Christmas Portrait: original chart positions

Someday

Someday

Well-Known Member
So, looking at the chart history of Christmas Portrait ... is it correct that it only reached #93? 93 - ??!! I knew that promotion was practically non-existent in the UK, but in the US I'd always thought things were different. To put it in some kind of context, Now & Then got to #2!

The choir I manage here in the UK is doing a Christmas Portrait tribute in December, so I'm trying to do as much research as possible. Could anyone scan the liner notes of the Japanese 40th Ann edition?

Thanks :)
 
Courtesy of Wiki;

On April 16, 1998, Christmas Portrait was certified Platinum by the RIAA for shipment of one million copies in the United States since its 1978 release.

In December 2011, Christmas Portrait re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart at No. 150 and eventually achieved a new chart peak position of No. 126. In December 2012 and then in December 2013, the album again re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart and attained a new chart peak position of No. 114. In 2015, it reached a new peak position of No. 93 on the Billboard 200.

By the end of November 2014, Christmas Portrait was the twenty-third best-selling Christmas/holiday album in the United States during the SoundScan era of music sales tracking (March 1991 – present), having sold 1,950,000 copies according to SoundScan.
in the U.K, it reached 104 in the charts.
 
Its original chart peak in 1978 in the US was actually only #145 - in recent years, Billboard has relaxed its rules about back catalogue albums being able to chart on the main albums chart, hence why it's reappeared in slightly better positions during the holiday season, when the chart becomes awash with Christmas albums.

It does seem quite a poor performance initially, although its sales obviously kept ticking over (as Christmas albums often do) in subsequent years.

Incidentally, I don't know where the #104 peak position for the album in the UK comes from. The album charts were only a Top 75 back in 1978, so positions below that wouldn't have been made available. I suppose it could have happened in a later year (even though only the Top 100 is made available to the general public), but given that the album was never repromoted here in the UK at any point - and nor are Christmas albums anywhere near as popular here as a rule compared to the UK - I can't imagine why it would have done so. It sounds to me like one of those random but factually dubious details that some fans post on Wikipedia.
 
^^Well-Stated, Rumbahbah.....
One takes note that---as late as January 1995--
Christmas Portrait came in at (ONLY)
#21 among all Christmas Albums !
See:
Billboard
 
Rumbahbah said:
Its original chart peak in 1978 in the US was actually only #145
Click to expand...

I’m actually really shocked about this 1978 chart listing. In commercial terms, the album was a complete flop when it was released. Richard must have been especially disappointed with this, given how much time, effort and money went into its creation.
 
CARPENTERS-COLLECTOR said:
Courtesy of Wiki;



In December 2011, Christmas Portrait re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart at No. 150 and eventually achieved a new chart peak position of No. 126. In December 2012 and then in December 2013, the album again re-entered the Billboard 200 album sales chart and attained a new chart peak position of No. 114. In 2015, it reached a new peak position of No. 93 on the Billboard 200.

By the end of November 2014, Christmas Portrait was the twenty-third best-selling Christmas/holiday album in the United States during the SoundScan era of music sales tracking (March 1991 – present), having sold 1,950,000 copies according to SoundScan.
in the U.K, it reached 104 in the charts.
Click to expand...

With those, considering that the 1978 Christmas Portrait has never been available separately on CD or digital file in North America, I wonder if the 2011 and 2014 chart positions were for the 1984 Christmas Portrait: Special Edition album (I just checked iTunes, and as far as Carpenters Christmas, it is just showing Christmas Collection & Christmas Portrait: Special Edition in the albums section). Up to, what, the late-90's the 1978 Portrait was still available by itself on cassette, but could Billboard just be counting the 2 albums as the 1 album?
 
Diehard fans tend to forget how great the "slope" was in their sales. From '75 forward, it was all downhill. That's why when Karen passed, most of the general public hadn't heard anything about them in many many years.
 
So, the general consensus seems to be that the Cs had really fallen out of favour by '78 - hence the bad sales. It does seem weird that A&M didn't do much promotion for its biggest-selling act; but why? Someone there must have heard this LP and thought how utterly brilliant it was. It cost a great deal to produce, so why just let it slip out? I guess a TV special and a few press ads didn't do enough to help.

As for here in the UK - from chatting with people I've met over the years - 99% have never heard of Christmas Portrait.
 
There were very few artists doing Christmas albums in the latter 70’s and it was not marketed in my area with any flair, it was just seen in the record bin. Considering that this was one of the last things done before Richard needed a break makes it a gift for us it was even completed and released. I can’t imagine Christmas without it. Since I was 16, I have been listening to the Carpenters sing Christmas music. I don’t think Christmas Singles were even tracked at that time. Times have changed and the years following have proved that sales for this album have surpassed expectations. I’m sure there are a few on here that know exact units sold, but I am just fortunate that we have this gift of music every year. And actually, besides Close To You and Rainy Days and Mondays, it is the Christmas Portrait that continues to place the Carpenters name and specifically Karen, into today’s purchasers and it has become what they are most remembered for contributing to American music. At the time, it was the only thing, outside of I Can Dream Can’t I, that gave us a glimpse of Karen’s talent outside Richard’s setting, and placed her in the stage of the greatest singers of the century, producing many complimentary reviews. And, at the time of release, the buzz was...have you heard the Carpenters Christmas album...it is really a collection of Christmas songs, singing them as they were intended with the song’s intro, and with a setting that takes the listener on a journey. And, this was out when Disco was about the only thing that sold! It even continues to penetrate seasonal music, as we all know, after all these years. I even think that for music snobs, it is an album of guilty pleasure.
 
Someday said:
So, the general consensus seems to be that the Cs had really fallen out of favour by '78 - hence the bad sales. It does seem weird that A&M didn't do much promotion for its biggest-selling act; but why? Someone there must have heard this LP and thought how utterly brilliant it was. It cost a great deal to produce, so why just let it slip out? I guess a TV special and a few press ads didn't do enough to help.

As for here in the UK - from chatting with people I've met over the years - 99% have never heard of Christmas Portrait.
Click to expand...
Don't forget that they did have the 1978 Christmas Portrait TV special, which from what I've heard got into the Top 5 of the Nielsons. Did A&M maybe run a commercial during the special telling people to buy the album?
 
I do recall reading somewhere (maybe in Coleman?) that A&M executives were concerned about the expense of making Christmas Portrait, and Richard told them, "don't worry, it will be worth it."
 
A&M certainly missed out because Calling Occupants had been a big hit here in the UK (#9) only a year before - the Hush album also did well, plus their sellout run at the London Palladium, so they were very much still in favour here. From those pictures of Karen at a (still undisclosed) record store in London on 11th December 1978 - the window display clearly shows a copy of Christmas Portrait but the emphasis is on Singles 1974-78.
 
Someday said:
From those pictures of Karen at a (still undisclosed) record store in London on 11th December 1978 - the window display clearly shows a copy of Christmas Portrait but the emphasis is on Singles 1974-78.
Click to expand...

Having checked the Rex Features website, one of those photos is labelled - if correct, then that music store was the old Chappells of Bond St. Some UK fans may remember it! :)
 
Someday said:
A&M certainly missed out because Calling Occupants had been a big hit here in the UK (#9) only a year before - the Hush album also did well, plus their sellout run at the London Palladium, so they were very much still in favour here. From those pictures of Karen at a (still undisclosed) record store in London on 11th December 1978 - the window display clearly shows a copy of Christmas Portrait but the emphasis is on Singles 1974-78.
Click to expand...

That's the thing though - The Singles 1974-1978 was out at the same time in the UK as Christmas Portrait, so aside from Karen performing some Christmas songs on the Bruce Forsyth show, the attention was really on the singles collection as A&M UK assumed (rightly) that it was going to be the bigger seller.

As I say, given that Christmas albums are much less popular in the UK than they are in the US, it doesn't surprise me that Christmas Portrait didn't sell in the UK, even if both Christmas singles that they'd released in earlier years had at least charted there.
 
As far as promotion for LP , Christmas Portrait:
Karen Carpenter was interviewed by one Local LA Radio station.
That is, One local Los Angeles radio interview in 1978, for the entire USA.
( I could be wrong !).
Also, the 1978 Christmas Television Special, to my knowledge, was NOT a blockbuster.
This, given the First Television Special was #6 (late 1976)---this was the highest rated of all the TV specials.
In fact, the airing of Space Encounters may have doomed interest in that Christmas Special for 1978.
LP Christmas Portrait was certified Gold January 16th, 1981. (500,000units).
As of late 1987 it had not achieved Platinum status.(one-million units).
 
GaryAlan said:
In fact, the airing of Space Encounters may have doomed interest in that Christmas Special for 1978.
Click to expand...

Space Encounters was diabolically bad. Poor script, terrible routines, awful wardrobe, Z-list guests and corny performances. How the management company could have signed this off as fit to air is beyond me. No wonder Richard is as scathing about their TV specials as he is.
 
CARPENTERS-COLLECTOR said:
Courtesy of Wiki;

[SNIP]

By the end of November 2014, Christmas Portrait was the twenty-third best-selling Christmas/holiday album in the United States during the SoundScan era of music sales tracking (March 1991 – present), having sold 1,950,000 copies according to SoundScan.
in the U.K, it reached 104 in the charts.
Click to expand...

How many albums can go nearly quadruple Platinum (1.95mm copies) over time, and not have a single top 40 hit on them? That seems a rarity, although I am not an expert on such things.
 
CraigGA said:
I just saw it posted on RIAA website
https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&ar=THE+CARPENTERS&ti=CHRISTMAS+PORTRAIT
Click to expand...
I just saw that An Old-Fashioned Christmas has also been awarded an RIAA Gold Record for a Certified 0.5 Million.
https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=The+Carpenters#search_section

(Of course one interesting thing is that the album Close To You was apparently released on November 13, 1970, and went Gold the same day! Of course The Essential Collection gives an August 28, 1970 release date!)
 
I had read somewhere that A Song For You sold a million units in pre-sale orders before release. I’m not quite sure how that works! Was it people pre-ordering or what record stores first purchased? I’m sure that source is hard to locate and verify now.

I think it’s hard to get exact dates recorded correctly for online data. I even remember reading Billboard articles back in the day with the wrong dates and chart positions in review.

I’m pretty sure it was even a complex project of dates doing the resource.

Even copyright facts are sometimes difficult in gathering and transfer.

As readers, we expect everything exact and truthful. Even “memories” considered facts are sometimes just propaganda machines or promotion and sometimes with a spin for the subject at hand. We even do it when we discuss our own lives.

I don’t bekieve any harm is intended, but something that happened generations ago is not always easy to report.

It could even be that some of the songs on the Essential Collection were from 1970 or released then, who knows? There is probably some giant data sheet that a mainframe computer that provided information transferred to today’s systems and not all columns merged correctly for dates?

A humorous side note: I was once told that if I was going to go through life believing everything I was reading that I would be in trouble in years to come. The simplest example is paint that would guarantee one coat covering on any color to look like the swatch! Another could be warranties on knives and pillows. These guarantees have been going on since there was a product to sell. Back in the day Krystal’s tabletops had a copy of advertisement print from the early 1900’s and those cosmetic ads promoted the same thing they do today: youth and beauty! So, sometimes even errors are not surprising. Even when I help someone with a resume, past ones always have errors. Does that mean their life is a lie; of course not, it’s just an obvious typo!

It is still good to see written documentation! We all agree that we have to start with a proven source, if possible.
 
tomswift2002 said:
I just saw that An Old-Fashioned Christmas has also been awarded an RIAA Gold Record for a Certified 0.5 Million.
https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=The+Carpenters#search_section

(Of course one interesting thing is that the album Close To You was apparently released on November 13, 1970, and went Gold the same day! Of course The Essential Collection gives an August 28, 1970 release date!)
Click to expand...
HI
Close to you Album was released August 28th 1970 and received Gold disc award on November 13th 1970
 
Rumbahbah said:
Apart from the RIAA figures though, the sales quoted in that thread don't have any supporting evidence - it's all anecdotal (or wishful thinking). Someone was claiming that Christmas Portrait had sold 14 million copies worldwide, which is nonsense - it's probably not even sold a third of that figure.
Click to expand...
Hi
Acording to Ray coleman biography on the Carpenters published in 1994 Christmas portrait sold 2 million units.
 
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