Despite the wildly varying opinions of the album (mine veer mostly toward the negative), most fans on here find one or two songs they love or really like/appreciate on it.
My two favorites (cheating a bit, but feel free to cheat too) are If We Try and My Body Keeps Changing My Mind, both far apart in tone/subject matter.
If We Try I love for its fluid, sensual warm tone and that Karen is in her signature lower range and it sounds "right". In other words it's really the song that most sounds like a Carpenter's track (you can easily tell why Richard liked it to include on Lovelines) and to my ears she sounded so much more natural in that arranging environment (of course we only heard her experiment once). The ambivalence of the lyrics, the striving/trying to reach a state of fulfillment again, is mirrored in her vocal; she sings the words in her trademark, otherworldly, melancholic detachment - she wants to believe the words she's saying but knows better.
And My Body KCMM is so much damn fun. It just moves like crazy and as @Mark-T said once on here the contrast of the cool arrangement with her warm voice is exhilarating. Would it have been dated by 1980? Maybe just a bit, but I can't imagine people refusing to dance to this in a club. Karen sounds totally into it and genuinely sexy, proof that she didn't need only sad songs to have an emotional impact on the listener. But again, I will say that I do prefer Richard's mix with gives the song better atmosphere and dimension, even though Ramone's cut was great already
I love two other songs on here (Remember When... and Still Crazy) but just like the other two a bit more. The rest I could really do without honestly - a combo of the material, arrangements and vocals that don't utilize her gifts to much effect (yes, even Make Believe which I prefer Carpenters' version of. #dontkillme)
But for the now, for the positive, what song or two are your top highlights?
My two favorites (cheating a bit, but feel free to cheat too) are If We Try and My Body Keeps Changing My Mind, both far apart in tone/subject matter.
If We Try I love for its fluid, sensual warm tone and that Karen is in her signature lower range and it sounds "right". In other words it's really the song that most sounds like a Carpenter's track (you can easily tell why Richard liked it to include on Lovelines) and to my ears she sounded so much more natural in that arranging environment (of course we only heard her experiment once). The ambivalence of the lyrics, the striving/trying to reach a state of fulfillment again, is mirrored in her vocal; she sings the words in her trademark, otherworldly, melancholic detachment - she wants to believe the words she's saying but knows better.
And My Body KCMM is so much damn fun. It just moves like crazy and as @Mark-T said once on here the contrast of the cool arrangement with her warm voice is exhilarating. Would it have been dated by 1980? Maybe just a bit, but I can't imagine people refusing to dance to this in a club. Karen sounds totally into it and genuinely sexy, proof that she didn't need only sad songs to have an emotional impact on the listener. But again, I will say that I do prefer Richard's mix with gives the song better atmosphere and dimension, even though Ramone's cut was great already
I love two other songs on here (Remember When... and Still Crazy) but just like the other two a bit more. The rest I could really do without honestly - a combo of the material, arrangements and vocals that don't utilize her gifts to much effect (yes, even Make Believe which I prefer Carpenters' version of. #dontkillme)
But for the now, for the positive, what song or two are your top highlights?
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