Carpenters Very First Box Set 1986

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

I was unaware of this box set from Japan in 1986. It contains a CD single of Honolulu City Lights/Slow Dance CD Single as well as Live at the Palladium. I did not know that Honolulu City Lights was ever released as a CD single.

Has anyone else ever seen this set before? I don't even see it listed on David's Carpenters reference site or on the Carpenters Complete Recording Resource site.

 

[newvillefan]

Hi Chris

I knew of a similar set that existed internationally but not this one as early back as 1986 anyway and not with the 'Honolulu City Lights' single included. Very nice piece!

It's interesting to read the note inside "This Carpenters collection precedes the release of a forthcoming Carpenters' album consisting of eleven previously unreleased master recordings". This means that Richard and A&M were planning 'Lovelines' as early as 1986, although it didn't get released until 1989. And in the end, it only contained ten previously unreleased tunes as Richard mentioned in the liner notes. I wonder if there was an eleventh track that was dropped from the tracklist?!

The single 'Honolulu City Lights' is a bit of an enigma, as it exists in two guises. It also got released with 'I Just Fall In Love Again' as the B-side and the same sleeve as this single. You can check it out on the Carpenters Resource page here. It's also listed on Grant Guerrero's site here, with his comment "This single appeared out of the blue in 1987, with no explanation as to where it came from". I think now we may have the answer!

What's slightly confusing is that many people have said 'Slow Dance' was not released until it surfaced on the Japanese double CD 'Treasures' in 1987. Now we know it was released in 1986, on this single. It was actually worked on in 1983 for the VOTH album, so it was probably polished up and finished off as early as 1983, but left off the album.

 

[Harry]

One of the reasons I've not included much on box sets in the CRR is that there are a number of them, and really are just collections of albums that already existed in one form or another, so confusing the list of where song mixes could be found wouldn't have been well-served with adding these to every list of every song. I'm sure that this Japanese set likely included exactly the same digital versions that were common in the '80s - it's just that this set led the way. Later on, the British set was released, followed by 30th, 35th, and 40th sets in Japan. The '80s sets had the '80s albums as they existed on the A&M CDs in the States, and from the 30th on, they included the Remastered Classics versions.

Also changing from set to set is whether they included live albums, Christmas albums, jewel-cases, digi-paks, mini-LPs, etc. David Grant's site lists these, for the most part, in his excellent discgraohy.

Harry

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Thanks for the info guys. I just don't believe I have ever seen this set before especially with Honolulu City Lights as a CD single. This must be a rare set indeed. I wonder how many were produced compared to the 30, 35 and 40th sets. This 86 set must have been one of the first major boxes to ever appear.

Stephen, very interesting about these dates and when certain tracks appeared. So this set would have been released just a little before Richard did that interview with Larry King in Feb 87.

I'll need to check my newsletters because I wonder if this 86 set was mentioned as an upcoming release for the fans. I would image back in 86 this would have been a big deal.