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So as it seems that the RPO album is looking to possibly be the last Carpenters project, what could Richard do as a new one while there is still time? I have my own ideas, but what do you think might be possible as a new project for Richard regarding the Carpenters' legacy?
I'd be happy just to hear his solo Christmas album he's spent the last decade and a half working on.
I'd love to hear this particular song if anything ever came of it...jump to 7:54
I agree with you Geographer. Every year I hope to have the opportunity to have this music to enhance the holidays, only to be disappointed each year. I love "Christmas Turned Blue" and "December Morn". I am sure that locked away in some vault there are more buried classics waiting to unwrapped. Thankfully, we do have what has been released.
Hopefully it would be better than his dark, moody 1997 album! Maybe something closer to Richard Clayderman’s 1997 Carpenters albums.I posted this on another post, but I think what I would be interested in and what might’ve been commercially successful for Richard would be a piano jazz album, jazz trio guest vocalist guess instrumentalist but I’m wondering if maybe his piano chops are not quite the level they would’ve been if he had done this in the late 90s early 2000s
I'd love to hear this particular song if anything ever came of it...jump to 7:54
Hopefully it would be better than his dark, moody 1997 album! Maybe something closer to Richard Clayderman’s 1997 Carpenters albums.
As I've said before and will always continue to say, he needs to create the "Karen, Unadulterated" album...he missed a gigantic opportunity to do exactly this on the RPO album. Of all the changes, additions, deletions, enhancements, tweaks and improvements that he made to the songs on this project (and it is a wonderful album!) he failed to do the most important thing, something that has been needed all along since the very beginning: remove from any and every recording they ever made any trace of Karen over-singing (double-tracking, overdubbing) her own voice on the lead vocals.
However that sound could be described when she double-tracks her own lead vocal on a song it can't be described as her real, natural, pure - unadulterated - personal voice. It can't be described as "the voice we all know so well and love so very much", the "voice of an angel". No one sings along with themselves in real life. This recording technique results in an unreal mechanical or electronic sound that is a distortion her real, actual, beautiful tonal quality. This was always an indirect insult to her - and it denied to all who claim to love her voice the chance to hear it at every possible chance and in all of it's gorgeousness. There is no rational reason why that voice should have ever been "messed with" in any way, including this double-tracking or with reverb or echoing or other electronic studio capabilities.
So, now he needs to take every song where this occurred and strip away all of the 2nd or 3rd Karens (however many there might have been) on the lead vocals - then perhaps lighten the layered background vocals and the orchestration a tad for an overall cleaner, more natural, concert-like sound. If there are sections of some songs where a "duet sound" would be more effective - and there aren't many - then hire a real singer to provide that, someone with a voice that contrasts with Karen's but still harmonizes well.
Then, he needs to release this as the "Karen, Unadulterated" album.
Well you have to remember — these recordings were constructed like puzzle pieces and work accordingly.
Here's a reworking of the bridge on "We've Only Just Begun" with Karen taken down to a single lead. She holds back some because she knew she would be adding the double.
A change in dynamics:
Here's a reworking of the bridge on "We've Only Just Begun" with Karen taken down to a single lead. She holds back some because she knew she would be adding the double.
Well you have to remember — these recordings were constructed like puzzle pieces and work accordingly.
Here's a reworking of the bridge on "We've Only Just Begun" with Karen taken down to a single lead. She holds back some because she knew she would be adding the double.
A change in dynamics:
I blame them both
Well, thanks Harry - I do appreciate your commiseration with my tribulations!... And I'm sorry John, that you have to endure that which you seem to truly dislike.
Well no, it sounds like an unfinished recording.And yes, I will say without reservation that it does sound better than the doubled lead - much better.
Well said Mike!Well no, it sounds like an unfinished recording.
The technique of double tracking a lead vocal harks back to the very earliest days of "hi-fi." The technique can add emphasis, drama or even pathos to a vocal.
I would guess about 99.9% of Carpenters fans love the sound of the multi-tracked layers of R&K's voices, as opposed to a bunch of other background singers (or no background singers). It's the basic building block of the "Carpenters sound" that Richard worked on so diligently. Obviously none of us were there in the studio, so we can't know whether Karen ever thought she was being "too overdubbed," but we do know that they did get into arguments (John Bettis talked about "epic fights" in his Download interview). But, at the end of the day they both happily signed-off on the records they produced... especially the ones where Karen is listed as a coproducer.
So I think it's safe to say that if you were to suggest to Richard to do away with all of the multitracks in an effort to showcase Karen's pure unadulterated voice, he might have a hard time deciding whether to laugh at the suggestion or just haul off and slug you.