....
and, in fact, the note seems strangely out of place.

Otherwise, I love the song !
(The ending, especially).

I had always wondered about Richard's comments regarding the song:
"...is my favorite from the solo album..."

I would love to know the details as to , Why it is his favorite of all the solo songs ?
 
I had no idea about "Honolulu City Lights" at all. It was totally off my radar at that point in time, and I didn't follow the trades regularly. So it was quite a surprise when I did stumble across it.

I've detailed it before, but while my wife was negotiating a new car deal, I was wandering around the showroom and came upon a car-radio options display that was tuned to a beautiful music station out of Allentown, PA. Suddenly this voice cut through the noise on the floor - it was unmistakably Karen - but the song was totally unfamiliar. This was long before the days of Soundhound and music identifier apps on cellphones of course, so the only way one could identify a song was to hope a DJ would tell you what it was. This being a beautiful-music station, there weren't really DJs, just announcers reading liners and doing weather once in awhile. So it was lost to the ether. While it played I tried to hone in on the lyrics, but all I got on the chorus was "Each time on a lulu city lights..." which made zero sense to me, so I couldn't get a sense of the songs title.

Later that week, I asked my program director (in Philly radio) if he'd heard of any new Carpenters record, but he shrugged it off as if he hadn't. By then we were still soft rock but way past the stage of playing any Carpenters songs at all, so it wouldn't be out of the question if he never got a copy. Like I said, it was playing on a slushy beautiful music station.

So it wasn't for a few more years until I would be reunited with the song as a track on LOVELINES. I hadn't gotten any Japanese imports yet, so ANTHOLOGY wasn't on my radar either.

Harry


at 16, I received my first telephone, and unfortunately, my first telephone bill. my first call was to pizza hut, and my second call was to a&m. from dallas, I generally made monthly calls for new information. I continued these calls long after Karen's passing. one call let me know that HONOLULU CITY LIGHTS would soon be released. I asked the staffer where the song came from, and tired of being under the " 3rd degree' I was finally told, ' I don't know, it just turned up ". on one of my calls, made during the MADE IN AMERICA timeframe, after another 3rd degree, exhausted, the staffer said, " let me transfer you to their office ". I was blindsided when his exaulted highness, RICHARD CARPENTER and I had a short, but for me a lifetime highlight, conversation.
 
Hard to believe, but today its been 28 years since Lovelines was released. The best song off the album for Halloween has got to be The Uninvited Guest! Karen's reading just sends chills down your spine, especially when she sings "a ghost is there".
 
Hard to believe, but today its been 28 years since Lovelines was released. The best song off the album for Halloween has got to be The Uninvited Guest! Karen's reading just sends chills down your spine, especially when she sings "a ghost is there".

Great anniversary reminder, can’t believe it’s been 28 years though!

That line on The Uninvited Guest is actually

Her ghost is there/
I can see the outline of her shadow traced in the air/
Sometimes I see her bending over your shoulder/
I think “what lies has she told you?”/
And I see a smile light up your face/
You liked what she said”

Beautiful song and haunting, offbeat lyrics. It’s one of those unusual, difficult-to-sing tracks that no one else would dare try and cover, because they couldn’t.

 
To me this is a very, very solid album. I never get tired of it and really must say I probably have listened to it the most. It reminds me of fall time. Listening now.
 
To me this is a very, very solid album. I never get tired of it and really must say I probably have listened to it the most. It reminds me of fall time. Listening now.

It's probably my second favourite album after A Song For You and definitely the one I listen to most. It reminds me of autumn days, leaves falling from the trees (evoked in track #2) and also of winter evenings tucked up in a nice warm house while it's freezing cold outside.

Just sublime in every respect.
 
I went to Barnes & Noble to special order the CD but it has been 11 days since. The song "Slow Dance" is my favorite by the late Karen over Kristy McNichol's version. Matt Clark Sanford, MI
 
Not to be a party pooper, but can we at least give a little credit to Richard for tweaking "If I Had You" into the mix that became a middling hit on the Adult Contemporary charts? Most here have agreed that Richard's adjustments to the song made it more favorable than the Phil Ramone mix.

Harry
I liked Richard's remix of "If I Had You" way better than the original mix. There is a different lead vocal plus I like the ending.
“LOVELINES”

lovelines.jpg

Catalogue Number: A&M SP-3931
Date of Release: 10/31/89
Chart Position: U.K.: #73
Album Singles: "Honolulu City Lights"/"I Just Fall In Love Again"
"If I Had You"
Medium: Vinyl/Cassette/CD

Track Listing:

1.) Lovelines 4:28 (Temperton)
2.) Where Do I Go From Here? 4:24 (McGee)
3.) The Uninvited Guest 4:24 (Kaye/Tweel)
4.) If We Try 3:42 (Temperton)
5.) When I Fall In Love 3:08 (Heyman/Young)
6.) Kiss Me The Way You Did Last Night 4:03 (Lawley/Dorn)
7.) Remember When Lovin' Took All Night 3:47 (Farrar/Leikin)
8.) You're The One 4:13 (Ferguson)
9.) Honolulu City Lights 3:19 (Beamer)
10.) Slow Dance 3:35 (Margo)
11.) If I Had You 3:57 (Dorff /Harju/Herbstritt)
12.) Little Girl Blue 3:24 (Rodgers/Hart)


Album Credits:

Produced by Richard Carpenter, except #1, 4, 7 and 11: Produced by Phil Ramone
Tracks #1, 4, 7 & 11:
Recorded at A&R Recording Studios, New York, New York; A&M Recording Studios, Hollywood California; and Kendun Recorders, Burbank, California
Engineered by: Jim Boyer, Glenn Berger, James Gutherie and Ray Gerhardt
Assistants: Bradshaw Leigh, Chaz Clifton, Dave Iveland, Ralph Osborne, Randy Pipes and David Crowther
Selections #4 & 6 remixed by Phil Ramone & Jim Boyer in M.E.S.M.
Selections #1 & 11 remixed by Robert De La Garza; Assistant: Greg Goldman
Tracks #2, 5, 8 & 12:
Recorded and mixed at A&M Recording Studios
Engineered by: Ray Gerhardt and Roger Young; Assistant: Dave Iveland
Mixing engineer: Robert De La Garza; Assistant: Greg Goldman
Tracks #3, 6, 9 & 10:
Recorded and mixed at A&M Recording Studios
Tracks 3 & 6 engineered by Roger Young; Assistants: Dave Iveland and Robert De La Garza
Tracks 9 & 10 engineered by Roger Young; Mixing engineer: Robert De La Garza; Assistant: Greg Goldman
Mastered by Mike Reese at A&M Mastering Studios
Art direction: Chuck Beeson; Design: Peter Grant; Photography: Norman Seeff (front cover), Ed Caraeff (back cover)
Special "thanks": Greg Goldman, Roger Young, Robert De La Garza, Ray Gerhardt, Ron Gorow, Peter Knight, Karen Ichiuji, Roberta Kleine, Nancy Sorkow, David Alley and Billy Jones / Ardel Travel


Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation
P.O. Box 1368
Downey, CA 90240
I had to keep taking the vinyl back to get another copy, it kept skipping, every copy. So I finally got a vinyl copy from Columbia House Record Club. The cover was laminated, but both sides have same label, side one! But the record itself was right and it plays through beautifully. Am glad it's getting the 180 gram re-issue, I will have to replace the Columbia House version as I have played it a lot!
 
I liked Richard's remix of "If I Had You" way better than the original mix. There is a different lead vocal plus I like the ending.

Couldn't agree more. Richard got that one right. I never liked the whispered vocal in the first verse and Richard was right to choose another. I also, like you, must prefer his ending. The one on her album just has a boring fade-out. Richard constructs a "cold stop" that's far more appropriate.

Ed
 
I still have my original CD copy of Lovelines and to me it's still a wonderfully Timeless album it has a very Autumn like aire to it and I think it's one of the Essential Carpenters Albums
 
I'm sure you've heard it, and I can't remember which version of If I Had You it appears on. . .maybe the first remixed version on Lovelines, but as we go into the final call and response section of "You are. .etc" I'm sure, buried in the mix, is Karen talking. It sounds like she says something like "Wait a minute" after one line of "If I had you back in my life...". Presumably it was her direction to a musician that the mic caught and in subsequent versions it's been removed. . . .but has anyone else heard what I'm talking about.

Best

Neil
 
I don't know...something about that cold stop on "If I Had You" feels kind of gimmicky to me...too much echo or something. It was certainly a good idea for the "Lovelines" sequencing, where the fade would have made for a pretty awkward transition in to "Little Girl Blue". As far as giving Rich credit for its later singles chart performance, the original version was never released as a single, so there's no way to know how it would have performed compared to the remix. I'm really more impressed by and grateful for what he did with the Temperton songs.
 
I'm sure you've heard it, and I can't remember which version of If I Had You it appears on. . .maybe the first remixed version on Lovelines, but as we go into the final call and response section of "You are. .etc" I'm sure, buried in the mix, is Karen talking. It sounds like she says something like "Wait a minute" after one line of "If I had you back in my life...". Presumably it was her direction to a musician that the mic caught and in subsequent versions it's been removed. . . .but has anyone else heard what I'm talking about.

Best

Neil
Neil, I just listened to all versions with headphones and I don't hear this at all.
 
I'm sure you've heard it, and I can't remember which version of If I Had You it appears on. . .maybe the first remixed version on Lovelines, but as we go into the final call and response section of "You are. .etc" I'm sure, buried in the mix, is Karen talking. It sounds like she says something like "Wait a minute" after one line of "If I had you back in my life...". Presumably it was her direction to a musician that the mic caught and in subsequent versions it's been removed. . . .but has anyone else heard what I'm talking about.

I've always noticed that as well, a little bit of dialogue from Karen but not sure if it was left in accidentally or on purpose.
 
Hopefully I will be picking up the "Lovelines" CD at Barnes & Noble in Midland, Michigan on Friday, November 17!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI
 
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