Do You Think Richard Should Release A New Single?

[Michael Hagerty]

^^^Michael, I should add that my only assessment of the possible impact of the
Shrek or Dark Shadows movies,
as it pertains to the more youthful market becoming Carpenters' conscious,
originates from the reactions of my nieces and nephews (in their teens and twenties),
who all called me to comment on how great it was to hear Top Of The World in those movies.
At least, while those movies were showing (at that time)
the Carpenters were--at a minimum--part of a greater public awareness.
Now, whether, or not, any Carpenters' "product" was sold/moved....
most likely not !

Happily, when Christmas arrives each year,
that public awareness is greatly increased !
(In spite of my reservations for "the Special Edition" !).

Gary: "Shrek" might have mattered (though clearly, Smashmouth's "I'm a Believer"was the monster from that soundtrack).

"Dark Shadows" was a failure at the box office...coming at the point when it was clear that, apart from the "Pirates of the Carribean" franchise, Johnny Depp was losing his mojo. Plus, as the studio found out, the TV show "Dark Shadows" is pretty much unfamiliar to anyone under 55...and while it was a cult favorite, it wasn't everybody's cup of tea even when it was hot ('68-'69). It ran from 1966-71, the movies spun off of it were drive-in fare at best, the home video project proved too expensive and unwieldy (more than a thousand episodes on VHS?)and the NBC re-boot in 1991 was an abject failure.

What's interesting is that they both chose "Top of the World". And while that record does the Carpenters absolutely zero favors (it pretty much sums up everything non-fans think is bad about Karen and Richard), at least "Shrek" used it with sincerity, while it was loaded with irony in "Dark Shadows", and was obscured by the joke it set up (that Barnabas thinks Karen is a sorceress living in the television).

 

[Michael Hagerty]

PS: They have issued the complete 1966-71 "Dark Shadows" on DVD. But it's still a ridiculous proposition. 1,225 episodes on 131 DVDs, sold in a coffin-shaped box that weighs 15 and a half pounds. List price $599.98, though Amazon will let you have it for $340.

 

[Harry]

PS: They have issued the complete 1966-71 "Dark Shadows" on DVD. But it's still a ridiculous proposition. 1,225 episodes on 131 DVDs, sold in a coffin-shaped box that weighs 15 and a half pounds. List price $599.98, though Amazon will let you have it for $340.

...and a few years ago I found a quickie Amazon deal and finally purchased that whole-series box set.

I swore up and down when the show was coming out on VHS and then DVD as "volumes" with a number of episodes that there were that there was no way in hell that I would ever devote the time to watch it.

I'd watched DARK SHADOWS from its very first episode on ABC, first on a bad UHF signal and then on the main ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. Then it got a run on the New Jersey Network where I caught some of the episodes in the early 80s. Then I found it airing on SciFi in the 90s and caught a number of episodes on that service, so I figured I'd devoted much time already to this lengthy series.

But when I saw the lightning deal on Amazon I pulled the trigger, much to even my surprise and wondered what in the world I was thinking. Where would I find the time for 1,225 episodes of a soap opera from the sixties?

Well, retirement is a wonderful thing, and it finally occurred to me that the shows were only about 20 minutes long. In other words, I could watch three episodes in a one hour time period - or an entire week's worth of episodes in an hour and 40 minutes, roughly the length of a short movie.

And so I began. The early black & white episodes of the show hadn't been seen since the original airings until they found the ABC-TV masters in the vault. These are fun because they have the pre-episode slatings as well as the original end credits with the ABC announcer telling us what other joys we'd find on ABC-TV.

My wife, not a fan of the original show, even found herself a bit hooked as I made my way through the series, and it took about a year and a half of on-and-off, when we could squeeze them in, viewings to get through the entire series.

I've even considered recently going back and doing it again one of these days, but haven't yet started. And while this long post has absolutely nothing to do with Carpenters, there are a couple of DARK SHADOWS episodes that feature a very Tijuana-Brass-ish recording playing in the Blue Whale, the local meeting place in Collinsport. And that ironically would fit in our current "Tijuana Brass 'sound'" thread.

 

[David A]

I found the post I referenced yesterday or the day before, where I suggested how the Carpenters' single releases should have (in my opinion as a music radio programmer at the time) gone. I was in error this week...I never suggested "A Song For You", but went with "This Masquerade" instead. And I think that would have been fine. George Benson would no doubt disagree. Here's what I wrote back in 2012:

Strictly my opinion: Richard should have toughened the image a bit after "Goodbye To Love", where he had a window where even Carpenters detractors had to admit it was a good song, a great performance and that Richard surprised them with Tony Peluso's guitar solos. "Yesterday Once More" and "Only Yesterday" were strong enough to follow. "I Won't Last A Day Without You"...maybe. But "Sing", "Top Of The World", "Please Mr. Postman" all helped convince the less-than-faithful that "Goodbye To Love" was a fluke.

I think I would have followed "Goodbye To Love" with "I Won't Last A Day", skipped "Sing" and "Top Of The World", waited until a few weeks before Now & Then to release "Yesterday Once More" as a single, followed that with "This Masquerade", and then built anticipation by not releasing a single until a month or so before Horizon. Then I would have reversed the order and led with "Only Yesterday". That would have gone a long way toward keeping the image problem in check. They still wouldn't have been the hippest act on the charts by a long shot, but it would have eliminated some of the stigma and allowed Karen and Richard's talents to be more fully appreciated at the time.

It's a lot of ballads, I know, but this would put us right around the time that Barry Manilow came along and made a fortune with them. Assuming different choices in single releases might have meant different choices in material overall, Karen and Richard might have been able to stay in the Top 10 through '76 and '77, if not '78 when even Manilow had to acknowledge disco (Copacabana).
Back to 2017: I could easily see slotting "A Song For You" in between "I Won't Last A Day" and "Yesterday Once More".

I wasn't on this board in 2012 and while I have perused a number of older posts I hadn't seen this one.

I really like your thinking on how a modified release schedule might have gone a long way in mitigating some of what became the Carpenters "stigma".

I would ask though...are you suggesting that "Sing" "Top of the World" and "Please Mr. Postman" not be released at all?

 

[manofsteel1979]

I will have to side with the NO side of the coin.

It's a different time and place and the single as we knew it is essentially dead.

If Richard decides to put out something newly discovered? I'm interested of course,but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I think the best we can hope for is a 50th anniversary collection in 2019,which may actually end up being the vinyl box that's been mentioned.

 

[David A]

Thanks to David and Michael for their more resigned (but doubtless more realistic) assessments of this matter. I am probably following too much in the footsteps of my "namesake" (Don Quixote) here, motivated by a possibly ill-advised desire to right historical wrongs. I think Michael's discussion of how the sequence of singles in '73-'75 could have been altered to mitigate the critical backlash reminds us of just how deep-seated this issue was at the time and, as David notes, there is probably very little chance to overturn the collective weight of all that.

Having said that, it continues to make me sad (and angry) to have to witness the continual "underappreciation" of Karen and Richard, and be exposed to what is (to my mind, at least) a senseless knee-jerk kind of condescension that they still evoke, even in people who ought to know better. I wish there was some way to push back more strongly and effectively against that, even if it means that I am getting too caught up in tilting at windmills!

Believe me, I sympathize. I am acutely aware of exactly what you describe - "senseless, knee-jerk condescension" - having dealt with it as recently as a few months ago, with someone. Alas, I don't think it's going to change...that ship has sailed.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I wasn't on this board in 2012 and while I have perused a number of older posts I hadn't seen this one.

I really like your thinking on how a modified release schedule might have gone a long way in mitigating some of what became the Carpenters "stigma".

I would ask though...are you suggesting that "Sing" "Top of the World" and "Please Mr. Postman" not be released at all?

As singles. They'd be fine as LP cuts, but the radio exposure (over-exposure?) of those songs were really detrimental to the Carpenters image at the time. Consider if this had been the Carpenters' singles output (which in the 70s determined radio play):

• Close To You
• We've Only Just Begun
• Rainy Days and Mondays
• For All We Know
• Superstar
• Hurting Each Other
• Goodbye To Love
• I Won't Last A Day Without You
• A Song For You
• Yesterday Once More
• This Masquerade
• Only Yesterday

Twelve hit singles in a row in five years with very little in the way of easy targets for the haters, and quite a bit that's unassailable even in the hippest rock circles ("Superstar", "Goodbye To Love", "A Song For You", "This Masquerade"), which keeps the on-the-fence folks from going with the flow and becoming haters because it's fashionable.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

I forgot that I'm also advocating skipping "It's Going To Take Some Time", which (apart from "Bless The Beasts and the Children") was the first Carpenters single to not make the Top 10 since "Ticket To Ride". And since "Bless" was a B-side, "It's Going To Take Some Time" actually is the worst-performing A-side since "Ticket" and until "Solitaire".

 

[tomswift2002]

I was just thinking, but what if Richard finished "Last One Singing The Blues" and released that as a single?

 

[Another Son]

I was just thinking, but what if Richard finished "Last One Singing The Blues" and released that as a single?

I respect your opinion, Tomswift, but I still stand by what I've been saying - Karen's lead vocals on her solo album are so feeble, weak and strained that putting any of her solo work back out there could only tarnish her reputation of being a world-class vocalist. I was listening to 'Karen Carpenter' the other day and couldn't find one song where she made it through all the way sounding good and in control, (with the exception, perhaps, of 'If We Try', which is set lower, but there's still not much energy in this vocal and it lacks her usual richness and warmth). She just wasn't well enough, (along with other problems of the project).

 

[Mark-T]

That's interesting how we all differ in tastes. I love her solo album and find many excellent cuts where I think she sounds great.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

I respect your opinion, Tomswift, but I still stand by what I've been saying - Karen's lead vocals on her solo album are so feeble, weak and strained that putting any of her solo work back out there could only tarnish her reputation of being a world-class vocalist. I was listening to 'Karen Carpenter' the other day and couldn't find one song where she made it through all the way sounding good and in control, (with the exception, perhaps, of 'If We Try', which is set lower, but there's still not much energy in this vocal and it lacks her usual richness and warmth). She just wasn't well enough, (along with other problems of the project).

I don't agree with this at all. You can't do what she did (those leads and those Rod Temperton-arranged backgrounds - especially on "If I Had You") with a "feeble, weak, and strained" voice. Further, that's just not what I hear. I certainly hear her having less to work with than she did but I would never characterize her voice on her solo album as you do.

On, "Now", though, I definitely would. That's the place, IMHO, where her physical condition came to bear on her vocal. She still sounds very good (of course) but it's all light as a feather. No power and no conviction there at all.

Ed

 

[GaryAlan]

An interesting comparison of vocal approaches can be had between two versions of the same song:
Make Believe It's Your First Time....
or,
two different songs (roughly same rhythm, 'speed') :
Want You Back In My Life Again (Made In America)
Don't Try To Win Me Back Again (Solo Sessions)

Love Making Love To You....is another strong vocal by Karen.

Ed is spot on (IMHO).
Compare and Contrast !

 

[David A]

As singles. They'd be fine as LP cuts, but the radio exposure (over-exposure?) of those songs were really detrimental to the Carpenters image at the time. Consider if this had been the Carpenters' singles output (which in the 70s determined radio play):

• Close To You
• We've Only Just Begun
• Rainy Days and Mondays
• For All We Know
• Superstar
• Hurting Each Other
• Goodbye To Love
• I Won't Last A Day Without You
• A Song For You
• Yesterday Once More
• This Masquerade
• Only Yesterday

Twelve hit singles in a row in five years with very little in the way of easy targets for the haters, and quite a bit that's unassailable even in the hippest rock circles ("Superstar", "Goodbye To Love", "A Song For You", "This Masquerade"), which keeps the on-the-fence folks from going with the flow and becoming haters because it's fashionable.

Interesting. While that likely would have ameliorated some of their image issues, in hindsight it would have been at the cost of two Billboard #1 hits and a #3 (Sing). Perhaps an increased longevity would have compensated over time for that loss in song popularity (and sales), although with Karen's untimely passing it becomes something of a moot point, I guess.

This would have required a lot of discipline and forward planning by both the label and their handlers. For example, if memory serves, "Top of the World" was not planned as a single but was so popular in their concerts that they decided to release it as such. To not do so would have required the aforementioned discipline. Generally speaking, artists and especially a label walking away from a surefire hit song would be difficult.

Edit: Or was that "Postman" that was so popular in their concerts...

 

[newvillefan]

Edit: Or was that "Postman" that was so popular in their concerts...

You were right the first time, it was Top Of The World

 

[Jeff]

Elvis Presley came outta nowhere with a fan base older than death n beyond singing A Little Less Conversation. The oft chance Universal/RC were to release a single would be a lightning strike. If you lived the group back in the day you'd realize that's how the duo hit. It was lightening! All told CarpenterS fans have creaking bones. That's why I do recruitment now. I passed out homemade brochures at school for the Dec 8th airing FIRST TV SPECIAL. Without fail arranging album racks to feature the duo. On air with a D.J. giving the DOwney fan club p.o. box number. Yackin to everyone. My whole life I've been a promoter of the perfect vocalist. I do my share of wishin n hopin for releases. I don't care what it costs I'll have a new release. If you're a die-hard groupie this is how it's done. As long as I breathe I'll be listening and wishin n hopin.

 

[tomswift2002]

I respect your opinion, Tomswift, but I still stand by what I've been saying - Karen's lead vocals on her solo album are so feeble, weak and strained that putting any of her solo work back out there could only tarnish her reputation of being a world-class vocalist. I was listening to 'Karen Carpenter' the other day and couldn't find one song where she made it through all the way sounding good and in control, (with the exception, perhaps, of 'If We Try', which is set lower, but there's still not much energy in this vocal and it lacks her usual richness and warmth). She just wasn't well enough, (along with other problems of the project).

Well I have to disagree with you. Karen's "weak" vocals are found on the majority of 'Made In America' and "Now". Really Karen's solo album is the stronger of the two albums from the 79-81 period.

But back to the topic at hand, it would be nice if there were studio versions of "Leader Of The Pack, The Book Of Love or Daddy's Home", that would make an interesting single.

Also with "Top Of The World, another reason it got a single release was because of Lynn Andersons cover hitting the Top Of The Charts.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Interesting. While that likely would have ameliorated some of their image issues, in hindsight it would have been at the cost of two Billboard #1 hits and a #3 (Sing). Perhaps an increased longevity would have compensated over time for that loss in song popularity (and sales), although with Karen's untimely passing it becomes something of a moot point, I guess.

This would have required a lot of discipline and forward planning by both the label and their handlers. For example, if memory serves, "Top of the World" was not planned as a single but was so popular in their concerts that they decided to release it as such. To not do so would have required the aforementioned discipline. Generally speaking, artists and especially a label walking away from a surefire hit song would be difficult.

David:

Yes, but A&M wouldn't have had the benefit of hindsight. Managing the Carpenters' image better would have resulted in sales to people who didn't buy because of image---and probably would have sold more albums.

It's the label's and handlers' job to plan and exercise discipline. Chasing immediate sales without taking the long view is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs---which is essentially what happened.

 

[Rumbahbah]

David:

Yes, but A&M wouldn't have had the benefit of hindsight. Managing the Carpenters' image better would have resulted in sales to people who didn't buy because of image---and probably would have sold more albums.

It's the label's and handlers' job to plan and exercise discipline. Chasing immediate sales without taking the long view is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs---which is essentially what happened.

That's a good point. It does seem like there was never much of a long-term vision for their career coming from A&M or their management, either Sherwin or Jerry. Richard was too caught up in the day-to-day of recording and touring and Karen didn't seem to have much of a say in the bigger decisions, so it really needed someone outside to be looking at the bigger picture.

I'm not sure it would have been possible to completely bypass some of the lighter singles, given that 'Top of the World' was essentially released as a result of audience demand, but they certainly could have gone more for choices like 'This Masquerade' over those like 'Sing' and 'Jambalaya', which would have gone some way towards rectifying the image problem.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

That's a good point. It does seem like there was never much of a long-term vision for their career coming from A&M or their management, either Sherwin or Jerry. Richard was too caught up in the day-to-day of recording and touring and Karen didn't seem to have much of a say in the bigger decisions, so it really needed someone outside to be looking at the bigger picture.

I'm not sure it would have been possible to completely bypass some of the lighter singles, given that 'Top of the World' was essentially released as a result of audience demand, but they certainly could have gone more for choices like 'This Masquerade' over those like 'Sing' and 'Jambalaya', which would have gone some way towards rectifying the image problem.

If audience demand were an absolute, Atlantic Records would have released Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" as a 45. They didn't, and sold a hell of a lot more copies of the Led Zeppelin IV album as a result.

Basic strategy: The hardcore fans will buy everything. If they want "Top of the World" or "Sing" and it's not a 45, they'll buy the album. You need to be extremely careful what you put out in front of the whole world in the form of radio airplay (in those days, singles).

 

[Rumbahbah]

If audience demand were an absolute, Atlantic Records would have released Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" as a 45. They didn't, and sold a hell of a lot more copies of the Led Zeppelin IV album as a result.

Basic strategy: The hardcore fans will buy everything. If they want "Top of the World" or "Sing" and it's not a 45, they'll buy the album. You need to be extremely careful what you put out in front of the whole world in the form of radio airplay (in those days, singles).

True, but Led Zeppelin and the Carpenters weren't appealing to the same audience with the same buying intentions. Rock fans would always be more amenable to buying an album over a single. I imagine not releasing 'Top of the World' wouldn't have spurred sales of A Song For You, which was already over saleswise by mid-1973 and had underperformed slightly by their high standards in part because the single choices from it hadn't sustained it that well. Although I suppose it might have done so for The Singles 1969-1973, which came out alongside it, even if that would have put it in the weird position of being a non-single on a singles compilation.

As I say, 'Top of the World' I give a pass to as they didn't deliberately go out of their way to make it a single. But I can't say the same for choosing to release 'Sing' as the first single from a new album campaign.

 

[GaryAlan]

If Lynn Anderson's Top Of The World single-release hadn't been making its way up the charts,
I really have doubts that the duo would have re-recorded and released it as a single !
Once it was seen as a money-maker, its fate as a single release was all but decided.
Just my opinion....

 

[Harry]

"Top Of The World" by Carpenters had already become a single in Japan using the album version.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

True, but Led Zeppelin and the Carpenters weren't appealing to the same audience with the same buying intentions. Rock fans would always be more amenable to buying an album over a single. I imagine not releasing 'Top of the World' wouldn't have spurred sales of A Song For You, which was already over saleswise by mid-1973 and had underperformed slightly by their high standards in part because the single choices from it hadn't sustained it that well. Although I suppose it might have done so for The Singles 1969-1973, which came out alongside it, even if that would have put it in the weird position of being a non-single on a singles compilation.

As I say, 'Top of the World' I give a pass to as they didn't deliberately go out of their way to make it a single. But I can't say the same for choosing to release 'Sing' as the first single from a new album campaign.

Your first sentence points to the fundamental problem...allowing a fan base that would accept pretty much anything the Carpenters did to dictate singles. Imagine if Herb Alpert had gone with "Talk To The Animals" instead of "This Guy's In Love With You" from THE BEAT OF THE BRASS TV special.

Singles are and were a tool by which to broaden the appeal of an artist and to sell as many albums as possible. The profit margin in singles was always very, very slim.

Let's go back and look at my suggested singles releases:

• Close To You
• We've Only Just Begun
• Rainy Days and Mondays
• For All We Know
• Superstar
• Hurting Each Other
• Goodbye To Love
• I Won't Last A Day Without You
• A Song For You
• Yesterday Once More
• This Masquerade
• Only Yesterday

I'd argue that four singles (substituting "A Song For You" for "Top of the World") was enough from A SONG FOR YOU...and that "A Song For You" had a better chance of expanding the audience for that album. In this scenario, Karen and Richard don't re-record "Top of the World". It remains an album cut on A SONG FOR YOU, in that form. And it's not included on SINGLES (but "A Song For You") would be.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

"Top Of The World" by Carpenters had already become a single in Japan using the album version.

I'm talking American singles and the American artist image. Obviously, the Carpenters had far less of an image problem in Japan.