RPO "Merry Christmas Darling" on the Radio

[Kyle Thomas]

Today was the first day I heard The Carpenters on a radio station playing Christmas music 24 hours a day, and to my surprise, it was the new RPO version of "Merry Christmas, Darling." I waited until the end to see if the announcer would specify that it was the Carpenters with the RPO, but only the Carpenters were mentioned.

Has anyone else heard the RPO version of "Merry Christmas, Darling" on the radio this season?

I'm a little surprised, as last year, I only heard the regular 1978 version (and occasionally, the 1970 version).

 

[Jarred]

Nothing will top that 1970 version for me. I hear both during the season but the newer vocal just doesn’t cut the same way.

 

[newvillefan]

Nothing will top that 1970 version for me. I hear both during the season but the newer vocal just doesn’t cut the same way.

The 1978 and 2018 versions are just too overdone and sickly sweet for me. The raw 1970 vocal is classic Karen.

 

[Mark-T]

I love all three versions for different reasons.

 

[Harry]

Four versions if you count the not-too-well-loved TIME LIFE track...

 

[Jarred]

The 1978 and 2018 versions are just too overdone and sickly sweet for me. The raw 1970 vocal is classic Karen.

You hear the ache in the original. In 1978 she sounds unaffected by being away from her darling.

 

[tomswift2002]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the RPO version becomes a standard on radio, considering that it’s had a digital single release, and album release, whereas the 1970 and 1992 versions are scarce in the digital domain, unless some station still had a 45 of the 1970 version and played that. And the 78 version has been reissued digitally so many times...

 

[Harry]

Many radio stations subscribe to a music service these days. The station specifies the format, and the service provides all of the digital content for that format to the station. For a time, in the CD age, the songs were mastered to CD, but now they're just digital files . You can often find folks selling those old "Golddisc" CDs. They all have about 20-24 titles in somewhat random order and are referenced by the provider with indices as to what's where. The nice thing for radio stations is that it usually saves them from having to track down rarer single versions of songs, something they all did in the older days - or they just got used to playing the album versions.

 

[Bobberman]

Many radio stations subscribe to a music service these days. The station specifies the format, and the service provides all of the digital content for that format to the station. For a time, in the CD age, the songs were mastered to CD, but now they're just digital files . You can often find folks selling those old "Golddisc" CDs. They all have about 20-24 titles in somewhat random order and are referenced by the provider with indices as to what's where. The nice thing for radio stations is that it usually saves them from having to track down rarer single versions of songs, something they all did in the older days - or they just got used to playing the album versions.

Very true but when the advent of CD recorders became availible to us my knowledge of those Golddisc type CUSTOM CDs inspired me in making my own custom mix CDs exactly like It did when I did my mixtapes many years before we really can do our own version of radio on our computers minus Commercials banter etc ( unless you're like me and you use your computer as a" live assist" practice tool in one's home studio