Carpenters Collected Coming on Red Vinyl

Wayne Crozier

Well-Known Member
Apologies if it has already been mentioned but Collected is coming out in another colour - red vinyl, good news for the collectors amongst us but I feel maybe they should have sorted the other “imminent RPO” release out first!.
 
Carpenters / Collected 2LP vinyl
May 21, 2019

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2LP red vinyl • Limited to 3,000 copies • Gatefold • Numbered

Music On Vinyl continue with their popular ‘Collected’ series with a 2LP compilation of Carpenters hits, album tracks and rarities pressed on limited edition red vinyl.

The ‘soft-pop’ duo had enormous success in the 1970s with songs like ‘Close to You’, ‘Ticket to Ride’, ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’, ‘Superstar’, ‘Rainy Days And Mondays’ and many more.

This 25-track double vinyl set includes such hits and keeps with tradition by including some quirkier selections for side four. In this instance, it’s Karen Carpenter’s ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ and Richard’s poignant ‘Karen’s Theme’ (a song he dedicated to Karen after her tragic death in 1983).

This 2LP set pressed on red vinyl is limited to 3,000 units and comes as an individually numbered gatefold package with four-page booklet and a high quality outer PVC sleeve.

SIDE A
  1. Ticket To Ride
  2. (They Long To Be) Close To You
  3. We’ve Only Just Begun
  4. For All We Know
  5. Rainy Days And Mondays
  6. Superstar
SIDE B
  1. Hurting Each Other
  2. It’s Going To Take Some Time
  3. Goodbye To Love
  4. Top Of The World
  5. I Won’t Last A Day Without You
  6. Sing
  7. This Masquerade
SIDE C
  1. Yesterday Once More
  2. Jambalaya (On The Bayou)
  3. Please Mr. Postman
  4. Desperado
  5. Only Yesterday
  6. Solitaire
SIDE D
  1. I Need To Be In Love
  2. Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact)
  3. Sweet Sweet Smile
  4. Touch Me When We’re Dancing
  5. Karen Carpenter – Still Crazy After All These Years
  6. Richard Carpenter – Karen’s Theme

Carpenters Collected will be released on 28 June 2019. You can order from the SDE shop via this link or using the button below.

Carpenters / Collected 2LP vinyl | superdeluxeedition
 
Hmmmm... I wouldn’t call ‘Still Crazy’ quirky and ‘Karen’s Theme’ certainly isn’t. I know what they mean, in the case of ‘Still Crazy’ - a bit different from Carpenters’ usual style. And I guess it’s not in the vein of the usual love song, lyrically. I suppose you could say ‘Calling Occupants’ was a bit quirky. I’ve never thought of it like that, though. The word ‘Quirky’ sort of jumped out at me, especially seeing as this is, overall, pretty much a standard K&R compilation. I guess it’s a word to draw attention, to hang a promotion on, even if it doesn’t fit. When I read, ‘Quirky’, I was expecting to see something from the ‘Offering’ era or maybe from the ‘Spectrum’ times....which still wouldn’t have been all that ‘quirky’, exactly, but would have sounded different enough to seem it.
 
What I mean is, the unusual traits of the ‘Offering’ and ‘Spectrum’ stuff are in the sound. They’re not all that different lyrically or even melodically. I guess they wouldn’t have seemed as different then as they sound now, though, 50 years later. Don’t get me wrong - I love the ‘Offering’ & Spectrum stuff.
 
Don't take it personally. The tracks are "quirky" in that they're not pure Carpenters tracks. That's all it meant.
 
I’ve been listening to collections by Looking Glass, who had a hit in 1972 with ‘Brandy, (You’re a Fine Girl)’. Some of their other recordings have a slight resemblance to the styles on ‘Offering’ - sort of a light jazz sound. Their keyboard fills and solos aren’t all that different from Richard’s on C’s first album and their drumming has that same light jazzy sound that Karen’s has on ‘Offering’. Also, they use a stacked vocal harmony sound on a couple of their songs. (An obvious difference is that they were an all-male group).

I also noticed that their keyboards had a resemblance to those on The Doors’ ‘Riders On the Storm’, on a couple of tracks. It made me think that, in the case of music, it’s not ‘six degrees of separation’ between artists but more like ‘two degrees’.

I was thinking that Looking Glass’ songs are sometimes just a bit quirky, as well as noticing a very slight similarity to K&R’s 1968 / 69 style, on a couple of tracks. When I read the blurb from the ad campaign for ‘Carpenters Collected’, saying there were some quirky tracks on ‘Collected’, it made me remember my thoughts.
 
In my opinion, a terrible line:
"and keeps with tradition by including some quirkier selections for side four"

This new vinyl-comp holds no interest for me.
As for quirky: Singles 1974-1978 LP fits that bill perfectly.

The description also says: "and rarities"....
I suppose those last two songs(side four, 5,6) might fall into that description.

A mess of a compilation.
Simply a terrible way forward.
 
But the CD version of ‘Collected’ is a nice compilation, though, amongst the other hundreds of compilations. It’s got a lot more tracks than the LP, (obviously). I like the way the CD version has a few tracks from Karen’s solo album and a few from Richard’s solos. I’ve listened to it a few times and enjoyed it.
 
I have the cd version and the white vinyl. Trying to decide if I need/want the red vinyl. It would be so cool

Is anyone else thinking about ordering it in red??

Jonathan
 
So let me get this straight; they are taking pre-orders of this and will hold on to people's money for another God-Only-Knows how many more months?! OUTRAGEOUS!! UMG, Richard Carpenter, and all the powers that be behind these vinyl projects have a lot of nerve to introduce this when we've waited 6 months with no valid explanation for the RPO vinyl. Very bad form and sh***y customer service!!
 
So let me get this straight; they are taking pre-orders of this and will hold on to people's money for another God-Only-Knows how many more months?! OUTRAGEOUS!! UMG, Richard Carpenter, and all the powers that be behind these vinyl projects have a lot of nerve to introduce this when we've waited 6 months with no valid explanation for the RPO vinyl. Very bad form and sh***y customer service!!

This is being released through Music On Vinyl and not UMG (hence a catalogue number of MOVLP1919). I don't think the same outrageous delays apply to this release as they do with the UMG vinyl :)
 
^^Thank you for clarifying, newvillefan. Let this be a lesson to me to thoroughly do my research before commenting. I saw this offer, and immediately "saw red" and I don't mean the vinyl. I view this whole thing as dangling another "shiny object" in front of us (in this case red vinyl) to sell yet another "rework" of their legacy. RC has got to be making money on this, otherwise he would have his team of lawyers all over it.
 
RC has got to be making money on this, otherwise he would have his team of lawyers all over it.

The CD version of this collection was released by USM, a division of Universal Music. So it’s interesting that for the vinyl, they’ve switched to Music On Vinyl. It is official as it’s the same identical release (save for slightly different tracklist due to vinyl space limitations), right down to the logo, title and cover art. What’s more, the vinyl rear sleeve also mentions USM and Universal Music, as well as Music On Vinyl. It would appear then that Music On Vinyl is simply another division of Universal Music.
 
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It would appear then that Music On Vinyl is simply another division of Universal Music.
They are not related in any way. It's one of two situations--MOV licenses UMe product, or MOV presses the vinyl on UMe's behalf. Same procedure at all the vinyl reissue labels (think Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, ORG, and a dozen or two others).

From April: Music on Vinyl
 
I think I can speak for all the members of this wonderful forum, that we greatly appreciate the administrative staff and moderators for their expertise. For me, they really have the last word...
 
I think I can speak for all the members of this wonderful forum, that we greatly appreciate the administrative staff and moderators for their expertise. For me, they really have the last word...
I don't know everything (that's debatable--some say I know almost nothing :D ), but I'll chime in if I have information I'm certain about. 😉
 
I can say that COLLECTED really started life as THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION in 2006 from Universal in the Netherlands. It featured, uncharacteristically, all tracks taken from the Remastered Classics series, and as a result, there were no remixes - all original album tracks. It was then quickly withdrawn from circulation and quickly replaced with another compilation also called THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION. This one was just two CDs instead of three and replaced "Goofus" with "Sandy", and replaced "Make Believe It's Your First Time" with "Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore" - and it replaced all of the original album tracks with newer remixes. That led us to believe that Richard had been involved in having the first one withdrawn, but we never really got hard confirmation on that.

Then in 2013, virtually the same compilation came out as COLLECTED, also from Universal in the Netherlands. It was back to the 3-CDs, back to the original mixes, and back to "Goofus". We still don't know what the deal was with the first withdrawal, nor do we know why it was OK in 2013 under a different title.

Bottom line is that COLLECTED on CD is a worthwhile compilation of essentially all of the a-side singles in their original album mixes.

Then in the past year or so, we've seen COLLECTED as a set of LPs. Not quite the full track list of the CDs, but collectible, I suppose, in colored vinyl (white, red).
 
I’m such a completist. I have the 2-cd Ultimate Collection.
And the Collected cd
And the white vinyl.
And I may get the red just because. I know, I know.
 
I wonder if the mixes will be the same original album mixes or remixes as its been a couple of years since the white vinyl release and now a red one? Only one way to find out ...
 
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