My Own Carpenter Reviews...
- Thread starter Mark-T
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manofsteel1979
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I just got done reading all of your reviews up to "MIM".Great job! Even though I am a 30 year old living in Virginia whose appreciation for The Carpenters is fairly recent,we seem to have a lot of the same views in terms of their albums. Karen and Richard are in a class by themselves,and it's great to see their glorious music live on. I'm looking forward to seeing your takes on "Voice of the Heart","An Old Fashioned Christmas","Lovelines" "Karen Carpenter" "Time" and "As Time Goes By"!
manofsteel1979
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Great review of "Voice of the Heart"! Keep em' coming! 
Daniel Perales
Well-Known Member
mstaft said:
Nice review.
But personally, as much as I really liked "Christmas Portrait", I liked "An Old Fashioned Christmas", better.
I guess it's because the feelings I get when I listen to both albums.
"Christmas Portrait" is a type of album that I play when I have a group of people over for company. Nice and lively in some spots. Almost the perfect holiday album to play for a crowd.
"An Old Fashioned Christmas", on the other hand, has more of an intimate feel for me. I absoluetly get more absorbed into listening to this album than the previous one. I listen to this mostly alone either playing it on my home stereo (with or without headphones), in my car, or listen to it with a special someone. Even others told me that this album makes them think back and reflect the things that they've done over the years (I get that same feeling as well).
Also, this album may have very few Karen into it, but it also has her most, if not her finest performance I have ever heard, in my personal opinion. Her rendition of "Little Alter Boy", and "He Came Here For Me" sounds like it really came from her heart, because it actually resonates with mine. Very few recording artists has had such an impact on me like that.
And the final track, "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day", will leave me in such an emotional wreck, so much so, that I don't want to listen to any more music for the rest of the day.
For example, when I heard that track for the very first time, tears were running down my cheeks just before it ended. Almost if not identical the feelings I had when I listen to "Look To Your Dreams" from their "Voice Of The Heart" album when Richard is playing during the song's fading ending.
Danny
Good review Mark. I remember listening to this for the first time in the radio station's program director's office. He'd gotten an advance copy and we sat down and listened. I still remember his comment as we'd gotten well into the title track: "Is Karen even on this album?" "Why is Richard calling it "Carpenters" when it's all him so far?"
Then she finally appeared on "Home For The Holidays" and both he and I were sold on the album. He theorized that both this album and the previous one were so well programmed that a radio station could theoretically just let the things track and be done with Christmas programming!
Daniel, I love your take on the album too, particularly that final track. It's an inspired way to wrap up the album.
Harry
Then she finally appeared on "Home For The Holidays" and both he and I were sold on the album. He theorized that both this album and the previous one were so well programmed that a radio station could theoretically just let the things track and be done with Christmas programming!
Daniel, I love your take on the album too, particularly that final track. It's an inspired way to wrap up the album.
Harry
Mark-T
Well-Known Member
I'm covering Time tomorrow on my Insights blog (www.InsightsandSounds.blogspot.com). It is the next part in my ongoing series of reviewing each Carpenters album...
Toolman
Simple Man, Simple Dream
Nice write-up. I have difficulty being objective about Richard's solo work after his (in my opinion) excessively unkind remarks toward Karen's album. If I could set that aside, I think my reaction to "Time" was and is pretty much the same as yours. My favorite track has always been "Say Yeah". Richard was never going to be able to cut Karen-type ballads without coming up short in direct comparison. But he sounded great on "Say Yeah" and just might have surprised programmers enough to get on playlists.
manofsteel1979
Member
Great review. I recently relistened to this album for the first time in awhile. I think as much as Karen's own album was a declaration of her own independence, I think this LP was kind of a therapy for Richard. He is not one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, so this is the closest we will ever see him expressing what he was going through then, even if most of it was subtextual.
I still think his greatest composition is "Karen's Theme", which was on his next solo album. I'm not one to cry easily, but every time I hear it, I tear up. So heartbreakenly profound. You hear and feel who she was to Richard and the void she left behind in just over two minutes.
I still think his greatest composition is "Karen's Theme", which was on his next solo album. I'm not one to cry easily, but every time I hear it, I tear up. So heartbreakenly profound. You hear and feel who she was to Richard and the void she left behind in just over two minutes.
Mark, your experiences nearly mimic mine. At one time I had all three version of the album too - LP, cassette, and CD. I gave the cassette away to a buddy to listen to and never got it back, not that I ever really cared all that much. I'd bought the CD and got the others as throwaways at the radio station. And I remember perusing the graphics of the different formats and observing the little differences.
There was even a time that I thought the stopwatch's reading had significance, but I cannot recall what that is now. Either I was mistaken or old age has taken over. But I do remember comparing the CD longbox with the CD, the LP, and the cassette. I also recall actually liking the Scott Grimes song enough to instantly buy his Richard-produced album when it came out, but I never really cared for the music on THAT disc.
I also felt that the Dionne Warwick track was cut too short. It sounded like she was just getting started on really belting out another chorus when the fader was pulled down. But I enjoyed a great deal of the album and played it over and over many times, looking for some new "Carpenters" magic. Today though, it gets only scant attention once in awhile.
Harry
There was even a time that I thought the stopwatch's reading had significance, but I cannot recall what that is now. Either I was mistaken or old age has taken over. But I do remember comparing the CD longbox with the CD, the LP, and the cassette. I also recall actually liking the Scott Grimes song enough to instantly buy his Richard-produced album when it came out, but I never really cared for the music on THAT disc.
I also felt that the Dionne Warwick track was cut too short. It sounded like she was just getting started on really belting out another chorus when the fader was pulled down. But I enjoyed a great deal of the album and played it over and over many times, looking for some new "Carpenters" magic. Today though, it gets only scant attention once in awhile.
Harry
Good review of LOVELINES, Mark. Your audio reactions track-by-track nearly mirror mine, though my discovery of the album was a bit more mundane.
1989 was the year that my wife and I got married, and it was out in the Chicago area where the nuptials took place. We nearly always go out there to visit her family over the Thanksgiving weekend, and her aunts decided to throw us a wedding. So that year, we made the trip, had our Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday with the ceremony scheduled for Saturday. That left us our usual Friday to go out to the huge mall in Schaumburg and watch the crazied shoppers start their Christmas shopping routine.
I found my way upstairs to the big record store they had there to look around. I almost fell over when I saw LOVELINES in the racks. It killed be not to buy it right then and there, but:
- 1 - I had no way of playing a CD for the next full week-and-a-half as we were headed to a honeymoon cruise.
- 2 - The price of the CD at that store was outrageous - something near $20 with a 7% sales tax.
- 3 - I knew that I could do better around home in PA.
So my better judgment took over, and I simply filed it in the back of my mind that I needed to shop for a new Carpenters album the moment I got home. Which of course I did. So it was early December of 1989 before I heard LOVELINES. Naturally, I checked with the powers that be at the radio station I worked at, and they were only vaguely aware of the new album. But they had a bunch of vinyl copies of which I managed to grab two. Somewhere in my generosity, I gave one of those away, but I still have the other one.
About a month or so later, I passed by the music director's assistant's desk and saw that she had her drink sitting on a promotional CD of LOVELINES! Horrors! I immediately switched another junk CD for it, and took the promo CD home. I put it in a blank jewel case and then photocopied the CD's artwork. Since it was dark brown, the black photocopy didn't look so bad. In fact, that CD is still in in that jewelcase with a photocopied insert. The CD itself has a reddish "PROMOTIONAL" printed at an angle across the title/artist area at the top of the disc. Otherwise, the two 1989 discs are identical with the same matrix numbers stamped around the hub.
Harry
1989 was the year that my wife and I got married, and it was out in the Chicago area where the nuptials took place. We nearly always go out there to visit her family over the Thanksgiving weekend, and her aunts decided to throw us a wedding. So that year, we made the trip, had our Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday with the ceremony scheduled for Saturday. That left us our usual Friday to go out to the huge mall in Schaumburg and watch the crazied shoppers start their Christmas shopping routine.
I found my way upstairs to the big record store they had there to look around. I almost fell over when I saw LOVELINES in the racks. It killed be not to buy it right then and there, but:
- 1 - I had no way of playing a CD for the next full week-and-a-half as we were headed to a honeymoon cruise.
- 2 - The price of the CD at that store was outrageous - something near $20 with a 7% sales tax.
- 3 - I knew that I could do better around home in PA.
So my better judgment took over, and I simply filed it in the back of my mind that I needed to shop for a new Carpenters album the moment I got home. Which of course I did. So it was early December of 1989 before I heard LOVELINES. Naturally, I checked with the powers that be at the radio station I worked at, and they were only vaguely aware of the new album. But they had a bunch of vinyl copies of which I managed to grab two. Somewhere in my generosity, I gave one of those away, but I still have the other one.
About a month or so later, I passed by the music director's assistant's desk and saw that she had her drink sitting on a promotional CD of LOVELINES! Horrors! I immediately switched another junk CD for it, and took the promo CD home. I put it in a blank jewel case and then photocopied the CD's artwork. Since it was dark brown, the black photocopy didn't look so bad. In fact, that CD is still in in that jewelcase with a photocopied insert. The CD itself has a reddish "PROMOTIONAL" printed at an angle across the title/artist area at the top of the disc. Otherwise, the two 1989 discs are identical with the same matrix numbers stamped around the hub.
Harry
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