⭐ Official Review [Single]: 27. "TOUCH ME WHEN WE'RE DANCING"/"BECAUSE WE ARE IN LOVE" (2344-S)

Which side is your favorite?

  • Side A: "Touch Me When We're Dancing"

    Votes: 49 89.1%
  • Side B: "Because We Are In Love"

    Votes: 6 10.9%

  • Total voters
    55

I'd be prepared to put money on MTV not considering playing Carpenters videos even for a second back in 1981. They were totally the opposite of what MTV thought its demographic wanted at the time. They would have been more of a match for VH1's style, although that of course didn't appear until several years later.
 
I'm the 4th in the series that voted for "Because We Are In Love." In a low-keyed way, it is as over the top as "Calling Occupants" was! "Touch Me When We're Dancing" is a very ordinary. Well produced, well sung. But it doesn't have the WOW factor of past hits that captured my full listening attention.
 
July 25, 1981, Cashbox Magazine:
THE JUKE BOX PROGRAMMER
TOP NEW POP SINGLES
1. LADY (YOU BRING ME UP) COMMODORES
2. TOUCH ME WHEN WE'RE DANCING CARPENTERS
3. (THERE'S) NO GETTIN' OVER ME RONNIE MILSAP

July 18, 1981,Cashbox, Album Breakouts (page 17):
MADE IN AMERICA, THE CARPENTERS A&M SP -1723.
Breaking out of:
Pickwick - National, Camelot -
National, Rose Records - Chicago,
Great American Music - Minneapolis,
Record Theater - Cincinnati,
National Record Mart - Pittsburgh,
Tape City - New Orleans,
Tower - Sacramento,
Alta - Phoenix,
Disc 'O' Mat - New York.
MERCHANDISING AIDS: Album Flats, 24x36 Poster, Singles Browser.
 


I'll never gasp the concept of this on-location video: Karen touring the area (in that hideous yellow jumper she wore at every chance in this era) while Richard gazes endlessly into the air, looking as though he's posing for a constipation commercial. It's sad and hilarious at once.
 
The video almost reinforces for me that while they were moving forward...both of them don’t seem like they are in agreement. I know the video isn’t suppose to represent that but it’s just what I get out of it. I think this video was for Brazil only but still not a great comeback video. Itchie Ramone was with Karen during this shoot as well. I have a photo of them standing together.
 
The video almost reinforces for me that while they were moving forward...both of them don’t seem like they are in agreement. I know the video isn’t suppose to represent that but it’s just what I get out of it. I think this video was for Brazil only but still not a great comeback video. Itchie Ramone was with Karen during this shoot as well. I have a photo of them standing together.

But the truth is they weren't really moving forward. They didn't know how to and really didn't want to. They spent the majority of the late 70s and early 80s lamenting the loss of their popularity and trying to understand why they fell out of favor. As I've said before some of their best work came from these years but at the time it was commercially unappealing because they didn't update their sound, or in a way that clicked again with the public. It holds up now but then it was a different story. Also the trust rift Karen had with him was likely not going to go away for a long time so there's a disconnect between the two that's felt in these appearances and the music of MIA.
 


I'll never gasp the concept of this on-location video: Karen touring the area (in that hideous yellow jumper she wore at every chance in this era) while Richard gazes endlessly into the air, looking as though he's posing for a constipation commercial. It's sad and hilarious at once.

I think of that jumper as her karate outfit. And I was just thinking of how it would’ve been funny to see a digital version of her in like a 90’s street fighter type video game fighting guys hand-to-hand while Beechwood plays I
as the soundtrack!
 

I'll never gasp the concept of this on-location video: ........Richard gazes endlessly into the air, looking as though he's posing for a constipation commercial. It's sad and hilarious at once.


Awe, man! :)

To me Richard always looks like this part of the job (media) bores him to death, and he has no problem showing how much he dislikes it, and it gets captured on video time and time again. I don't think he was meant for this half of the job. Karen (almost) always comes across better.
 
I think of that jumper as her karate outfit. And I was just thinking of how it would’ve been funny to see a digital version of her in like a 90’s street fighter type video game fighting guys hand-to-hand while Beechwood plays I
as the soundtrack!

Omg that's exactly what she looks like here.
 
Awe, man! :)

To me Richard always looks like this part of the job (media) bores him to death, and he has no problem showing how much he dislikes it, and it gets captured on video time and time again. I don't think he was meant for this half of the job. Karen (almost) always comes across better.

But when you're promoting a record that you desperately need to be a comeback you don't allow yourself to look like that on camera, no matter how uncharismatic you are.
 
But when you're promoting a record that you desperately need to be a comeback you don't allow yourself to look like that on camera, no matter how uncharismatic you are.

I agree, but at least he wasn't "faking" it up, or like you said earlier, maybe he was constipated? :winkgrin:
 
I think this video was for Brazil only but still not a great comeback video.

I never really thought this was intended to be an official video. Wasn’t it shot for inclusion on a Brazil TV show as an on location appearance? There were plenty of similar promotional appearances done on UK TV in the eighties. Pebble Mill used to feature them all the time, with artists miming their latest single outside the studio or walking around the grounds. It just makes it more interesting than watching them standing in a studio in front of a camera.

Either way, it was a poor location choice given the wind on the day. Karen struggles to keep her hair from covering her face for much of it and they barely feature together in the same shot all the way through it. They might as well have just filmed it with Karen on her own.
 
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Karen should never have been allowed to travel to Brazil...her condition is peril.

Goodness knows how she felt during this whole promotional tour. New York, London, Paris, Saarbrucken (I think), then Rio de Janeiro. Five countries literally crisscrossing half the world, back to back. She must have been exhausted given her physical shape. If Jerry Weintraub cancelled their trip to Japan in 1975 because he didn’t think she’d survive it, what on Earth possessed them to allow this trip in 1981?
 
I think K would have been exhausted wherever she was, whatever she was doing, at this point. And I don’t think anyone could have stopped her from travelling. As Herb Alpert said, (something like), ‘This was not a woman who you could push around’. She was the one in control of her decisions and actions, up to a point, just as she was in control of what was happening to her body, up to a point.

This video was made just for the TV show. It would have been planned just by the creative people for that particular show. For all we know, they planned it at the last minute and didn’t put much thought into it. I actually like this clip a lot. It’s good to see K & R out and about, in a different location from usual. I also like the effects of the wind. This video beats the official video for ‘Touch Me When We’re Dancing’, hands-down, with that ridiculous ball-room dancing routine on top of the piano. In that film clip, we see Richard smiling and trying to appear cheerful for the camera. It doesn’t come off too well, at all.... but it’s hard to smile on command, especially when a couple of crazed shoe-shufflers are trashing the top of your baby grand.
 
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In 1978 Richard with his issue, and Karen with her problems, declining interest in their work. They could of just said, this is it, and disappeared into obscurity, never to be heard from again. But they loved what they did. Thankfully despite the fact it was far from their best work, these clips exist for us to enjoy.......or pick apart.

Imagine for all of us after the single "I Believe You" came out, the Carpenters were never heard from again! Would that of made it better, or would they have become famous for disappearing from the music scene entirely? What if nothing, including their 80's recordings, the KC solo album, or any of the leftover recordings had never been released? I think we owe Richard a huge high-five for having the guts to keep going, despite the odds of success like it had been, and letting us hear things that had not even been considered for release.
 
I think we owe Richard a huge high-five for having the guts to keep going, despite the odds of success like it had been, and letting us hear things that had not even been considered for release.
I agree. He was exceptionally great at what he did. We’re lucky that he was so passionate about their music and believed in Karen’s talent so much.
 
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