šŸŽ„ Holidays! THE OFFICIAL REVIEW: [Album] "CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT" SP-4726

How Would You Rate This Album?

  • ***** (BEST)

    Votes: 63 78.8%
  • ****

    Votes: 16 20.0%
  • ***

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • **

    Votes: 1 1.3%
  • *

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    80
It started the year before with Passage. The logo on the bottom of the back cover instead.

Yeah but ā€œPassageā€ was suppose to be a break from their other non-seasonal albums, otherwise the logo returned in 1981, and it was featured in all the TV specials.

For CP I think it was more artistic choice and what would be eye catching.
 
Unfortunately it was a bad break. Weird music choices, no pic of them on the cover. All an experiment with mediocre results as far as sales went. It AYGFLIALS couldnā€™t make it as a huge hit, then nothing on there could. They gambled, made the critics happy, but not the general public who didnā€™t buy into what they were trying to do on that album.
 
Been meaning to respond to your replies to my question why the original logo wasnā€™t used on the album. What I meant to ask was why didnā€™t they use the original logo on the front cover, across the top? Where did this ā€œnewā€, alternate logo come from and why was it used? Maybe they didnā€™t think the sharp official logo went with the drawing on the cover. It would be fun to see what it would have looked like with the official logo.
For CP I think it was more artistic choice and what would be eye catching.
The Christmas Portrait cover was designed to look like the cover of a vintage "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine, complete with a Norman Rockwell style illustration. The font used for the word "Carpenters" is very similar to the font that the Post used for its masthead.

Christmas_Santa_with_Elves_-1.jpg
 
The Christmas Portrait cover was designed to look like the cover of a vintage "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine, complete with a Norman Rockwell style illustration. The font used for the word "Carpenters" is very similar to the font that the Post used for its masthead.

Itā€™s nearly identical, right down to the Santa figure and the black bars across the middle with the album title on the left and record label name on the right. So now I know. Thanks Murray! :thumbsup:
 
There was probably a mock-up done with a large logo, and Iā€™m trying to picture it, and I think it wouldā€™ve made the cover too busy looking, or with Santaā€™s cap and the top of the easel, too much of the logo wouldā€™ve been hidden. As it is, part of the ā€œTā€ is hidden by the easel. Also with how they have ā€œChristmas Portraitā€ and ā€œA&Mā€ in between those two bars reminds me of old newspaper front pages from the 1800ā€™s and early 1900ā€™s.

Whereas you look at ā€œAn Old-Fashioned Christmasā€ and there is plenty of space above the picture. Again, the logo only intrudes on the picture frame a little bit.

during this time, there was a successful design company called GRIBBET that used this design theme on album covers. there were many, but i clearly remember a dolly parton cover.
 
I don't celebrate christmas, infact it drives me nuts. Thank god I live alone so I don't have to pretend. But I do put on Anne murray, Crystal Gayle and of course the Carpenters xmas albums. It's the only time you can really play them without your neighbours thinking you've gone mad playing them in June!
Did you really mention Crystal Gayle? Thank You! I thought maybe it was just me. I love Anne Murray of course, but there's something special in Crystal's voice that makes it so very listenable - it doesn't mesmerize like Karen's but it grabs your attention and holds it - it's what? So, light and sweet and, yes, pretty..when the song is good she's very right to hear...Hell, I'll even admit to liking Doris Day's voice on some Standards.
 
Here is a video creation by artist Chris Tassin that is SO worth repeating this season, he did such an excellent job at visuals for this holiday classic song. I love this, thanks Chris if your out there!!!!

Watch it in 1080p resolution, it's breathtaking!!


Yes, 6 years later I'll bring it back - it deserves to be "resurrected" - thanks much Rick for originally posting it - I realy enjoy Chris Tassin's work since I discovered it fairly recently on videos he did for "If We Try" and "If I Had You" off the Solo Album - this is in the same class, and it certainly doesn't hurt that it's used here in conjunction with my favorite Christmas song, and my very favorite version of it - in fact, my favorite from the album, just edging out the beautiful modern classic "Merry Christmas, Darling" - another perfect vocal by the girl with the golden voice, and nice tasteful choral work backing her up here.
 
during this time, there was a successful design company called GRIBBET that used this design theme on album covers. there were many, but i clearly remember a dolly parton cover.

Is this the one you were referring to...?

0000781578.jpg


Released December 30, 1980 on RCA
Catalogue number AHL 1-3852
Allmusic.com confirms art direction was by Gribbet.

 
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Funny how you find little nuances in songs you have heard countless times. Just the sheer breathtaking quality of Karen's vocals on I'll Be Home For Christmas. I was listening to it today. That first "you can count on me"". It's the "me" in that lower register. I never appreciated how utterly beautiful that sound is.
 
Funny how you find little nuances in songs you have heard countless times. Just the sheer breathtaking quality of Karen's vocals on I'll Be Home For Christmas. I was listening to it today. That first "you can count on me"". It's the "me" in that lower register. I never appreciated how utterly beautiful that sound is.
"Breathtaking" and "utterly beautiful" indeed! Among many other examples, her lower register reading on this 2nd verse from "Where Do I Go..." is amazingly gorgeous (especially the 2nd half with the words "bright" and "go") and always comes to my mind when talking about this aspect of her "basement-level" vocalizations:

Lover's plans
Like fallin' leaves on windy days
Flutter past and they fly away
I thought I knew you oh so well

And I need you now
I need to feel you in the night
I need your smile so warm and bright
I wish my mind could let you go


John
 
Funny how you find little nuances in songs you have heard countless times. Just the sheer breathtaking quality of Karen's vocals on I'll Be Home For Christmas. I was listening to it today. That first "you can count on me"". It's the "me" in that lower register. I never appreciated how utterly beautiful that sound is.
"Breathtaking" and "utterly beautiful" indeed! Among many other examples, her lower register reading on this 2nd verse from "Where Do I Go..." is amazingly gorgeous (especially the 2nd half with the words "bright" and "go") and always comes to my mind when talking about this aspect of her "basement-level" vocalizations:

Lover's plans
Like fallin' leaves on windy days
Flutter past and they fly away
I thought I knew you oh so well

And I need you now
I need to feel you in the night
I need your smile so warm and bright
I wish my mind could let you go


John
 
^^ YES!! I remember the first time I heard WDIGFH?, watching "The Karen Carpenter Story" that I was able to download from YouTube and I was blown-away at how good it was. And I thought how did this not make it on an album during Karen's lifetime? I play it a lot this time of year!
 
At 176 on iTunes, only $6.99. I think UMe is selling catalog albums at discounted prices so they have to pay less royalties after they were sued. Great for the consumer, not so for the artists.
 
At 176 on iTunes, only $6.99. I think UMe is selling catalog albums at discounted prices so they have to pay less royalties after they were sued. Great for the consumer, not so for the artists.
The thing is, nowadays, many more people subscribe to streaming services, than buy digital downloads from places like iTunes. That is, if they even feel the need to pay for music at all. UMe has pretty much all the Carpenters albums that are in print, including "Christmas Collection" and "Christmas Portrait: Special Edition", up on YouTube, where anyone can listen to them for free. They have to sell downloads for lower prices than they used to be able to get, if they hope to entice at least a few sales.
 
Funny how you find little nuances in songs you have heard countless times. Just the sheer breathtaking quality of Karen's vocals on I'll Be Home For Christmas. I was listening to it today. That first "you can count on me"". It's the "me" in that lower register. I never appreciated how utterly beautiful that sound is.

Oh man, Iā€™ve always noticed that ā€œmeā€ - she drops that word into a bottomless pit of despair. A perfect example of an artist truly bringing her own interpretation and storytelling gifts to a set of a very old standard lyrics. The whole performance is filled with such yearning and at times it sounds like sheā€™s on the verge of tears.
 
Oh man, Iā€™ve always noticed that ā€œmeā€ - she drops that word into a bottomless pit of despair. A perfect example of an artist truly bringing her own interpretation and storytelling gifts to a set of a very old standard lyrics. The whole performance is filled with such yearning and at times it sounds like sheā€™s on the verge of tears.

'I'll Be Home for Christmas' is one of my favourites on the album - a lovely but quite bittersweet reading that stands out from the jollity of many of the other songs.

'Yearning' is exactly the right adjective to describe the performance. The last 'if only in my dreams' line says it all - the almost aching wish to be part of something that it seems will be unfulfilled in reality.
 
Each year I find myself particularly emotional during the transition from White Christmas to Ave Maria. I donā€™t know if I could yet explain it fully, but something in that music has me feeling Karenā€™s loss and sheā€™s not even singing. Maybe itā€™s the resonance of Karenā€™s performance of WC where sheā€™s longing for a time that she once knew (the past is more comfortable than the future which she conveys will only be darker), or a connectivity of the tones/meanings between the two songs. Itā€™s so strange. The whole album is an emotionally varied experience with possibly different feelings on different listens (as the best artists are capable of), and that small, quiet passage does the same. Anyone else have that reaction?
 
^^Some years, the song makes me well up a little.

Each year I find myself particularly emotional during the transition from White Christmas to Ave Maria. I donā€™t know if I could yet explain it fully, but something in that music has me feeling Karenā€™s loss and sheā€™s not even singing. Maybe itā€™s the resonance of Karenā€™s performance of WC where sheā€™s longing for a time that she once knew (the past is more comfortable than the future which she conveys will only be darker), or a connectivity of the tones/meanings between the two songs. Itā€™s so strange. The whole album is an emotionally varied experience with possibly different feelings on different listens (as the best artists are capable of), and that small, quiet passage does the same. Anyone else have that reaction?
Yes you nailed it Jarred. Ave Maria is quite moving and that bell intro is brilliant. I've instructed my spouse if there is to be any kind of "service" for my demise, Ave Maria as sung by my favorite vocalist of all time is to be done over whatever sound system is available. And the B-side will be Crescent Noon.
 
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