fave CARPENTERS album cover

Which Carpenters album has your favorite cover?

  • Offering

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ticket To Ride

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Close To You

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Carpenters (Tan Album)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A Song For You

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Now & Then

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Singles 1969-1973

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Horizon

    Votes: 5 29.4%
  • A Kind Of Hush

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • Passage

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Christmas Portrait

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • Made In America

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Voice Of The Heart

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • An Old Fashioned Christmas

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Lovelines

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • A&M Classics Volume 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • From The Top

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Interpretations

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Christmas Collection

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Readers Digest Box Set

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Love Songs

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Singles 1969-1981

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 20th Century Masters Millenium Collection

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • As Time Goes By (Japan)

    Votes: 3 17.6%

  • Total voters
    17
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Jeff

Well-Known Member
I've long held HORIZON as my favorite album cover. Karen had really never looked more beautiful. After having met Karen and Richard in 1978, I've found that this particular cover captures how Karen looked in "real-life". Any other nominations for fave/best album cover?

Jeff
 
Passage...because it's colorful and somewhat abstract.

-= N =-
(should we turn this into a poll?)
 
Honestly, not too many to choose from...
"Hush" is easily my favorite. A nice blend of photo and artistic touches.
Mark
PS- I Agree with PJ's assessment on this album 100%.
 
SwimAMile said:
Horizon and Voice of the Heart top my list...though As Time Goes By has caught my attention...

As Time Goes By with that Annie Liebowitz photo is my favorite with anyone pictured on the cover--it goes beyond their other saccharine covers, shows their road-weary human side. Offering should be shoved in a brown paper bag...I recall they were quite embarassed by that one as well. Ticket To Ride has a far better cover for that album, recalling the "sunny California breeziness". :)

-= N =-
 
It's hard to judge the tiny As Time Goes By CD cover with the rest of the albums that I first knew as large-format LPs, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the magnificent Annie Liebowitz photo that graces that cover would turn out to be my favorite.

A Kind Of Hush was always a favorite because of the matching artwork on the innersleeve and label, and Passage was good in that respect too.

My favorite photo of Karen & Richard is a black & white shot done in the A&M Photo studio by Jim McCrary.

carpen02.jpg


You can see this and others at Jim's website at: http://www.jimmccrary.com

Harry
...also thinking a poll would be nice in this thread, online...
 
...also thinking a poll would be nice in this thread, online...

I'd give it a try, but I'd probably miss a couple of albums. If I get a few spare minutes after midnight, I'll give it a try. (You can just edit the first post in the topic to add the poll.)

I like that other photo (also Liebowitz?) where KC has that goofy smile and RC is looking off to the side.

The matching artwork for Hush was neat--even the label had the same motif. The photo itelf is interchangeable with just about any other album cover, though. I remember getting this LP the same day as one of the TJB or Alpert albums came out (I'm thinking it was Just You And Me).

-= N =-
...on hacker/cracker high-alert...
 
I like the Horizon cover most. Next is Christmas Potrait. Then the others follow as you all have written. I also really like the one on Intrepretations. I remember it (or similar pose and outfits) first being used on the sheet music for I Need To Be In Love.

Craig
 
AS TIME GOES BY is easily my 2nd favorite album cover. Also, I think a poll would be nice...I'll let Harry set it up.

All the best,

Jeff
 
I added the Poll question above. Note: I added virtually every album I knew about, but reached a limit in the number of options the board software would allow (apparently 25), so I pruned out all of the non-US albums, except the special case of As Time Goes By.

Harry
NP: radio at work
 
My favorite album cover has always been - "A Kind of Hush" ! I also love the song "A Kind of Hush!" One of my all time Carpenter favorites! Tim.
 
I voted for Horizon. I like the simplicity of it, plus having read the Rolling Stone article in which Richard says "I'm sick of smiling!" I would guess they liked that cover themselves, too.

My second choice would be the Now & Then cover, but it has to be the LP version. I love the fold-out format. That was when opening a new album was truly a discovery....it was always a thrill to find a new album by a favorite artist and discover that it had a gatefold cover. And this one had TWO folds!

Going down this list, I'm still amazed at the number of dopey-looking Carpenters covers there are. Is there any major artist with more boring, bland, or just-plain-cheesy album covers? (That subject is also addressed in the aforementioned Rolling Stone article, in which Richard blames the A&M marketing department and says they just didn't know how to present a brother/sister act.)
 
I know what you mean Mike. And another part of the problem is that even with all of the reissues, they keep using the SAME photos over and over again:

The new YESTERDAY ONCE MORE uses the familiar "waving" photo that originated on the LIVE IN JAPAN album (inside). That photo was also used to created the sylized version of the older YESTERDAY ONCE MORE.

CHRISTMAS COLLECTION has the duo "jacketed" and is recycled from the TIME LIFE CHRISTMAS WITH THE CARPENTERS.

The new 20TH CENTURY MASTERS album has as its cover, the "leaning on shoulder" photo that was used on the CLASSICS VOLUME 2 as well as THEIR GREATEST HITS (ONLY YESTERDAY in some countries), and a variation of the photo on LOVELINES (that's reasonably excusable). The back photo of 20TH CENTURY MASTERS was used on BY REQUEST and one of the four FROM THE TOP discs (when it had individual jewel boxes).

The Japanese TREASURES recycles a "dressed in fancy clothes" photo used on the cover of another Japanese compilation, A&M GOLD SERIES VOL 1, though it reduces the size of the photo and places it in the context of being inside a treasure box.

And many of these and pictures on other covers have been seen before on innersleeves and inside gatefolds and tour booklets.

I suppose it might be true that Richard has a series of favorite photos that he seems to like to use over and over again, but surely there must be others from all of the photo shoots they must have gone through.

Another common trend is the use of a plain CarpenterS logo as the main device on an album cover, similar, I suppose to what Chicago did with all of their numbered albums. This occured on the tan album, A SONG FOR YOU (with a heart), THE SINGLES 1969-1973, SINGLES 1974-1978, and the new GOLD album in the UK.

Harry
...who's got you covered, online...
 
On the bright(er) side, they did not reuse Offering or Close To You, likely two of the worst Carpenters photos I've seen. Makes one wonder if A&M's art department did this intentionally (they were not the darlings of the Chaplin lot at this stage), or were they just utterly clueless in how to promote a brother/sister act?

-= N =-
...who found an expensive ebay item...posting in FAO...
 
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