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Yes, a great track she sings so very well - another one that has really caught my attention this year is "The First Snowfall", a delightful upbeat tune recorded years ago by Bing Crosby in a much slower tempo - and nicely combined with "Let It Snow" - love how the chorus (which is smartly used in this medley) shouts "Let it snow" at the end!One Carpenters Christmas song I rarely hear praise for is 'He Came Here For Me' ... which to my ears, is such a beautiful, deep piece of resonant spiritual music. Plus Karen is in full, rich, velvet vocal form.
I had to check it out again after many years - good stuff! Also, had to refresh my memory on Wilson Phillips and The Mamas and the Papas and their various relationships and entanglements - think I need a scorecard...I love Hey Santa too! A really forgotten little gem and sooooo catchy.
It's Billboard. Move them up about 15 spaces each and you probably have a more accurate placement."Home for the Holidays" was also listed at #85 for the Carpenters. I personally think "Christmas Portrait" should have been ranked a little higher but I'll take #18. "Hey Santa" by Wilson Phillips and "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses should have made the list.
My margin of error still applies here. Just look at Bing Crosby at No. 8. and some of the more esoteric titles ahead of both of them. Just sayin.' But the fact that Rolling Stone was forced to place them in the top 25 says something, I guess.^^I recall Rolling Stone placing them at #16 in 2019:
The 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time
"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 ā a kind of warmed-over, sunken-den-Seventies version of Forties merriment."
Here:
The 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time
From Bing Crosby to Bob Dylan, Motown to Death Row, we rank the best Yuletide listens everwww.rollingstone.com
"...suburban white-bread dominance..."; "...veritable schmaltz blizzard of vaguely terrifying good cheer..."; "...milk-bath vocals..."; "...gloppy orchestral arrangements..."^^I recall Rolling Stone placing them at #16 in 2019:
The 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time
"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 ā a kind of warmed-over, sunken-den-Seventies version of Forties merriment."
Here:
The 25 Greatest Christmas Albums of All Time
From Bing Crosby to Bob Dylan, Motown to Death Row, we rank the best Yuletide listens everwww.rollingstone.com
Or he could have saved all of us the time reading his failed attempt at trying to be clever with lots of words by just saying "Carpenters; they may not be cool, but they're good.""...suburban white-bread dominance..."; "...veritable schmaltz blizzard of vaguely terrifying good cheer..."; "...milk-bath vocals..."; "...gloppy orchestral arrangements..."
So predictable, so adolescent and so wrong...the sleazeball writer so obviously loves the Carpenters' combined album collection (as anyone with an age or IQ in double digits would), but just simply can't be open and honest about his fondness - instead he still has to cover his ass and protect his reputation with his fellow ultra cool Ivy League weenies at RS by being as snide and snarky as possible - I can just picture him/her thumbing through their Thesaurus looking for alternative words and phrases to be as mean-spirited and small-minded in their description as they can while listening to the albums on repeat for the 5th or 6th time in their secret little sound chamber...
Yes, Harry. Much better!Let me fix that for you:
...by just saying "Carpenters; they may not be as cool as I think *I* am, but they're good."
Well, he could have said that and it would have been more honest and straight forward - but it would still have been wrong - many millions of people around the world thought the Carpenters were pretty cool - only a handful thought this about their nasty, cynical, sadistic critics - one of the biggest mistakes Karen & Richard ever made was fretting or worrying to any extent at all about what these slugs and morons said...they were good people and they should have been proud of and flaunted their reputation for wholesomeness and thrown it back in the face of their detractors...Or he could have saved all of us the time reading his failed attempt at trying to be clever with lots of words by just saying "Carpenters; they may not be cool, but they're good."
Anyone ever notice how on the word ābirthā it sounds like Karen tacks a ā-puh ā sound onto it. It makes no sense, since the next has no āPā sound in it.One Carpenters Christmas song I rarely hear praise for is 'He Came Here For Me' ... which to my ears, is such a beautiful, deep piece of resonant spiritual music. Plus Karen is in full, rich, velvet vocal form.
I just listened this morning and it did not stick out, so I did not notice. I just listened again and did not hear it. You usually have a keen ear, so I donāt dispute you. Maybe itās the speakers? Just a shot in the dark.Anyone ever notice how on the word ābirthā it sounds like Karen tacks a ā-puh ā sound onto it. It makes no sense, since the next has no āPā sound in it.
Iāve noticed it on a wide variety of speakers, from Walkman headphones to good home stereo speakers to your average car stereo & boom box speaker, over the past 25 years ever since I first got the album on cassette.I just listened this morning and it did not stick out, so I did not notice. I just listened again and did not hear it. You usually have a keen ear, so I donāt dispute you. Maybe itās the speakers? Just a shot in the dark.
I get the feeling that the author of that article, has never actually listened to the "Christmas Portrait" LP. Two versions indeed...and two versions of āSanta Claus Is Cominā to Townā.