Heard Carpenters

[Song4uman]

saw "Juno" (or at least part of it) for the first time and they talked about the Carpenters and played part of the "If I were a Carpenter" CD. cool

 

[Nicko]

The BBC television news show 'Newsnight' played out with 'Top of the World' last night, it was played over a feature about the highest ever BASE jump from Mount Everest.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

I do an "Open Mic" thing three days a week with a piano player and a trumpet player (I do the sound and sing when needed). We always hear "They Long To Be Close To You" and "Top Of The World". We get the former at least once a week and the latter once every three. Someone did "We've Only Just Begun" this past Tuesday night...in Karen's key. Of course, the harmonies go off in my head whenever anyone sings these tunes.

Ed

 

[goodjeans]

(Harry, can you please move this to the existing category? I cannot find it.)
Heard "Top of the World" yesterday and again today on Good Morning America.

 

[Nicko]

This knocked me out tonite, in the uk there is a quiz show between competing Universities called University challenge, there was a music section tonite the competitors are 18- 24 year olds.

There were 4 songs used by NASA to wake up the astronauts, a snippet from each song is played they must identify the band.

I can see for miles - the Who. ( the first attempt was Beatles, second team got it right)
I feel the earth move- Carole King. ( no one knew)
From a distance - Bette Midler. ( they thought it was Diana Ross)
Top of the world - Carpenters ( got it right first time, IT Took only 3 notes of the song)



I thought this was pretty cool, that these kids would know Karen and struggled with all the others.

 

[Graeme]

Won't Last A Day Without You was played during the opening section of Fresh Meat the other week (a Channel 4 comedy not to be watched with your parents). It was used to in an ironic sense as Vod couldn't cope with her loved up bloke invading her space (summed up with the line "I'm not really into anything heavy. Wherever I lay my hat that's my home, only now wherever I lay my hat your another hat underneath my hat and I don't need two hats". Pleasant surprise.

 

[Vinylalbumcovers]

We now have a bass singer who comes to our "open mic" things and he regularly does "Top Of The World." Imagine hearing that in a bass voice. It's unintentionally hilarious!

Ed

 

[masqueraded]

At work, (I work at a Pizza Hut currently), they play a handful of Carpenters music during the day for this month especially. What rotates normally is "Sleigh Ride", "Merry Christmas, Darling", and either "Have Yourself..." or "I'll Be Home..." (forget which one). And during the regular season it's "We've Only Just Begun". So each time one of these plays I start singing along and I have a happy 3 or so minutes of peace. They also play Olivia (another of my favorites!) and the tunes they play are "Magic" and "Mellow".

 

[jfiedler17]

At work, (I work at a Pizza Hut currently), they play a handful of Carpenters music during the day for this month especially. What rotates normally is "Sleigh Ride", "Merry Christmas, Darling", and either "Have Yourself..." or "I'll Be Home..." (forget which one). And during the regular season it's "We've Only Just Begun". So each time one of these plays I start singing along and I have a happy 3 or so minutes of peace. They also play Olivia (another of my favorites!) and the tunes they play are "Magic" and "Mellow".

Yeah, that's one of the wonderful things about this time of year. At any other time of the year, I never - ever - hear Carpenters on any of the FM stations in our area. It's literally been years since I heard any of their non-holiday songs on any of the local stations. But around the holidays, when a lot of the more adult-contemporary-oriented stations switch over to all-holiday music, they play Richard and Karen at least once an hour, it seems like. It's always extremely refreshing.

What's even more surprising - since you just brought up Olivia - is that I never even hear Olivia on any of the FM stations around here anymore, unless it's to play something from Grease, like "You're the One That I Want" or "Summer Nights." That's it. Anything else in her catalog, they avoid like the plague. Go figure. I was listening to one of her compilations in my car stereo not too long ago, and when "Magic" came on, it took me aback at first 'cause it had been so long since I last heard that song anywhere. A shame, too, 'cause that is one seriously first-rate single.

Many, many years ago, I hosted a radio show - on college-radio, though it was also picked up for broadcast on Internet and shortwave radio by Radio Six, which reminds me, does Tony Currie ever still drop by this board? I miss him! - that was devoted to playing any Top 40 hits from the '70s through the '90s that you seldom hear - or never hear - on mainstream/FM radio anymore, from huge number one hits by big-name artists that have just inexplicably vanished from the airwaves (think something like "Say Say Say" - enormously massive hit, by two massively big names, and yet when was the last time you can remember hearing that on the radio?) to songs from blink-and-you-missed-'em one-hit-wonders. I mention this just 'cause I can't remember ever turning down a request for a particular record unless it was something that clearly doesn't fall into the category of songs you never hear on the radio anymore (something like, say, Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" couldn't really qualify for my playlist, though any of their other four Top 40 hits were fair game), and because artists like Carpenters and Olivia are by and large pretty much MIA from most FM radio stations these days, pretty much just about anything of theirs was fair game for my show, even songs that cracked the Top Five, like "Only Yesterday," or even went Number One, like "Top of the World" or "Physical." It's kinda sad to think that there are artists with enormously long runs of chart hits whose entire catalogs have been all but jettisoned from radio playlists, even on oldies stations, but, hey, if nothing else, it gave me more material for my show.

 

[Geographer]

Yeah, that's one of the wonderful things about this time of year. At any other time of the year, I never - ever - hear Carpenters on any of the FM stations in our area. It's literally been years since I heard any of their non-holiday songs on any of the local stations. But around the holidays, when a lot of the more adult-contemporary-oriented stations switch over to all-holiday music, they play Richard and Karen at least once an hour, it seems like. It's always extremely refreshing.

What's even more surprising - since you just brought up Olivia - is that I never even hear Olivia on any of the FM stations around here anymore, unless it's to play something from Grease, like "You're the One That I Want" or "Summer Nights." That's it. Anything else in her catalog, they avoid like the plague. Go figure. I was listening to one of her compilations in my car stereo not too long ago, and when "Magic" came on, it took me aback at first 'cause it had been so long since I last heard that song anywhere. A shame, too, 'cause that is one seriously first-rate single.

Many, many years ago, I hosted a radio show - on college-radio, though it was also picked up for broadcast on Internet and shortwave radio by Radio Six, which reminds me, does Tony Currie ever still drop by this board? I miss him! - that was devoted to playing any Top 40 hits from the '70s through the '90s that you seldom hear - or never hear - on mainstream/FM radio anymore, from huge number one hits by big-name artists that have just inexplicably vanished from the airwaves (think something like "Say Say Say" - enormously massive hit, by two massively big names, and yet when was the last time you can remember hearing that on the radio?) to songs from blink-and-you-missed-'em one-hit-wonders. I mention this just 'cause I can't remember ever turning down a request for a particular record unless it was something that clearly doesn't fall into the category of songs you never hear on the radio anymore (something like, say, Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" couldn't really qualify for my playlist, though any of their other four Top 40 hits were fair game), and because artists like Carpenters and Olivia are by and large pretty much MIA from most FM radio stations these days, pretty much just about anything of theirs was fair game for my show, even songs that cracked the Top Five, like "Only Yesterday," or even went Number One, like "Top of the World" or "Physical." It's kinda sad to think that there are artists with enormously long runs of chart hits whose entire catalogs have been all but jettisoned from radio playlists, even on oldies stations, but, hey, if nothing else, it gave me more material for my show.

And this is why I contend that so-called "70's" format radio stations (think XM Channel 7) do not relfect 1970's radio at all. The three biggest acts of that decade were Bee Gee's, Elton John, and Carpenters. You will here Bee Gee's and Elton John once or twice and hour and either NEVER hear Carpenters or, when you do, they will be regulated to the segment "Jukebox from Hell" or "Jukebox of Dynomite;" both meant as derisions of the song or act. They once put Rainy Days and Mondays in this segment...c'mom, really?

If these stations were true to their format, we should be hearing Carpenters at least once an hour, especially considering how much they were on the radio in the actual 1970's.

 

[AM Matt]

Heard "I Won't Last A Day Without You" (original version from 1972) at Culver's Restaurant in Midland, MI!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Tapdancer]

You will...either NEVER hear Carpenters or, when you do, they will be regulated to the segment "Jukebox from Hell" or "Jukebox of Dynomite;" both meant as derisions of the song or act. They once put Rainy Days and Mondays in this segment...c'mom, really?

I can imagine some teenagers at the time of the release of Rainy Days and Mondays maybe not wanting to associate with Carpenters music - perhaps not wanting to be seen as uncool in relation to their peers. It's also a reflection that for some people at that stage of their life, they simply lacked the musical maturity to appreciate the song.

But we're now into the second decade of the new millenium. One would have thought that over time those teenagers - now grown up and working in radio broadcast - would have developed some emotional maturity. We are not talking about a lightweight Carpenters track which could have deserved some element of cringe. On the contrary, RD&M as we all know is one of the finest examples ever of successful collaboration between any writer, lyricist, arranger and singer.

Those station programmers can therefore only be described as Philistines, or as having harbored a deep-seated resentment of the Carpenters' fully deserved success.

 

[Geographer]

I can imagine some teenagers at the time of the release of Rainy Days and Mondays maybe not wanting to associate with Carpenters music - perhaps not wanting to be seen as uncool in relation to their peers. It's also a reflection that for some people at that stage of their life, they simply lacked the musical maturity to appreciate the song.

But we're now into the second decade of the new millenium. One would have thought that over time those teenagers - now grown up and working in radio broadcast - would have developed some emotional maturity. We are not talking about a lightweight Carpenters track which could have deserved some element of cringe. On the contrary, RD&M as we all know is one of the finest examples ever of successful collaboration between any writer, lyricist, arranger and singer.

Those station programmers can therefore only be described as Philistines, or as having harbored a deep-seated resentment of the Carpenters' fully deserved success.

Maybe I am getting cranky in my not-so-old-but-middle age, but I pay the subscription price to hear an actual relfelction of the songs on the charts in that decade. Frankly, I don't care what the programmers like or don't like. Carpeters had what; a dozen top 10 or 20 hits; more so if you limit the programming to top 40? Give me, as a customer, those songs in the same frequency they were played in the 70's. To weight the programming in a way that over-plays one or two artists at the expense of another that was as equally successful is fraudulent...in my humble opinion as a consumer of their product. That's all I am saying.

 

[Dave]

OK, now Christmas music is playing at my store, so I heard "I'll Be Home For Christmas", by The Carpenters, at least twice, I think!

--Dave

Hmmmmmmm...our Christmas music now seems to be playing TWO Carpenters Xmas songs: "Christmas Time Is Here", although pretty much a rarity, has also been heard, by me, played at my store as well!

-- Dave

(Bump!)

 

[BarryT60]

I have Sirius - and to be honest, I heard very little Carpenters this year on their 'Love' station... Some - but not the usual amount... Perhaps there are more artists with Christmas recordings that take up some air-time? That said, there was no shortage of Johnny Mathis, Bing, and The Jackson 5.... I must say - the lack of frequency in Carpenters air-play was more than a little disappointing. I ended up switching to my local Mix station and heard more from them.... Anyone know where I can send a note of complaint - for next year? (Along the same lines, the 70's on 7 station rarely plays Carpenters songs either.... frustrating...)

 

[Dave60640]

How's this......talking to my best friend while walking down Michigan Avenue about someone I have fallen head over heels for when a street musician started playing We've OnlyJust Begun on his sax as I was walking past. I instantly froze. Was it a sign???

 

[A&M Retro]

Sounds like a sign to me.

 

[Harry]

Here's an odd one. We stopped into the local Publix supermarket to pick up a few things. While waiting at the deli, the music system was playing Olivia Newton-John singing "Magic". I enjoyed hearing it, but thought it just a bit odd, given how music services and radio stations are ignoring older music.

Then the kicker was that after another unidentified song, I heard another familiar voice - Karen Carpenter doing "We've Only Just Begun." Quite a treat as we picked up our carton of local orange juice...

Harry

 

[Mark-T]

Pretty incredible these days!

 

[masqueraded]

Here's an odd one. We stopped into the local Publix supermarket to pick up a few things. While waiting at the deli, the music system was playing Olivia Newton-John singing "Magic". I enjoyed hearing it, but thought it just a bit odd, given how music services and radio stations are ignoring older music.

Then the kicker was that after another unidentified song, I heard another familiar voice - Karen Carpenter doing "We've Only Just Begun." Quite a treat as we picked up our carton of local orange juice...

Harry

Sounds like what I get to listen to at work. And of course, as I said, I sing along to haha.

 

[A&M Retro]

A friend of mine heard 'We've Only Just Begun' over the weekend in a grocery store, too.

 

[ullalume]

just heard "I Believe You" on a repeat of BBC Detective show "BERGERAC". Very surprised to hear that particular song, then saw that the show came out autumn '81 which is when MIA was riding high in the UK charts.

AND literally just heard Close To You on an ITV show DINNER DATE

 

[GaryAlan]

Wasn't sure if this had made the rounds when it aired:
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreil...st-christmas-album/?playlist_id=1740294866001

 

[GaryAlan]

Latest rankings on itunes worldwide:
http://kworb.net/itunes/artist/carpenters.html

 

[Jeff]

My god who knew? This international sales thing looks like a revival or something. Gary, I have enjoyed your contributions to the forum so very much. Your details, articles, rankings are a pleasure to peruse. Thanks for putting forth what seems an exhaustive effort. Oh yeah, way to hold your ground around here too!!

The ever appreciative,

Jeff