⭐ Official Review [Album]: "CARPENTERS" S/T (SP-3502)

HOW WOULD YOU RATE THIS ALBUM?

  • ***** (BEST)

    Votes: 27 36.0%
  • ****

    Votes: 38 50.7%
  • ***

    Votes: 8 10.7%
  • **

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • *

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • Total voters
    75
I remember going into a used record store and seeing the CARPENTERS album with the photo on the front was quite a surprise:

carpcarp2.jpg


I never bought the LP, but in later years I bought the CD hoping it would have the original mixes of particularly "Superstar". But it had the same remixes as the A&M CD in the States.
I recently bought a West German pressing of this album and it has this cover.
 
The artwork on the 1971 'Carpenters' album was presented differently in some countries. The photo appeared on the outer jacket with the logo in a number of territories. The envelope idea was dispensed with, so the jacket was the standard type. The same thing happened with 'Horizon'.

For some time, I couldn't work out why some people called this 'The Tan Album', until I saw the US jacket.

Not surprisingly, US CD releases of the album have included the tan jacket, whereas the Spectrum CD through Karussel, released in some other countries, uses the design with the large photo and logo.

Incidentally, earlier pressings of the 'Carpenters' record in my area in the early- to mid-70s included a gold sticker with 'Gold Record Award' or similar on it.

I’ve never seen a Horizon album without the flap.
Jonathan
 
Most European territories got the Tan album without the fold-out sleeve and with the photo on the cover. It's a shame as although the US sleeve isn't the most inventive, it does have a certain simplicity in its design. The photo is awful - Richard has complained about the photo on the cover of the Close to You album, but to my mind this one is far worse than that.

I think a reissue in the 1980s of the Horizon LP dispensed with the cover flap, although I've never seen an original 1975 copy without it. I've also seen a 1980s reissue of Now and Then in a single non-gatefold sleeve - presumably it was considered ro be too much work to re-create the original album artwork (the same is true of the LP reissue of The Singles 1974-1978, which dropped the gold foil sleeve and used a facsimile design on regular card).
 
Looking at this thread reminded me of another gem of a song:
Let Me Be The One.
This is an interesting song for many a reason.
Happily it appears on (amongst other compilations)
Carpenters Gold 35th Anniversary (which I am presently listening to).
 
Some info gleaned from the 40th-Liner Notes (for those who do not have it):
Richard Carpenter writes:
"One Love" was written in 1967 (while we--John Bettis and I--were
employed at Disneyland) and originally called "Candy."
About the Bacharach/David Medley: "...we couldn't take the time and record the entire medley
at the proper tempos, along with an orchestration I had fashioned."
 
That’s what made Live such a gift. They took the time then. On the album, the enerergy and excitement is created and it is good. My favorite section of the medley is on the Music music music TV Special.
 
^^That piano variation that Richard inserts into One Love is so good it makes you wonder why it wasn't there in the studio recording on the "Tan Album".

Also, another observation from this video clip is that this must've been at the moment the management was trying to get Karen up from behind the drum kit. There is a marked difference in her demeanor of pure joy playing drums on the Bacharach Medley and her mechanical hand movements and general stiffness being out in front (even on a pre-recorded tv show with canned laughter/applause & lip-syncing).
 
From the very beginning Superstar and Rainy Days snd Mondays have been joined at the hip!

That was exactly my thought! It was sensible to split them up for the final running order - it would not have made good sense to have the album’s three single choices on one side of the LP.
 
Yet... for someone considering buying the album, if they weren't already a big fan, this may have tipped the scales.
 
When CARPENTERS (tan) was first issued, "For All We Know" had been their hit single. "Rainy Days And Mondays" was released as a single practically concurrently with the album. "Superstar" was off in the future as a single choice, and it was between that and "Let Me Be The One".

It's probably difficult for longtime fans who weren't there back then to imagine a time when "Superstar" was not a hit single yet, and that "Rainy Days And Mondays" was still just "that new single from the Carpenters."
 
Yet... for someone considering buying the album, if they weren't already a big fan, this may have tipped the scales.

Maybe but it would have left (A Place To) Hideaway as a weak opener for side B of the album and there weren’t any stronger alternatives of the tracks left on that side to take its place.
 
"Superstar" was off in the future as a single choice, and it was between that and "Let Me Be The One".
One wonders why they could not have released Let Me Be The One as the 4th single from that album. Pity it had to be a choice, because both tracks are brilliant in their own way. I also feel the chorus made it even more commercial-sounding than, say, For All We Know, which was a huge hit in the charts.

Imagine also if a full version of the A House Is Not A Home recording made at the time had found its way onto the album! Talk about the one that got away!
 
I have been racking my brains over the song Rainy Days and Mondays.
I listened to the Remastered Classics Carpenters cd, Singles 1969-1981 cd, Yesterday Once More cd
and finally The Singles 1969-1973 cd(DIDX-23).
Here is my discovery:
I had become so accustomed to the TRILOGY of Superstar/RDAM/Goodbye To Love....
as it appears on The Singles 1969-1973...that any other version of Rainy Days and Mondays felt incomplete !
That trilogy of songs, when sequenced together, is simply too brilliant !

The Remastered Classics version sounded the least satisfying of all of the cd's !
Best for me to return to the original TAN vinyl LP.....
 
I have been racking my brains over the song Rainy Days and Mondays.
I listened to the Remastered Classics Carpenters cd, Singles 1969-1981 cd, Yesterday Once More cd
and finally The Singles 1969-1973 cd(DIDX-23).
Here is my discovery:
I had become so accustomed to the TRILOGY of Superstar/RDAM/Goodbye To Love....
as it appears on The Singles 1969-1973...that any other version of Rainy Days and Mondays felt incomplete !
That trilogy of songs, when sequenced together, is simply too brilliant !

The Remastered Classics version sounded the least satisfying of all of the cd's !
Best for me to return to the original TAN vinyl LP.....

Some of the remixes sound a bit wrong after years of listening to the original vinyls and its hard to put a finger on why. One thing I notice is that the drum tracks have been remixed or rerecorded. On the videos where you see Karen doing a certain drum fill, there's no drum fill on the audio. (I know she didn't really play drums on the recording). Anyway, great track. In an interview, Karen said they recorded 'Rainy Days and Mondays' right 'at the last minute'. Glad they did.
 

I've not seen that one before - it's similar but not the same as the UK sleeve, which has a more yellowish border around the photo and the A&M logo at the bottom right.

Every time I see this cover I wonder what on earth the art department were thinking using that photo on the sleeve - it is absolutely hideous. The Close to You and Offering cover photos that got so much ire from Richard are nowhere near as bad as this one!
 
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