newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
And 40 years later, to this fan at least, Karen Carpenter stands up better than many many debut solo albums by the likes of Agnetha, Frida and her other contemporaries. I just wish Karen’s record had been released, even to marginal success, in 1980.
I was trying to decide which part of your excellent post to quote but the last paragraph nails it. The many similarities in circumstance between Karen, Agnetha and Frida are striking as you point out. They all have one primary thing in common though: nobody else knew exactly how to really produce their voices on record to the same astonishing level as their existing producers. They all had a decent try - Phil Collins really pushed Frida stylistically, but became exasperated with her vocal takes in the studio at times. Mike Chapman was nowhere near as strong with Agnetha as he should have been, which just led to an anodyne sounding album with forgettable material. Phil Ramone curiously is a mixture of the two: he definitely pushed her outside her comfort zone, but his biggest failing is that he allowed her to go in totally the wrong direction where the material is concerned, which also resulted in several forgettable tracks making the cut.
We’ve all said that Karen should have recorded an album of standards. Phil Ramone had worked with the likes of Streisand so certainly could have taken her on that journey. Richard certainly had the chops too. But Karen had come out of recording sessions in 1978 having done tracks like “Little Girl Blue” and “When I Fall In Love”, so maybe that was the last thing on her mind.
The thing I’ve always wondered though is this: what kind of album was Richard expecting this to be?