Melody Maker Top 30 Albums, Capital Radio Top 40 & more

Simon KC1950

Well-Known Member
Happy Saturday everyone,

I have been doing lots and lots of research into the UK charts - aside from the Official Charts which are easily accessible. I managed to find and record all Carpenters album chart placings and dates in Melody Maker. I also found some single placings in Melody Maker, NME and BMRB along with some very exiting Capital Radio Top 40 Weekly Countdowns (which is still going on today!)

Here are the chart placings and dates for the Carpenters albums in the Top 30 of Melody Maker from 1970-1979. (if anyone wants a specific date or individual chart placings then ask away)

Melody Maker UK Albums Top 30
ALBUM TITLEPEAK POSTIONWEEKS ON CHARTFIRST CHART ENTRY LAST CHART ENTRYWEEKS IN TOP 10
CLOSE TO YOU29120/02/7120/02/710
THE CARPENTERS 101730/10/7108/04/711
TICKET TO RIDE27315/04/7229/04/720
A SONG FOR YOU151104/11/7205/01/740
NOW AND THEN1 (3 WEEKS)5007/07/7313/05/7427
THE SINGLES 69-731 (18 WEEKS)9926/01/7410/01/7651
HORIZON2 (5 WEEKS)2128/06/7515/11/7518
A KIND OF HUSH61103/07/7611/09/764
LIVE AT THE PALLADIUM28122/01/7722/01/770
PASSAGE 12715/10/7721/11/770
SINGLES 74-781 (2 WEEKS)1209/12/7824/02/798

Breaking that down, during the 1970's Karen and Richard Carpenter placed 11 albums inside the Melody Maker Top 30 with a combined total of 233 weeks including 23 weeks at #1 and 100 weeks in the Top 10



Below is Capital's weekly countdown which I don't think started until late 73/early 74 but continues to this day and is one of Britain' biggest stations. Karen went to the Capital studio in London during her 1978 visit (I have a recording of this on my Carpenters Facebook page here:


These are interesting as they do differ from the the other charts of the day, I believe this chart also took into account requests - the second entry left me gobsmacked!


Capital Radio Top 40 Weekly Countdown

TITLEPEAK POSTIONWEEKS ON CHARTFIRST/LAST ENTRY DATE
TOP OF THE WORLD35 (INCOMPLETE CHART)3 (INCOMPLETE CHART)JAN '74
JAMBALAYA / MR GUDER1916/02/74 - 20/04/74
I WON'T LAST A DAY WITHOUT YOU8617/05/74 - 22/06/74
PLEASE MR POSTMAN21530/11/74 - 22/03/75
ONLY YESTERDAY 5812/04/75 - 31/05/75
SOLITAIRE12602/08/75* - 06/09/75
MERRY CHRISTMAS DARLING / SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN13429/11/75 - 20/12/75
THERE'S A KIND OF HUSH8806/03/76* - 01/05/76
I NEED TO BE IN LOVE 18403/07/76* - 24/07/76
ALL YOU GET FROM LOVE IS A LOVE SONG22428/05/77 - 18/06/76
CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT3615/09/77 - 03/10/77
SWEET, SWEET SMILE10707/01/78 - 18/02/78
*entry date is as a "Capital Climber"

CAPTAL RADIO MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS OF NOTETITLEPOSITION
CAPITAL HALL OF FAME (24 MAY 1974) LISTENERS VOTES (THEY LONG TO BE) CLOSE TO YOU87
CAPITAL HALL OF FAME (24 MAY 1974) LISTENERS VOTESGOODBYE TO LOVE91
PEOPLES CHOICE (29/11/75)MERRY CHRISTMAS DARLING / SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN1
CAPITAL'S COUNTDOWN OF '75 TOP ARTISTSCARPENTERS2
CAPITAL'S COUNTDOWN OF '75 TOP SONGSPLEASE MR. POSTMAN17
CAPITAL'S COUNTDOWN OF '75 TOP SONGSONLY YESTERDAY30
PEOPLES CHOICE (15/09/77)CALLING OCCUPANTS OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT1



Below are chart placings for a 5 early singles in Melody Maker, NME and BMRB (British Market Research Bureau). I also found that "Please Mr. Postman" was #1 on the NME chart dated 19/02/75

TITLE MELODY MAKERWEEKSNMEWEEKSBMRBWEEKS
(THEY LONG TO BE) CLOSE TO YOU410310610
WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN2310272286
SUPERSTAR / FOR ALL WE KNOW1881691810
GOODBYE TO LOVE812911912
 
Apologies for the tables being a bit jumbled up, I couldn't create a table bigger than 10 rows, hopefully it is still readable :)
 
That radio interview is interesting. Karen claims they had to leave “at least twelve” tracks off Christmas Portrait due to lack of space. There are only 6 new leads with her vocals on An Old Fashioned Christmas. I wonder what the other six are?
"I wonder what the other six are?"

Unfinished...In the vault. If Richard hurries he can have them ready to go for us by Christmas! :laugh:
 
There were so many interesting points in that interview which is why I was so keen to share it. No.1 for me is Karen's personality shining through and you can tell the DJ really likes Karen, such a natural conversation.

Here's some points I picked up on:

-12 songs left off "Christmas Portrait", so therefore six songs left over. Perhaps it includes "Auld Lang Syne" which was a Peter Knight orchestration that would have been on Xmas Portrait but has no vocals. She could have been including songs from the TV special like "Toyland", "Christmas Alphabet" "Angel In The Christmas Play" (duets yes, so they wouldn't have made it but it would have been fun to hear them do it alone, like the Music Music Music songs they did after the show) and possibly "Play A Simple Melody"

-"Man Smart Woman Smarter" first heard by Richard when in the UK at Capital Radio

-1979 the Carpenters were due to release a 10th anniversary album but Karen stated a 5th television special would have been worked on in the new year which was going to centre around their 10th anniversary. That would have been interesting to see how it would have worked, wonder if any plans, scripts or ideas exist anywhere?

-Manager was discussing/negotiating plans for a UK tour following on from their hugely successful 1976 British tour.
 
There were so many interesting points in that interview which is why I was so keen to share it. No.1 for me is Karen's personality shining through and you can tell the DJ really likes Karen, such a natural conversation.

Here's some points I picked up on:

-12 songs left off "Christmas Portrait", so therefore six songs left over. Perhaps it includes "Auld Lang Syne" which was a Peter Knight orchestration that would have been on Xmas Portrait but has no vocals. She could have been including songs from the TV special like "Toyland", "Christmas Alphabet" "Angel In The Christmas Play" (duets yes, so they wouldn't have made it but it would have been fun to hear them do it alone, like the Music Music Music songs they did after the show) and possibly "Play A Simple Melody"
On the Close To You: Remembering the Carpenters documentary Richard mentions that they apparently recorded both versions of Ave Maria, the original Schubert version and the Bach-Gounod version, but only the Bach-Gounod version was released.
 
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