Random thoughts on Karen during Olivia's hot streak

[Mark-T]

OK, so last night at the Olivia concert, I thought of a couple of things.

During these years (1978-1982), Olivia had "Grease", "Totally Hot" and "Physical". She was burning up the charts.

During that same period or so, Karen had the ecclectic "Passage", followed by the beautiful but very traditional "Christmas Portrtrait", and then a very MOR-ish "Made in America". They were fading away over time.

Concurrently, Olivia was trendy - and radio friendly- even though those very same trendy things diminished her popularity (temporarily) in later years (ie. Soul Kiss). These three albums, however, gave additional years of longevity and interest in her career.

Some thoughts:

1- Fashionwise as well as musically, K&R were stuck in the easy listening mode- and "CP" followed by "MIA" only entrenched them there. ("Passage" was too far away from what was radio friendly.) Seeing them live in 1976 and 1978 only reinforced that.

2- No wonder Karen struggled with issues of breaking free and her self-image. Olivia transcended the adolescent image (good or bad), while Karen continued reinforcing it. (Example: About the same time (and age) Olivia was singing "Silvery Rain" and other songs from the album, Karen was singing "Beechwood 4-5789".

3- Releasing the solo album vs. "Made in America" could have changed things. Although it might not have charted as high, it would have shown she could do something different, thereby adding a freshness to her (and Richard's) career.

For better or for worse, people LOOKED at Karen, and Karen's look on the solo project alone would have generated more interest than what she was often seen wearing on album covers, on video clips, in concert, and on TV specials. (Her clothing from the "Palladium" album period was elegant, but more fitting for a 65 year old icon than a 26 - 32 year old pop star!)

4- Their management and counsel at the time (including Jerry Weintraub and Herb Alpert) dropped the ball. They encouraged them to be the Sinatra of their generation instead of enjoying their popularity and having fun for awhile. While Olivia's management wisely surrounded her with contempoary but accessable pop stars (ie. Elton John, Andy Gibb, etc), Karen and Richard got the likes of Kristy McNichol, Georgia Engel, Suzanne Sommers and John Davidson! Yes, Gene Kelly was common to both Olivia and Karen, and John Denver was hot at the time, Ella Fitzgerald an icon but overall the Carpenters were definitely hanging with the "B" crowd. (Note: nothing against these performers personally, they just weren't setting the standards of popular entertainment.)

5- I think Karen and Richard started to take themselves too seriously as well.

Anyway, just my thoughts. What do you think?

Mark

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Wow Mark, you'vd opened up some great discussion. Seeing it like that does makes it look like totally different career's.

This borders on alot of hot bottons regarding the Carpenters & were they were headed with MIA on the wing.

My take is this. Im happy that MIA was done & after all it was Karen's choice to go ahead with another Carpenters album. However with that said, I wished this had happened.

The world knew at this point that Karen had a voice that was unmatched by anyone. I wish that Richard could have taken the solo sessions that Karen did & took a different approach, something more positive.

Richard could have said hey why not take our musical ability & center it more on Karen, bringing her even more closer to the front. Richard would still produce Karen's work & do all the arranging & piano work but it would move more into a solo career with Karen being a solo lead & market Karen as a female solo performer. With the right song choices (more pop like what Olivia or some of the other top pop performers were like then) Karen could have made some huge profits & a national pop stardom like Olivia ran into at that point in time. I'm not saying Karen could have performed such hits as Physical like her friend but something more pop flavored instead of getting stuck in the the easy listening era.

This was obviously important to Karen, if not she would not have been so content & excited about her solo sessions as she was. Did I make any sense?

 

[Harry]

Consider that Karen & Richard were struggling so much that all they probably yearned for in those later years was a return to normalcy - defined by what made them successful in the early '70s. Unfortunately that tack only mired them further into their image problems. I think they were probably too out-of-it with their individual physical problems to plan their career properly at that time.

It's easy to blame whatever problems they encountered on others, but face it folks, THEY were the ones with the final say-so on all matters and decisions.

Harry
NP: radio at work

 

[Mark-T]

Well, Harry, I look at it like this-

I think when you pay someone for their wisdom and savy, as in Weintraub's case, whoever is paid has to share some of the responsibility as well. Not all but some. They are, supposedly, the experts.

The trio of "Now and Then", "The Singles" and "Horizon" had the Carpenters at the highest point of their career- if not in sales, definitely in artistry. "Horizon" showed a maturity and alot of guts. Covering (and besting) an Eagles and Linda Ronstadt tune? A 40s classic eight years before "What's New" by Ronstadt. The power of "Solitaire", though not necessarily a great single for summertime, still a terrific merging of performer and song. In house songwriting that kept improving. A number one hit on the album. "Horizon" was another "Close to You"- 2nd landmark album to build a career on.

At the time of "Hush", Alpert should have said, "Too soft, no edge, cut the MOR choir!" "Hush" should have been redefined before its release. Herb was the boss. Even if they could have done what they wanted to do, Karen and Richard knew Herb had their best interests at heart and they probably would have listened.

Weintraub encouraged TV when what they really needed were some hit songs again. TV? Fine- use it for guest spots on high profile specials (like Olivia's) for premiering new songs.
Videos, the tender of the day for the 80s. Hire some artistic talent to give them a look keeping them current without sacrificing their standards.

On the other hand, as Coleman's book notes, Richard had discussed career stuff with folks like Terry Ellis, so only Richard can know what really happened.

Certainly, Karen and Richard saw with their own eyes and ears what was going on styistically then, so they cannot escape their involvement and therefore, results.

Even after "Hush" continued their chart dive, "Passage" should have included some great duet to build immediate interest and sales. A surefire radio hit. (I don't mean "Good Vibrations and Comin thru the Rye!)
And a way to make the public see them in a new light. I have heard Richard was against Karen dueting with anyone at the time, however. So, yes, responsibility in their decline involves many parties even though Karen and Richard were at the helm.

(Just love these philosophical discussions! Hope more folks give input!)

Mark

 

[Steven J. Gross]

I saw Olivia interviwed on TV last night and she looked better than ever!
Good for her!!!

 

[Mark-T]

Chris, you made alot of sense. BTW...
Since you are a huge Olivia fan, what would you consider to be her essentual 3 or 4 disc set? I'm thinking of creating my own compilation.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Mark that is too hard to narrow down but my most fav of her Cd's would be

Don't Stop Believin'
Come On Over
Physical
Gaia

Magic released in the last few years is a most complete compilation. It's so funny that Carpenters has so many compilations since Karen passed away, Richard has mastered the art of compilations, However with Olivia there are fewer and where Richard has Re-mastered the whole back catalog, Olivia has never ever done that, there have been some Festival releases of Olivia's but she is in dire need of her whole catalog being Re-mastered. Then as far as box sets, Richard has done a nice job releasing some great box sets & special 2/3 Cd sets. Olivia has absolutly no box sets & no special 2/3 Cd sets, so weird for a artist of her caliper, Olivia has no marketing team & no-one seems to be interested in either getting her back on the charts or more importantly let the public know she is singing & recording again. Sometimes I think she wants it that way, Only recently have we recvd a very first music official DVD of some of her older videos (5 songs)

....still watching Francis, online....

 

[enigma]

Wow this is a good topic I like the insights you people put into it.

Heres my take and some of this may have been said before. First Karen was well aware of her friends transformation from pop princess to pop ico. Grease was a turning point for ONJ like her charactor in the movie ONJ's career was going from the Sandy at the begining of the film to the Sandy at the end. Before Grease I considered ONJ easy listening in the same catagory as the Carpenters had ONJ continued in that direction I think her career would have suffered like Karens did. The key to long term success in any artist is the ability to reinvent yourself from time to time you cannot have a long career if you rely on what got you there in the past. ONJ or her people seemed to be aware of this so they took some chances. Grease was a gamble for ONJ it could easily have driven away her fan base but as history notes it did not and it won her new fans.

Karen and Richard preferred to remain safe and keep the formula that made the Carpenters successful thats one difference. I really do not know where The Carpenters strayed after Horizon they could have built on this great record and headed into a possative direction but subsequent releases just could not build on the new ground Horizon was breaking. Now on to the solo record A&m and Richard dropped the ball they were not seeing the bigger picture. Releasing Karens solo record could have done wonders to shake that image that dogged them and that musical style that stagnated them. This is not to say that AKOH, Passage, and MIA were not good but they really did not do what her solo record could have done. The Carpenters needed to take a gamble as ONJ did and shake up their immage and music and Karens solo record could have done just that.

As for Richard's involvement in Karens solo career no no no thats is the last thing Karen would have needed. I think it was healthy for Karen to be away from Richard both K&R needed some outside projects to pump some new blood into their albums when they came together. That would keep them from stagnating and infuse them with new ideas to keep their music fresh and lively had they taken that approach instead of the one they ended up taking. Just some of my thoughts.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

Very good points, enigma.

"Grease was a gamble for ONJ it could easily have driven away her fan base but as history notes it did not and it won her new fans"

I agree, in fact to add to that, later when she released Physical, Olivia even had 2nd thoughts & almost pulled the record & said no for fear that she may have pushed the buttons too far. Of course she was wrong.

This is a good exmaple that it was all just a image they were trying to market for Olivia, something fresh. Anyone that has met Olivia (like me) or has followed her career, she is still the same person she was back in the early days as she was after Physical. It was just a different direction to take. Thankfully for her the audience embraced her & she made huge amount of money. Grease was a turning point in her career. Olivia even asked to be screen tested before she would accept the role as Sandy, as she wanted to be sure that was right. I had heard that Marie Osmond was even considered for the role, imagine that.

I strongly believe that Karen knew all about this career change for Olivia. I'm sure that Karen talked with Olivia even while recording her solo album. The Coleman book says Olivia was there when Karen presented the solo tracks for Richard to listen to, so that shows you Karen wanted support & Olivia was there.

Indeed interesting talk about the directions the Carpenters could have gone around all this time.

 

[jfiedler17]

Releasing Karens solo record could have done wonders to shake that image that dogged them and that musical style that stagnated them. This is not to say that AKOH, Passage, and MIA were not good but they really did not do what her solo record could have done. The Carpenters needed to take a gamble as ONJ did and shake up their image and music and Karens solo record could have done just that.

I definitely agree, but at the same time, I still think Karen's solo album isn't nearly as much of a quantum leap as what Olivia did - I mean, ONJ really shifted gears - to go from overly-MOR cuts like "Sam" and "Don't Stop Believin'" to sultry, guitar-riff-heavy grooves like "A Little More Love" and "Magic" ... that's a pretty gargantuan leap! Karen's solo album may have been a "departure" from the typical Carpenters material, but I don't think it's all that altogether out of Carpenters territory. It still has enough footing in MOR that I think A&M really overreacted to it.

It's not that the Carpenters couldn't have leapt forward like ONJ did, because the material's there , but the production on the most coulda-been-huge songs is just so overtly "safe" and MOR-ish ... "Back in My Life Again", for one, actually reminds me a lot of ONJ's "Physical" in ways - listen to it REALLY closely and you can hear a lot of tiny similarities - but the production's just so rooted in MOR-mode and lacking any edge (and, as much as I love the song, it really DOES admittedly sound helplessly dated today and not nearly as fresh as "Physical" still sounds), that it couldn't have conceivably dominated radio in the way that "Physical" did. But it COULD have been given a bit of the "Physical" treatment without taking away from it or making the Carpenters sound too out of their element, I think.

 

[Mark-T]

Funny you'd say that about "Back in My Life Again".
Just listened to MIA yesterday, and I realized something I hadn't before.
Karen still hits the low notes, but she sings very softly, almost breathy, on this album. And the music is excellently performed but other tha drums, it too is soft. The whole album felt very "Hush"-like to me. Karen sounds pretty but not strong.
The power and drive of the songs on the tan album or Song for You - and even Horizon- was gone.
And yes, BIMLA sounds dated, very dated with its Doobie Bros arrangement.
(The doo-do-do-do s drove me crazy yesterday.)

 

[jfiedler17]

And yes, BIMLA sounds dated, very dated with its Doobie Bros arrangement.

I never thought about it before, but, you're right, it DOES have a Doobie Brother-ish arrangement! The arrangement sounds straight out of the Doobies' ONE STEP CLOSER album. (Which has some good songs - i.e. "Real Love" and the title cut - but sounds horribly dated today.)
How sharp of you to pick up on that!

 

[Jeff]

Hi,

Back again with more ONJ concert reeview. At concerts opening before she appeared onstage there was a large projection screen with a montage of ONJ thru the years. One clip was of Karen and the gang on Hollywood Nights singing the Boogie Nights thing. It appeared as tho K was wearing her MusicMM blue velvet thing worn at shows end.

Jeff

 

[PJ]

Interesting posts ....but some fans are forgetting Olivia's career has gone through many highs and lows ....reminded of this with programme on UK TV that had Olivia's poor 1974 4th place to eventual surprise winners ABBA at Eurovision Song Contest .....

Olivia left to live full time / work full time in USA with huge #1's in USA 1974-1975 followed by lull in 1976 / 1977 .....

Grease brought Olivia back to million selling hits & albums ....into Physical era etc ....but these tracks have probably done little for long term career -rather like Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever ....while huge ....later on all the Gibb Bros rued these songs / image as creating many more problems ....

Soul Kiss was awful ....and while Olivia has released some good / great sets since ....her career considering she is still active with films , records and concerts is not as successful as many might have forecast ....

Would love to see Olivia in concert over next two years , sure she is better than ever , more relaxed and comfortable with herself / music just as Karen with Richard would be on their reunion tours ....if both were still active with bi-annual tours for their millions of fans .....

Peter