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Sign of the times!I was trying to ignore the circumstances around each recording, and to judge them on their own merit. Had "BEechwood 4-5789" been their choice for an oldie instead of "Please Mr. Postman", I think it might have done just as well. It's a well-crafted record.
I also tried to ignore the video, which admittedly is pretty awful, and just concentrate on the sound of a single - a 45 - one song on a slab'o'wax.
Harry
I hate "Goofus", because to me it represents the bad mistakes which ended the Carpenters string of hits. Granted this is probably unfair, because musical tastes were changing at this time as well. But I'm convinced that a poor selection of choices for singles speeded up their demise. "Solitaire" is actually the first "unsuccessful" Carpenters single. It peaked at #17, so you just knew something was wrong. Then "A Kind Of Hush" was a blatant attempt to recreate the "Postman" success...but the difference in energy between the two singles was night and day. "Postman" was driving and fun, while "Hush" was bland. The next single "I Need T Be In Love" is a very good song, but that damn chorale makes it sound so dated. Which brings us to "Goofus"...wtf were they thinking????
Am I the only person who looked at the "Kind Of Hush" album, and saw "Can't Smile Without You" as the PERFECT single...it had all the pop elements of Close To You, as Barry Manilow discovered not long after.
To be honest, when the "Hush" album first came out, "Goofus" was one of the songs that I was initially taken by...I suppose because it was different and, in a pretty lackluster and unimaginative collection overall, it stood out. While "I Need to Be in Love" was the current single I did the usual fan thing and wrote to the fan club suggesting "You" or "Goofus" as the follow-up. Ev wrote back and said Richard did read that letter, so yeah, maybe it's my fault...
Looking back today, I consider "You" and "Can't Smile Without You" as the strongest tracks on the album. Anyone else who was alive and well in '76 and would like to comment on their first reactions to "Goofus" at that time, please do. Hopefully I'm not alone...
I know we have Richard Carpenters' documented 'regrets' about
recording certain songs ( 'regrets' based primarily on given what happened to Karen)
--among which he has included Goofus and Beechwood---
but, what we are missing in Carpenters' career retrospectives,
is the precise reasoning (explained by Richard) as to:
(1) why these two (in particular) were chosen for tracking,then recording,
at that moment in time, 1976:
and, then,
(2) an explanation as to why they were chosen (again, by him) to be released as Singles.
(3) Going further, why did no one (Herb, Jerry) at A&M stop those Single releases ?
Album cuts, fine. But, as Singles ?...
...Anyone else who was alive and well in '76 and would like to comment on their first reactions to "Goofus" at that time, please do. Hopefully I'm not alone...
...Any other analysis is just typical hindsight chatter.
Made in America, I think that all of our discussions herein are indeed "typical hindsight chatter."
Any other analysis is just typical hindsight chatter, which Richard himself has been guilty of as well.
I'd disagree - it's clear the record buying public felt the same way in 1976 as we do now or the song would have charted higher.
I agree, GaryAlan, with Weintraub's direction, they became old before their time. As much as I LOVE "Music, Music, Music", a couple of folks 30 and 33 should not have done a special that "aged" them by 25 years. (Nor should they have done some of the corny stuff either.) TOTAL mismanagement and mismarketing of the duo once again. Linda Ronstadt could pull it off in 1983 because she was already seen as cool.
For all its mistakes, Passage at least made them contemporary.