"Carpenters: The Musical Legacy" featured in this week's cover story in CLOSER WEEKLY

Chris May

Resident ‘Carpenterologist’
Staff member
Moderator
For those who haven't seen the magazine in stores yet (just now arriving), here is a link to the online version of the article. Keep a lookout for the print version in stores this week (image attached):


IMG_5487.jpg
 
I have always had one question regarding album covers/album artwork.
If Richard was so irritated by the early album covers,
why did he ever approve one of the worst of all of them ?
By that I mean the LP The Singles 1969-1973:
I have always hated that album cover !
Arguably the biggest selling album, yet with a dreary color.
 
I have always had one question regarding album covers/album artwork.
If Richard was so irritated by the early album covers,
why did he ever approve one of the worst of all of them ?
By that I mean the LP The Singles 1969-1973:
I have always hated that album cover !
Arguably the biggest selling album, yet with a dreary color.
I don’t think they had as much “control” over those things as we may think. Either because of poor management not properly representing their interests (sorry for the theme here across threads) or just being naive about how far they could push back, or being too busy to be able to devote much time to the decisions, or a combination of all of the above.
 
I think Karen was on the cover of this magazine either earlier this year or in 2020. Anyone have that copy?
Jonathan
 
If Richard was so irritated by the early album covers,
why did he ever approve one of the worst of all of them ?
By that I mean the LP The Singles 1969-1973:
I have always hated that album cover !

Is he on record as hating that one? I only ever saw him irritated by pictures of them unnaturally smiling, embracing, or overly "cutesy" like the A Song For You cover, which me even mentions in the article.

I always thought the Singles 69-73 cover was meant to look like an old-fashioned photo album, especially being a gatefold cover. It looks and feels classy to me. They could have used the inner-gatefold picture on the cover, but then it wouldn't have evoked the photo-album style that the designer was shooting for... it would have been just another album cover with a B&W picture on the front.

Remember, too, that the self-titled "tan" album only had their logo on it... so, maybe they were going for the familiarity angle, the way Chicago was doing on their album covers. They didn't even use titles, every cover just said Chicago and had a different version of the logo on the cover.

At any rate... by the time Singles came out, Richard had probably long since thrown up his hands and said "whatever" about the album covers. He had much bigger fish to fry by that time, just trying to keep up with the demands of their career, and we all know what came next.
 
I have always had one question regarding album covers/album artwork.
If Richard was so irritated by the early album covers,
why did he ever approve one of the worst of all of them ?
By that I mean the LP The Singles 1969-1973:
...
One didn't need a pic of the duo to craft an attractive cover - or even bright colors - take the "Gold" album for example - of all the covers that did include R & K in one pose or another the worst was on the "Now and Then" cover - but you can't really tell that it's them - it could have been any couple in any car in front of any house in America- it looks like an accidental photo, like when you take a pic of your own foot while adjusting the camera settings...the assignment here must have been "make it as bland and unimaginative as possible..."
 
1634033264431.png
For years, I thought that fold-out image was a painting/drawing of some kind. It looked unnaturally colored to me. The trees and grass seemed painted in, the sky looked unnatural, and the house looked drawn-in. The red car was "too" red, and I never even noticed that there were people in the car, let alone that it was Karen and Richard.

As for the SINGLES 1969-1973 cover, I thought that was classy-looking, with no goofy-looking photo on the cover.
 
1634033264431.png
For years, I thought that fold-out image was a painting/drawing of some kind. It looked unnaturally colored to me. The trees and grass seemed painted in, the sky looked unnatural, and the house looked drawn-in. The red car was "too" red, and I never even noticed that there were people in the car, let alone that it was Karen and Richard.

As for the SINGLES 1969-1973 cover, I thought that was classy-looking, with no goofy-looking photo on the cover.
In ways, that cover reminds me of the old hand-tinted film that you see from before color photography and Filmography had been invented.
But with the Singles cover, remember it was reused again for one of the 3 covers that the 74-78 album had.


 
Well the first of my two book purchases for this fall just arrived: "Disney World at 50," a collection of articles and photos published by the Orlando Sentinel. Too bad my second book, the above-mentioned Carpenters one, will be delayed, but maybe it's just as well -- I'll have time to digest the Disney one, so life is good.
 
Well the first of my two book purchases for this fall just arrived: "Disney World at 50," a collection of articles and photos published by the Orlando Sentinel. Too bad my second book, the above-mentioned Carpenters one, will be delayed, but maybe it's just as well -- I'll have time to digest the Disney one, so life is good.
Well, the good news is that the folks at Princeton confirmed this morning that the books hit the warehouse yesterday.

It looks as if we’re going to hit the 11/16 release date!
 
Well the first of my two book purchases for this fall just arrived: "Disney World at 50," a collection of articles and photos published by the Orlando Sentinel. Too bad my second book, the above-mentioned Carpenters one, will be delayed, but maybe it's just as well -- I'll have time to digest the Disney one, so life is good.
How is that Disney World book? Anything a long time Imagineering enthusiast would like?
 
I think Richard called the Singles 1969-1973 a damned tombstone and he feels if it had a photo on it, the cover it might have sold more....I believe it sold over 7 million in the states and more in the rest of the world....
 
How is that Disney World book? Anything a long time Imagineering enthusiast would like?

I think it would be indispensable for an Imagineering fan (of which I am one). It covers the whole WDW process from Walt scouting the land, up to the present day, with articles and pictures from the Sentinel's actual coverage combined with new writing. There are construction photos, concept art, statistics, you name it. It's 175 pages, full color, hardcover, and is available on the Sentinel's website. Here is a lengthy link where you can see sample pages.


And now back to the Carpenters book discussion already in progress! :)
 
1634033264431.png


For years, I thought that fold-out image was a painting/drawing of some kind.

I did too... thought it was a painting until I saw the "photo credit," and then I thought it was a paint-enhanced photo. I wonder if they made it the fancy three-fold style, complete with custom innersleeve and label, to appease Richard a little.... "OK the photo isn't great, but look how fancy the package is."
 
1634033264431.png




I did too... thought it was a painting until I saw the "photo credit," and then I thought it was a paint-enhanced photo. I wonder if they made it the fancy three-fold style, complete with custom innersleeve and label, to appease Richard a little.... "OK the photo isn't great, but look how fancy the package is."
I always thought the abomination of this album art wasn't necessarily the front cover, but the two cartoonish portraits of the pair inside the gate fold...not that the cover, too, was just as weird. In one sense, though, it is "iconic" as it made the Newville Avenue house a shrine in Carpenters lore.
 
I actually couldn’t understand this album cover from a safety and personal information point of view.... I mean they were international stars and it is not like they had security at their house.
 
I have always had one question regarding album covers/album artwork.
If Richard was so irritated by the early album covers,
why did he ever approve one of the worst of all of them ?
By that I mean the LP The Singles 1969-1973:
I have always hated that album cover !
Arguably the biggest selling album, yet with a dreary color.
He loathes the chocolate brown. He regrets the choice of album title, too -- but he wanted buyers to know that it WASN'T just another "greatest hits" album. (And it surely was not.) In hindsight, however. he believes "Greatest Hits" and a better cover would have sold it another million in the U.S. alone. It's all in the book ... :)
 
Back
Top Bottom