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Compare the way Karen inflects on the solo version. She's almost whispering and sounds very sexy. Then play Richard's remix. The vocal take is much more Carpenter-esque.
But that's an edit, just like on "My Body Keeps..." Richard brought Karen's voice and the drums more forward in the mix than Phil Ramone had intended to get rid of the disco influence. But there's only so much Richard can do because he has to follow what Ramone originally arranged. Really Richard was just re-working Ramone's ending on "If I Had You", whereas Richard created an all new arrangement for "Make Believe...", even going so far as to ask the writer's to write a new bridge, just like he slowed down "Santa Claus..." but Knight did a more traditional arrangement.Compare the way Karen inflects on the solo version. She's almost whispering and sounds very sexy. Then play Richard's remix. The vocal take is much more Carpenter-esque.
Karen & Phil Ramone's version is SOOOO much better.Like many on here, I had no idea about the album's release, but chanced upon a single copy in HMV's back catalogue section towards the end of 1996. At the princely sum of £16.99 (amazing what record shops used to get away with in terms of pricing in the 1990s) and at a time when I wasn't exactly flush with cash, I couldn't really afford to get it, but eventually picked it up in early 1997 at an independent store for a much more reasonable £10.
Even though I'd already heard the six solo tracks released on Lovelines and From the Top, it was still quite a surprise to hear the variety of the previously unreleased tracks, like the dryness of 'All Because of You' and the playfulness of 'Guess I Just Lost My Head'. The biggest surprise though was the inclusion of 'Make Believe It's Your First Time', as I'd never heard before anything about this having been anything other than a 'Carpenters' song.
I still play the album a fair bit, so even though the solo tracks form quite a key part of the Lovelines running order, I associate them more with the solo album now than with that album.