Unreleased tracks from “Karen Carpenter”

Kristopher

Active Member
hello its apparent that her solo album is strongly inferior to her brother’s first solo effort. However it doesnt mean I dont like it. I have the .unreleased tracks which I enjoy more such as Truly You and Jimmy Mack. The problem is that they are horrible quality. Is there a better quality set out there? It would mean alot to me as Im trying to create an expanded Lovelines so far using two tracks from “From The Top” that Richard tinkered with (which I actually like, they fit the Lovelines Vibe.)

Thanks to anyone who can help
 
This is the best quality of `Jimmy Mack` I think you`ll find, but even this isn't perfect. I actually like this song, but the music tends to over-power Karen` voice a little bit. bare in mind though, they aren't official releases!

 
not sure about the other guys, but I`m not a big fan of these so called `unreleased tracks` at all to be honest and don`t think they would do the pair any favours at all :)
the only three I would buy, are this version of `Jimmy Mack` above, if they tweeked it a bit, `love making love to you`and again, if it was tweeked here and there `truly you`, but the rest should stay where they are!

 
hello its apparent that her solo album is strongly inferior to her brother’s first solo effort. However it doesnt mean I dont like it. I have the .unreleased tracks which I enjoy more such as Truly You and Jimmy Mack. The problem is that they are horrible quality. Is there a better quality set out there? It would mean alot to me as Im trying to create an expanded Lovelines so far using two tracks from “From The Top” that Richard tinkered with (which I actually like, they fit the Lovelines Vibe.)

Thanks to anyone who can help
I’m glad you have favorite tracks but inferior is not a word I would use. I think the album is strong and would have been stronger with some alternate choices, but there are some great songs that provide a rhythm and blues feeling of the day that adds a dimension of sound and actually fit into the Carpenters canon of songs.
 
The unreleased tracks are, for the most part, even more inferior than some of the tracks on the album. Most of them should stay unreleased. I think it was a huge mistake not to include “Love Makin’ Love To You” as a bonus track on the album when it was released. “Last One Singing The Blues” is utterly forgettable.
 
The unreleased tracks are, for the most part, even more inferior than some of the tracks on the album. Most of them should stay unreleased. I think it was a huge mistake not to include “Love Makin’ Love To You” as a bonus track on the album when it was released. “Last One Singing The Blues” is utterly forgettable.

couldn't agree more, though I do like `last one singing the blues`.

`I’m glad you have favorite tracks but inferior is not a word I would use`

wow, I can hear Karen banging on her box from here, I`d sleep with one eye open tonight Kristopher :laugh::laugh:
 
I should Have said that was my opinion in terms of “Time” being superior. Im sorry to any I offended. I just prefer that album more artistically.

Dont care much for her solo album compared to the rest because it doesn’t have that Carpenters “Feel.” Time does.
 
(Count me in as one who loves "Last One Singing' the Blues") You can also count me in as one who really enjoys Richard's solo album and his work. That said, I find Karen's album the superior one. She had the guts to try something new, and for the most part, it worked terrifically. Proving once again, the woman could sing anything.
 
I love 'Last One Singing the Blues'. It's a perfect way to finish off the album and given the album's fate, it seems especially poignant in that context.

The rest of the outtakes are a mixed bag, but there are some crackers in there ('Something's Missing', 'Midnight', 'Don't Try to Win Me Back Again'), even if they're not all in a completed state.

Not that I'd be too interested in hearing them, but I wonder if there are any outtakes from the Time sessions? Given how long it took to record, you'd imagine that there might well be some extra songs that didn't make the final tracklist.
 
I've always enjoyed this 'finished' version of Jimmy Mack.

I’d disagree. It’s not the right song for her and it sounds like they are just jamming in the studio. It’s also way too high a key for her. Not her finest moment. I wouldn’t care if I never heard this outtake again.
 
Not that I'd be too interested in hearing them, but I wonder if there are any outtakes from the Time sessions? Given how long it took to record, you'd imagine that there might well be some extra songs that didn't make the final tracklist.

I’d LOVE to hear any completed outtakes from Time. It’s not a Carpenters album, it’s a product of its time and suffers from Richard’s weak leads but I still think it’s a great album full of great material.
 
hello its apparent that her solo album is strongly inferior to her brother’s first solo effort. However it doesnt mean I dont like it. I have the .unreleased tracks which I enjoy more such as Truly You and Jimmy Mack. The problem is that they are horrible quality. Is there a better quality set out there? It would mean alot to me as Im trying to create an expanded Lovelines so far using two tracks from “From The Top” that Richard tinkered with (which I actually like, they fit the Lovelines Vibe.)

Thanks to anyone who can help

I respectfully disagree. Richard’s solo album is A&M’s very worst seller and Karen’s is better in every conceivable way, IMHO.

As for those tracks, they’re on YouTube in likely the best quality we’ll ever get them.

Ed
 
I think the solo outtakes are superior to the majority of MIA.
MIA had some nice moments but I never play anything from it anymore except for Somebody’s Been Lying. And, from Voice Of The Heart, I still play At The End Of A Song. I do still play most of the solo album. There are 8 really solid tracks on the solo album which had not happened since Horizon. I did like a good bit of Time, it just needed Karen and suffered greatly without her, so much so, that the only one I still listen to on it is Something In Your Eyes. I think Karen’s solo work needed some songs released in 1979 with at least a song or two on radio so it would still sell in 1980. I think it could have had solid moderate sales, better than the Carpenters albums that followed and more than Passage. I’m not knocking Passage, it is a solid album, one of my favorites. An album’s sales does not necessarily determine its strength of value.
 
Richard’s solo album is A&M’s very worst seller

I seem to enjoy poor selling albums from various A&M artists in many cases. Let the rest of the world obsess about Fleetwood Mac's RUMOURS. It's overplayed and too ubiquitous. I sometimes get a kick knowing that I'm probably one of the very few listening to a particularly obscure album.

There's the Richard-produced VERONIQUE - I like that a lot and they didn't even MAKE all that many of those. I've read a quote from Rupert Holmes that in the days that he released his first album, WIDESCREEN, sales of "40,000 copies was considered a dud. So if they only manufactured 10,000 copies, I wasn't even in the running for failure." I have that original WIDESCREEN album, and it's one of my very favorites.

I've latched onto Renee Armand's THE RAIN BOOK, Puerto Rican artist LUNNA's one and only album for the label, one of the England Dan & John Ford Coley albums for A&M, FABLES. To me, TIME was a pretty good album for what it was. Richard had to totally rethink his reason for being with the loss of his sister and partner, and I thought he did a credible job of exploring some of the sounds of the 80s. I know that I probably play TIME more than I play KAREN CARPENTER. I like that one OK as well, but it doesn't click on all cylinders to me. The unreleased tracks were fun to hear once or twice or three times, but since I've had them from around 2000, I've barely played them at all.
 
MIA had some nice moments but I never play anything from it anymore except for Somebody’s Been Lying.
Sorry, but that has got to be one of the weakest songs the Carpenters ever recorded. What was Richard thinking? Somebody's Been Lying was a dud from the moment they found it. And it sounded to much like I Believe You, which didn't do all that well on the charts 4 years prior. So why Richard thought to include it---- MIA probably would've been better had Richard had Karen finish Jimmy Mack or Midnight.

In 1981 the Carpenters needed an album that was a fusion of both Karen's solo album and the future Time album.
 
Why didn't A&M release a Karen single from the Ramone sessions prior to announcing an album as they did with BL Mitchell's "Where I Want To Be"? (flopped) They should've let the public decide with a single and if Karen had a Top 40 THEN do the album. Carpenters in the past had always done a 45 prior to the album - We waited 6 months for A SONG FOR YOU after "Hurting each Other" had been released. Karen was so dissed.
 
Sorry, but that has got to be one of the weakest songs the Carpenters ever recorded. What was Richard thinking?

whilst I appreciate everyone likes different songs from the carpenters, I think your stretching it a bit there :)
nothing to do with these unreleased songs, but I`ve been listening to a lot of carpenters lately and another song that gets my attention more each time I listen, is `two sides`, what a lovely song that is!
 
I regret that some feel Somebody’s Been Lying is not a good song. My struggle comes in with When It’s Gone. It just goes on and on and one like a tick tic to a clock: very boring. It’s the only one I always skip.

I do agree with a mess of solo album material. I have always held the view that those songs were the direction needed and Karen should have been the focus and Made In America actually should have been Karen’s second solo album with Richard at the helm. It was time.

Two Sides is a great song but it was too similar to Torn Between Two Lovers that had just had a run in the top 10. Had it been on Hush or Horizon it could have been a different story. That was kind of the problem. Three years had gone by yet some of the material could have been on any album which gives the record buying public reason to purchase new artists’ material, not because they dislike the Carpenters, but because they already have their stuff in their collection and now Fletwood MAC or Heart are on the scene and how could the days of A Song For You ever be topped? But with Karen's solo album, there would have been an enlightened concern and 1979 just after the Christmas project was the right time.

Later, that’s how Madonna and Michael Jackson reinvented themselves continuously to keep public interest alive. And, when I saw Janet Jackson once, she delivered the older songs with new dance moves. Not that Karen should dance, but with the TV shows they were getting exposure but they had bad script writing and should have just had more singing.

The reason for the last one’s lower ratings came from the commercials with the focus on Karen’s drum routine that was reminiscent of the first special so everyone thought it was the same stuff, and again with John Davidson, like the one before it, and it was broadcast at the wrong time of the year. It should have at least been a month earlier.
 
One thing I did notice when perusing many of the music-industry magazines,
that is from 1975 to 1980, The Captain and Tennille were everywhere at the time,
which harkens back to the not-so funny-remark (imho) by the Smother Brother (on the Jan 1977 Tonight Show):
"you could win your crown back from The Captain and Tennille..."

The headwinds were very strong.
 
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