Carpenters: As Time Goes By

CARPENTERS: AS TIME GOES BY (2001)

1) Without A Song; 2) Superstar / Rainy Days And Mondays; 3) Nowhere Man; 4) I Got Rhythm Medley; 5) Dancing In The Street; 6) Dizzy Fingers; 7) You're Just In Love; 8) Karen / Ella Medley; 9) Close Encounters / Star Wars; 10) Leave Yesterday Behind; 11) Carpenters / Como Medley; 12) California Dreamin'; 13) The Rainbow Con­nection; 14) Hits Medley '76; 15) And When He Smiles.

Still another decade goes by, and just so that the world could be reminded, at the start of a brand new millennium, that Carpenter rule is not quite over yet, Richard is scraping together some more odds and ends from all over the place — going as far back as 1967, with a 17-year old Karen singing on a piano-and-harmonica demo version of ʽNowhere Manʼ and showing how much of a penchant they had for turning Beatlish pop-rock into easy listening material from the very start. Actually, it is one of the more endearing numbers on this collection.

In a way, this is far more listenable than Lovelines in general, because very few of the songs are truly «new»: for the most part, these are alternate takes, demos, and TV show versions of the siblings' big hits, and that is far more enjoyable than listening to subpar material they recorded in the late Seventies. So there are at least three medleys from the Carpenters' TV Special and the Perry Como Christmas Show, and as sickening as the concept of a medley can be, I'd rather listen to a brief snippet of ʽSuperstarʼ trickling into a brief snippet of ʽRainy Days And Mondaysʼ than... then again, the obvious question is what exactly these new versions bring to the table, and the obvious answer is — a desire to go on YouTube and browse for old videos of the Carpenters' TV Special, because the sight of Karen singing these versions is the only reason why anybody should bother with them in the first place.

Anyway, here is a brief rundown of the most curious stuff on this release. First, a few tunes off Music, Music, Music, the duo's 1980 program for ABC TV: there's a Gershwin medley (Karen is not at all bad on ʽI Got Rhythmʼ), a highly impressive, quasi-virtuoso performance of ʽDizzy Fingersʼ by Richard (who actually had great playing technique — but preferred to keep it low-key on studio recordings), and another medley of oldies where Karen alternates with none other than Ella Fitzgerald herself — Ella is already way past her prime, but holds her own ground very well, plus, well, it is Karen who was really dying at the time, not Ella. Second, the old demos — be­sides ʽNowhere Manʼ, there's also ʽCalifornia Dreamin'ʼ, both of them sung with great under­standing (unfortunately, Richard just felt he had to tamper with the old demos and load them with extra string arrangements and whatnot). Third, just a couple of previously unavailable numbers, such as Kermit the Frog's ʽRainbow Connectionʼ — not sure if Karen is much of an improvement over Kermit, but she is at least an improvement on Debbie Harry...

Anyway, despite Richard's useless overdubs, and despite the totally unnecessary inclusion of a ʽClose Encounters / Star Warsʼ medley from their Space Encounters special, this rag-taggy collection remains listenable; however, I do believe that casual listeners have absolutely no use for it, while dedicated fans will probably despise it for all the tampering — indeed, why not re­lease something a more systematic instead, like a proper collection of untampered demos, or at least a proper soundtrack from one or more of the TV shows, preferably in correct chronological order? As it is, the result is simply a mess, and if this happens to be the last archival issue released in Richard's lifetime, it would be fairly ignominious.

Carpenters: Lovelines

CARPENTERS: LOVELINES (1989)

1) Lovelines; 2) Where Do I Go From Here; 3) The Uninvited Guest; 4) If We Try; 5) When I Fall In Love; 6) Kiss Me The Way You Did Last Night; 7) Remember When Loving Took All Night; 8) You're The One; 9) Honolulu City Lights; 10) Slow Dance; 11) If I Had You; 12) Little Girl Blue.

Apparently, one still largely untapped source for extra Carpenters material was their TV specials, for which they'd recorded some exclusive tracks in the late Seventies — few of them deemed worthy of inclusion onto any of the regular studio LPs; but since, as of the late Eighties, there seemed to still be some nostalgic demand for more Carpenters, Richard went ahead and released this collection of tunes that he probably knew very well was subpar, but completism probably got the better of him (and this time, it is useless to even begin to accuse him of money-grabbing: the album did not chart at all, and only a complete idiot might have hoped it would). Another source were tracks from a planned, but shelved solo album from Karen, recorded in 1979 but not re­leased in its entirety until 1996; for certain reasons, in 1989 Richard only went as far as to take a few favorite selections.

For the most part, this is all just tepid, utterly generic adult contemporary pap: I am not saying that sentimental balladry from the disco era is worthless by definition, but unless it is on a Bee Gees level, with unbeatable hooks that transcend formulaic limitations, it is worthless, and the professional songwriters employed here seemingly did not have that purpose. Rod Templeton's ʽLovelinesʼ, chosen as the title track, is romantic disco on such a soft level that even Olivia Newton-John can sound like AC/DC in comparison — because this material, in order to trans­cend anything, needs at least a powerhouse vocalist with plenty of visible fire; Karen, with all her fires always burning on a purely internal level, hardly qualifies. Unfortunately, things hardly get any better on the slow ballads (there's even a Barry Manilow hit on here), or on oldies like ʽWhen I Fall In Loveʼ: too much sugar and happiness, too few hooks.

Surprisingly, the last three songs offer a tiny bump up in quality. ʽSlow Danceʼ, written by Philip and Mitchell Margo, is the usual pablum, but at least graced with a single attractive touch — there is something quite distinct about Karen's phrasing on the "it's a slow dance..." introduction to each verse, a strange, barely noticeable, possibly unintentional whiff of what could be either reproach or ecstasy, something that promises an intrigue which, unfortunately, never comes to pass, but at least having this unfulfilled promise is better than having nothing at all. ʽIf I Had Youʼ gives a tiny, tiny bit of that old melancholic spirit — there's an aching swell in the middle of the verse that is probably the only trace of Karen's greatness on the entire album. (The song also has a strange, almost ghostly coda for a slow dance number, with miriads of tiny cloned Karens overdubbed in a hypnotic-hallucinating style). Finally, it was a good idea to end the record with ʽLittle Girl Blueʼ — naturally, Karen is no Nina Simone, but she gets the spirit of the song, and it feels far more alive than everything else on Lovelines put together.

All of this comes too late and is far too insufficient to redeem the record as a whole; once again, it is recommendable only for huge fans of Karen who also have a high tolerance level for glitzy late Seventies pop. For everybody else, this will be a thumbs down, but, given the nature of the album, not a vicious one — had Karen lived, chances are that most of the songs here would never be released in the first place.

Carpenters: An Old-Fashioned Christmas

CARPENTERS: AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS (1984)

1) It Came Upon A Midnight Clear; 2) Overture / Happy Holiday; 3) An Old-Fashioned Christmas; 4) O Holy Night; 5) Home For The Holidays; 6) Here Comes Santa Claus; 7) Little Altar Boy; 8) Do You Hear What I Hear; 9) My Favorite Things; 10) He Came Here For Me; 11) Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town; 12) What Are You Doing New Years'; 13) Selections From The Nutcracker; 14) I Heard The Bells On Christmas.

There is not much to be said about this project, except that, as a project, it kind of sucks: taking several leftover tracks from their 1978 Christmas sessions, Richard surrounded them with new material — largely instrumental reworkings and potpourris of even more Christmas standards — and made the fans a somewhat limp companion to Christmas Portrait. (Actually, I am not sure exactly which tracks are completely new and which ones came from the old stock: Peter Knight is credited for most of the orchestral arrangements, and while he did work with the siblings in 1977-78, I have no idea whether Richard recalled him specially for this project).

In any case, the orchestrated instrumentals are predictably posh, corny, and Disneyfied, a parti­cularly low point being a medley from the various sections of The Nutcracker — somebody tell Tchaikov­sky the news — where it is not even clear how this could claim to be creative. As for Karen's numbers, the only one that might make you sit up is a cover of Vic Dana's 1961 hit ʽLittle Altar Boyʼ: suddenly breaking up the sappy joyfulness of the proceedings, it injects a strain of dark broodiness and torment, which, as we all know, is always perfectly adapted to Karen's style. There is even a bit of a shivery feel as she ends each verse on a doom-struck low note: "lift up your voice and help a sinner be strong" feels acutely personal.

Other than that, my only opinion is that this is one of the most expendable items in the Carpen­ters' catalog — now that it exists, it cannot be wiped out all that easily, but the best solution would be simply to cleanse both records, purging them from the corny instrumentals, and put together all (or most) of Karen's numbers. However, you will have to do that by yourself: the 1996 twin CD edition, Christmas Collection, diligently combines both albums in their entirety, preserving the option of the listener experiencing hallucinogenic visions of Karen Carpenter as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Richard as The Mouse King. Thumbs down.

Carpenters: Voice Of The Heart

CARPENTERS: VOICE OF THE HEART (1983)

1) Now; 2) Sailing On The Tide; 3) You're Enough; 4) Make Believe It's Your First Time; 5) Two Lives; 6) At The End Of A Song; 7) Ordinary Fool; 8) Prime Time Love; 9) Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore; 10) Look To Your Dreams.

As is usual in such cases, this album, first and foremost, provides you with an awesome opportu­nity to waste time in trying to make a choice — did Richard Carpenter release this (and all the following) Carpenters albums to cash in on Karen's unfortunate fate and replenish his own thin­ning pockets, or did Richard Carpenter release this (and all the following) Carpenters albums out of noble loyalty to both Karen and her fans, swearing a solemn oath that not a single note she had ever captured on tape would go to waste? The correct answer, of course, is that when you are Richard Carpenter and capable of combining both at the same time, you'd probably not be able to answer this question correctly yourself.

This review will be short and sweet. Had Voice Of The Heart been released in Karen's lifetime, it would have been dreadful — the entire record is almost nothing but outtakes from various sessions stretched over the 1976-82 period, and since, other than Passage, not a single album they did back then could count among their best, it is easy to imagine what the discarded material should sound like. The only two new songs, recorded during Karen's intense struggles with her illness (but, fortunately, she was able not to show this to the microphone), are ʽYou're Enoughʼ, which begins suspiciously like a slowed down version of ʽClose To Youʼ, but then turns into something far more bland and rose-colored; and ʽNowʼ, her last ever recording, the best thing about which is how fine she could still sound until almost the very end — otherwise, it's just generic easy listening pablum, like balladeering ABBA but without the terrific hooks.

There is exactly one song here that I would tentatively single out: ʽTwo Livesʼ, a 1977 single by Bonnie Raitt (written by Mark Jordan) about which I wrote, back when I was reviewing Bonnie, that «the Carpenters would have made it lovelier», without actually realizing, if you can believe it, that the Carpenters did cover it! — and that they did make it lovelier, because Karen's "but I believe whoever wrote that song, never had a broken heart" is one of the few lines on this album to feature her trademark «noble desperation»; most of the other songs are too drowned in syrup to show any depth or ambiguity, and some are so corny from the outset that no ambiguity could ever save them in the first place ("give yourself a bit of some prime time love" is a particularly strong line given to her by songwriting couple Danny Ironstone and Mary Unobsky who, no doubt, have had their own fair share of prime time, chef-recommended love over the years).

But enough sarcasm: honestly, this is as good a tribute to Karen as Richard probably was able to quickly assemble from the scraps, and as good a cover photo as he could find too, what with that weird «unsmiling smile» on her face. There is a lot of lush balladry here, which means that if you love her voice, you will take it just for all the overtones and all the modulations and all the aura, never mind if the songs themselves suck to high heaven, which they largely do. As a gesture of respect, I will refrain from thumbing it down, because of the special circumstances and the spe­cial destination of the album (to provide the devastated fans with one final goodbye and one final advice to ʽLook To Your Dreamsʼ). But just to show you how terrible I really am, I must confess that I am somewhat relieved about not having to seriously deal with Carpenters in the Eighties, when the wave of synthesizers, electronic drums, and bad hairstyles would have engulfed them with three hundred percent certainty. I only wish we could have such luck without anybody dying: anorexia is not something you'd wish upon anybody, not even Meatloaf.

Carpenters: Made In America

CARPENTERS: MADE IN AMERICA (1981)

1) Those Good Old Dreams; 2) Strength Of A Woman; 3) (Want You) Back In My Life Again; 4) When You've Got What It Takes; 5) Somebody's Been Lyin'; 6) I Believe You; 7) Touch Me When We're Dancing; 8) When It's Gone (It's Just Gone); 9) Beechwood 4-5789; 10) Because We Are In Love.

There is not much that can be said, at least meaningfully, about the last Carpenters album re­leased in Karen's lifetime. Apparently, already after her death Richard went on the Larry King show and declared that this was both his and her favorite record of everything they'd done — a statement that I can only ascribe to a particular sentimental value that he'd placed on it, as well as the recording sessions still being fresh in his memory. Because even if Christmas Portrait could be written off as a one-time special project, Made In America clearly showed that the slightly experimental and unpredictable direction they took on Passage had been abandoned for good, and now, at the start of a new musical decade which they were not to survive, they'd slipped back to the level of Horizon and A Kind Of Hush — something that was even less forgivable for the early Eighties than it was for the mid-Seventies.

All the hallmarks are right here. There is very little original songwriting (only the opening and the closing songs are credited to Richard and Bettis). There's one Roger Nichols cover and one Burt Bacharach cover, and they are both boring. There is one obligatory lively cover of a Motown oldie — this time it is ʽBeachwood 4-5789ʼ from The Marvelettes backlog — and it is as fun and as forgettable as ever. And then there's a lot of help from outside professional songwriters and some covers of recent hits, mainly from the easy listening circuit, with nothing even remotely approaching the «edge» of ʽB'wana She No Homeʼ or ʽCalling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craftʼ. Made in America, for sure, but not necessarily something of which the American nation should be particularly proud.

Surprisingly, I have several times encountered the word «comeback» in conjunction with this re­cord — which, honestly, I can only understand in the most straightforward sense, namely, that this was the first album of «original» material they managed to get out in four years. But as in «artistic comeback»? Hardly. Yes, they managed to score one significant hit with ʽTouch Me When We're Dancingʼ, a cover of an earlier (and lesser) 1979 hit by the short-lived Muscle Shoals session band Bama, but it is just a sappy para-disco ballad, rendered in a style that was never well associable with Karen Carpenter and, for that matter, not improving one bit on the original. And yes, the opening lyrical country-pop flow of ʽThose Good Old Dreamsʼ is seductive enough, but I could not say the same for the closing ʽBecause We Are In Loveʼ, a corny wedding song consisting of nothing but well-harmonized rose petals. Nor, in fact, could I say it about any other song on this album.

Putting it in context — the fairly wretched life of Richard, suffering from his addictions, and Karen, suffering from her anorexia — only makes things worse, because it seems as if they spe­cially designed Made In America so that it could take them as far away from their problems as possible. Basically, this is the happiest-sounding Carpenters album ever (the single exception being Randy Handley's slightly deeper, but not very memorable ballad ʽWhen It's Goneʼ), full of shallow statements of romance and devotion, nothing even remotely reminding you of the psycho­logical depths these guys were once capable of reaching with songs like ʽSuperstarʼ or, heck, even ʽRainy Days And Mondaysʼ. And perhaps it is an understandable gesture, to create a joyful panorama of musical optimism in order to conceal all the pain, but the fact of the matter is, the Carpenters were always better at sadness than they were at happiness; and I would take their grimly stoned facial expressions on Horizon any day over the plastic smiles and happily patriotic expressions of the Made In America painting.

In the end, this is not the kind of thumbs down that could somehow be retracted because the singer died an awful death two years later — the album does everything in its power to assure us that "we've only just begun" once again (ʽBecause We Are In Loveʼ was played at Karen's wed­ding, one that ended in embarrassment and disaster one year later), but does it far less efficiently and believably than, say, John Lennon's Double Fantasy. In mild defense, neither Karen's voice nor Richard's arranging skills have deteriorated one bit, so the record is still recommendable to all those who are always ready to take the duo at face value.

Carpenters: Christmas Portrait

CARPENTERS: CHRISTMAS PORTRAIT (1978)

1) O Come, O Come Emmanuel!; 2) Overture; 3) Christmas Waltz; 4) Sleigh Ride; 5) It's Christmas Time / Sleep Well, Little Children; 6) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas; 7) Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town; 8) Christmas Song; 9) Silent Night; 10) Jingle Bells; 11) First Snowfall / Let It Snow; 12) Carol Of The Bells; 13) Merry Christ­mas, Darling; 14) I'll Be Home For Christmas; 15) Christ Is Born; 16) Winter Wonderland / Silver Bells / White Christmas; 17) Ave Maria.

If you happen to like your Christmas albums and prefer that the artist respect the source material rather than deconstruct it, reinterpret it, enslave it to his twisted will and sinister purposes, then Christmas Portrait, probably not coincidentally released by Richard and Karen Carpenter on the exact same day as AC/DC's If You Want Blood You've Got It, has a good chance of becoming your favorite Christmas album of all time. They could have expanded upon the cautious experi­mentation of Passage — but given its lackluster chart performance, probably decided that this road was not for them, after all, and decided to apply their musical talents elsewhere. Somehow, they remembered, they hadn't done a Christmas album yet; and since a Christmas album for Carpenters seems as natural as a live album for The Who, or an album about death and decay for The Doors, or an album about merry gay sailors for Elton John, they went ahead with the idea. (Particularly since they'd already written one Christmas song, ʽMerry Christmas Darlingʼ, as early as 1970 — it is also included here, but with a new vocal recorded by Karen).

The specific nature of the duo's approach to Christmas is in the sheer grandness of the project. This is the first Carpenters LP to run over 45 minutes, and the first one to start out with a proper overture — five minutes of orchestral snippets for both performed and unperformed songs. Actu­ally, they recorded enough material for a double album, but wisely decided to hold off, because, you know, people also need some time to eat their turkey. (The rest of it was shelved for six years, only appearing after Karen's death). Even so, what with all the introductions, codas, links and transitions, Christmas Portrait feels more like a coherent «folk mass» of sorts than just a dis­jointed series of Christmas carols, a single lengthy ritual performed conquering-style by Good Christmas Fairy Karen and her loyal band of dwarf and elf henchmen, molded into the shape of a sugary-suave symphonic orchestra.

That said, do not hold high hopes: Richard is a professional and inspired arranger, but his inspi­ration in such matters rarely hovers above Disney levels, and every bit of this music, be it purely instrumental (ʽCarol Of The Bellsʼ, etc.) or vocal-based, is designed for nothing more and nothing less than sentimental family entertainment. Unfortunately, Karen is also helpless to add any extra dimensions in this situation: she is serving here as a conductor of the old-fashioned Christmas spirit and is consciously leaving all of her «dark strains» on the shelf (not that she could be blamed for that — it is awesome when performers try to identify the darker sides of Christmas mate­rial, but expecting non-trivial activities like that from Carpenters is like expecting modesty and humility from The Donald). At least her vocal frequencies and intonations help avoid extra sappiness; but I cannot single out even one song that would strike a particularly vulnerable / sen­sitive string in my own soul. It's all just nice, tolerable Christmas fare.

It is good, however, that most of the songs are short or, if long, actually constitute medleys: this creates a fast-rotating kaleidoscope of sub-moods (giggly, joyful, pensive, solemn, whatever) that, if anything, brings the Christmas ritual to life, so that the whole thing does not come across as too rigid or square. Still, it also pretty much kills off any hopes anybody could have about Passage opening some new stage in the duo's history — and with Karen's rapidly deteriorating condition (not to mention Richard's ongoing addiction to Quaaludes), that history, alas, was already coming to an end.

Carpenters: Passage

CARPENTERS: PASSAGE (1977)

1) B'wana She No Home; 2) All You Get From Love Is A Love Song; 3) I Just Fall In Love Again; 4) On The Balcony Of The Casa Rosada / Don't Cry For Me Argentina; 5) Sweet, Sweet Smile; 6) Two Sides; 7) Man Smart, Woman Smarter; 8) Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.

Even if the Carpenters' «punk/disco year» album is no masterpiece, there is no denying that it was at least much more curious than anything they'd done in the previous three years (or more, if you do not think their gorging on the retro-teen vibe in 1973 was curious at all). As you push play and the first sounds that greet you include a thick, gritty, funky bassline rather than the predictable heavenly atmospherics, it immediately becomes clear that Richard's sleeping pills have worn off, at least temporarily, and that the siblings are trying to profit from that by undergoing a serious (well, relatively serious) image change. Of course, the cover of jazz-pop hero Michael Franks' ʽB'wana He No Homeʼ (reasonably amended to she for the Karen overtake) is not exactly a sign of trying to become «relevant» — it is just different, a mix of self-irony, self-confidence, and a number of «cool» bass, piano, and sax lines, all ridden by Karen in a mantle of quiet intelligent decadence. The lyrics are silly enough, for sure (and would probably be machine-gunned by to­day's social justice warriors), but the song manages to establish a commanding presence for Karen, making her sound stern and decisive for the first time in... ever?

Not that there is some kind of Karen-empowering manifesto on Passage; rather, it is just a con­solidated effort to take several new paths and try them out, one by one. Ironically, it is also the first Carpenters album without a single Richard composition on it — which might lead us to sug­gest that, perhaps, he had admitted to himself that he was incapable of moving beyond traditional and conformist patterns, and that if the duo were to move on somehow, this could only be done through interpretation. Hence the unlikely mix of jazz-pop, contemporary musicals (as Karen gets into character with Evita), calypso (ʽMan Smart, Woman Smarterʼ), and even art-rock — al­though for the latter purpose they still selected Klaatu, the latest sensation, over anything more sophisticated. (Then again, since Klaatu were suspected of really being The Beatles at the time, the meeting of the two was probably inevitable).

The Evita piece is the most puzzling inclusion, but not because they decided to test Karen with ʽDon't Cry For Me Argentinaʼ (although her range and relative lack of vocal power might not make her the best candidate indeed) — rather because they also decided to include the lengthy introduction (ʽOn The Balcony Of The Casa Rosadaʼ), inviting a real philharmonic orchestra and opera singers for no apparent reason other than putting Karen's aria «in the proper context». Be­cause, you know, otherwise we would not have been able to guess why an American girl from New Haven, Connecticut, should implore a country as far away as Argentina not to cry for her. Still, as far as convincing performances of overblown Andrew Lloyd Webber arias go, I'd at least take Karen over Madonna — Karen had an inborn knack for sounding deeper and wiser than her actual years, while Madonna will probably still sound like a nervous teenager when she's 80.

That deep and wise voice is pretty much wasted on humorous numbers like ʽMan Smart, Woman Smarterʼ, but definitely not on the Klaatu cover, which is every bit as good as the Klaatu original in terms of arrangement and better than the Klaatu original in terms of vocals: it is too bad that the world will no longer have a Karen Carpenter by the time that occupants of interplanetary, most extraordinary craft finally reach us — the aura of kindness and intelligence that she creates around her vocals is far thicker than John Woloschuk's. Also, they get Tony Peluso to play a beau­tiful dis­torted electric guitar solo, rather than Klaatu's original non-descript synthesizers. Perhaps the 160-piece symphonic orchestra was a bit of an exaggeration (Klaatu's Mellotron was sufficient enough, and gave the song a suitably astral feel), but other than that and the stupid «DJ» introduction ("we'd like to make contact with you... baby"), I have no complaints, and it is regrettable that in the few remaining years of Karen's life, Richard showed no intentions to ex­plore that direction further. Heck, even Electric Light Orchestra or Supertramp covers would have been better than... but we'll get to it, eventually.

The more expectable and traditional numbers on the record are still a tad more exciting than the completely sterile songs and arrangements on A Kind Of Hush. ʽAll You Get From Love Is A Love Songʼ at least has a bouncy rhythm and a catchy chorus; ʽSweet, Sweet Smileʼ is a ʽTop Of The Worldʼ-style return to jiggly country-pop; and ultimately, only ʽI Just Fall In Love Againʼ can be accused of being little more than an over-orchestrated mushy glop — and with Karen still at the top of his powers, one mushy glop per album is not much of a problem. Given the duo's general timidity, the steps they took on Passage were almost like a revolution for them: a failed revolution, for sure, since the album only heralded a rebirth that never came to pass, but enough to extend the longevity of the siblings' artistic reputation for a couple of years. (Retrospective reputation, that is: Passage neither improved their commercial status nor gained them any critical recognition at the time — but today it is very easily seen as a brief and powerful upward surge of the creativity curve). Thumbs up at least for the mild bravery, and even more so for the sheer surprise of seeing some of that bravery actually work.

Carpenters: A Kind Of Hush

CARPENTERS: A KIND OF HUSH (1976)

1) There's A Kind Of Hush; 2) You; 3) Sandy; 4) Goofus; 5) Can't Smile Without You; 6) I Need To Be In Love; 7) One More Time; 8) Boat To Sail; 9) I Have You; 10) Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.

I really pity poor ex-Domino Jim Gordon who was forced to enlist as session drummer for this album (as well as Horizon) — if you ask me, this is a pretty good explanation of why he went nuts and murdered his mother seven years later. Because A Kind Of Slush is just the kind of archetypal «kill-'em-with-kindness» rose-colored Carpenters album that condemns the duo be­yond all hope of redemption. Not in the very, very slightest does the record ever approach «edgy»; not in the very, very slightest does it touch upon any psychological hotspots. And this time around, there isn't even a single Motown or surf-pop classic to earn the record a few consolatory points in the cutesy-adorable department.

Sure, there's the title track, resurrected from a forgotten sunshine pop single by Herman's Hermits back in 1967, but even if it sounded somewhat anthemic and in (relative) touch with the Flower Power movement at the time, in 1976 it sounded merely like another Sesame Street episode, and Karen's diligent, but not-too-involved delivery of the vocal leaves her no space for flexible modu­lation — any professional lady singer could have done an equally good perfunctory job on it. I actually prefer their take on ʽGoofusʼ, an old pre-war composition briefly popularized by Phil Harris in 1950: with an arrangement slightly reminiscent of Elton John's ʽHonky Catʼ (perhaps not a coincidence, as both songs share similar subjects of country boys moving to the big city), it has fun interplay between honky-tonk piano and sax, and lets Karen put in a slightly humorous performance (as to myself, I always prefer hearing a sincere bit of laughter from her than seeing an obli­gatory forced smile).

Yet even though neither of the two songs is a true classic, I'd rather hear them both on endless repeat than enduring the interminable bland balladeering that constitutes the rest of the album. The biggest hit was ʽI Need To Be In Loveʼ, a song specially written by John Bettis (lyrically) for Karen and allegedly one of her favorites; but again, it sounds like ABBA-lite, a musically trite composition that cannot even properly separate its chorus from its verse, and even if the lyrics genuinely reflect Karen's emotional state at the time ("I know I need to be in love, I know I've wasted too much time"), and even if she tries to deliver them as sincerely and expressively as pos­sible, the song's complete melodic predictability and lack of dynamics render the effort nearly worthless. And that, my friends, is arguably the best of the ballads on here.

Most of the others are like Randy Edelman's ʽYouʼ — slow lush meadows of strings, woodwinds, and angelic backing harmonies (with, perhaps, an occasional guitar solo that does not even begin to try and stand out), rose-colored puffs of fake happiness, indistinguishable from one another and not even trying to adapt to the melancholic overtones of Karen's voice. One after another they drift off into space without leaving a trace, so much so that even ʽGoofusʼ, against their back­ground, produces an effect comparable to that of ʽPlease Please Meʼ in the era of safe, toothless teen pop; although nothing is going to make me positively rate the upbeat conclusion of Neil Sedaka's ʽBreaking Up Is Hard To Doʼ, a song far cornier than ʽThere's A Kind Of Hushʼ and made even worse by the duo's tepid treatment.

According to Richard himself, A Kind Of Hush turned out to be a subpar album because he happened to be addicted to sleeping pills at the time — which probably asks for a bad pun invol­ving the title of the record; ironically, he has named ʽGoofusʼ, the liveliest song on the album, as a particularly harsh disaster, while at the same time calling ʽSandyʼ "a lilting original that is per­fect for Karen's voice". For my money, ʽGoofusʼ is far more «lilting» (though certainly less ori­ginal) than ʽSandyʼ, just another quiet, light jazz-pop ballad about nothing in particular that is perfect for nobody's voice, much as Karen was struggling to make a good job with it — and with everything else on this snoozefest of an album. Guess even inoffensive romantic soft-rockers have to stay away from sleeping pills, though. Definitely a thumbs down — this is clearly the absolute nadir for Carpenters in the 1970s, as they would fortunately get somewhat more adven­turous again on their next album.

Carpenters: Horizon

CARPENTERS: HORIZON (1975)

1) Aurora; 2) Only Yesterday; 3) Desperado; 4) Please Mr. Postman; 5) I Can Dream, Can't It?; 6) Solitaire; 7) Happy; 8) (I'm Caught Between) Goodbye And I Love You; 9) Love Me For What I Am; 10) Eventide.

The decline of the duo's commercial fortune starts here, even though Horizon was still able to yield two huge singles. The biggest one apparently continued the vibe of Now & Then: another lightweight cover of an oldie that, it could be thought, would never again be revived after The Marvelettes and The Beatles had done everything possible with it — still, Karen did the impossible and seduced America, along with the entire English-speaking world, into accepting ʽPlease Mr. Postmanʼ in Sesame Street-style, with a fluffy-feathery arrangement and a vocal part so light, you'd swear she was impersonating a 12-year old. Not that I'm complaining: she seduces me all right, and if you have no strong prejudices about «white» versions of «black» songs (with emphasis on de-sexualization etc., though I wouldn't necessarily call Karen's interpretations of black R&B «de-sexualized»), it will be hard to deny that the whole thing is cutesy and adorable without being too heavily dollified. The sax and guitar solos rule, too.

The lesser hit single was a bit more heavy and serious: a Carpenter/Bettis original, ʽOnly Yes­terdayʼ is a soulful love ballad of the «everything will be all right now that you're here» variety. But unlike many, if not most, of the earlier big hits, ʽOnly Yesterdayʼ has no subtle depth what­soever — its message does not go beyond "baby, baby, feels like maybe", and while the chorus is catchy, it is not original enough to compensate for a certain flatness in Karen's voice, as if she tried, but failed, to find a proper key to it and ended up just delivering the lyrics the best way her voice would allow it. ABBA could do this; Karen functions much better when she does not have to dilute her melancholic mood with fake happiness. And if she does, better do it Sesame Street-style all the way — at least it's more fun that way.

The main problem with Horizon is that most of it sounds like ʽOnly Yesterdayʼ, only worse. The idea of covering the old popular song ʽI Can Dream, Can't I?ʼ (they may have gotten it from Cass Elliot) was rotten from the start, because old midnight jazz standards are among the easiest things to turn into cornball if the singer does not give them a specific angle, and for all her wonderful qualities, Karen is hardly a major competitor for the jazz greats. Then there's the cover of ʽDes­peradoʼ, which is probably better than Linda Ronstadt's — Karen is really working hard here to make you sit up and take those lyrics seriously — but not necessarily better than the original; in any case, your acceptance of this will significantly depend on your general attitude towards The Eagles, and in any case, the Leon Russell covers were better.

The rest is mostly original stuff, and most of the second side of the LP where it is concentrated is a stiff bore. As keeper of the Only Solitaire blog, I'm probably supposed to be partial to any song with ʽSolitaireʼ in the title, but this here ʽSolitaireʼ is slow and dreary — again, I think ABBA could have done a better job with it, perhaps speeding the ballad up a little and giving it a few more distinctive piano riffs, but Richard's arrangement is the epitome of the «nothing happening» approach. With ʽLove Me For What I Amʼ, they apparently try to repeat the successful formula of ʽGoodbye To Loveʼ (because of another climactic distorted and phased solo from Tony Peluso), but the result hardly has even half the energy of its predecessor, and even the solo is super-short. And no semi-respectable Carpenters album should have a song called ʽHappyʼ — because, let's face it, the Carpenters vibe only works when they are not.

Summing up — one cutesy-adorable cover, a couple of passable originals, a couple more unne­cessary covers, and a puddle of filler; no sense of progress whatsoever and plenty of times when the project's chief asset is misused. Even on that album photo, Karen looks like she's not really there, you know? There was simply no great incentive here for the public to renew their love for the siblings, and there is no incentive for me not to give the album a thumbs down. Already in 1975, it must have been clear that the Carpenters were past their peak — and soon they would have to adapt their old-fashioned sound to the rapidly changing musical values, something for which they were far less than ready. 

Carpenters: Now & Then

CARPENTERS: NOW & THEN (1973)

1) Sing; 2) This Masquerade; 3) Heather; 4) Jambalaya (On The Bayou); 5) I Can't Make Music; 6) Yesterday Once More; 7) Fun, Fun, Fun; 8) The End Of The World; 9) Da Doo Ron Ron; 10) Deadman's Curve; 11) Johnny Angel; 12) The Night Has A Thousand Eyes; 13) One Day Will Come; 14) One Fine Day; 15) Yesterday Once More (re­prise).

Upon first, second, and third sight, no Carpenters record since at least Offering cries out so loud and proud for a definitive thumbs down. From 1970 to 1972, the duo's albums were fluffy, schlocky, and hundred-percent-safe for bourgeois consumption — yet the fluffy packaging could often conceal deep shades of psychologism, suffering, and unfulfilled (unfulfillable?) yearning; in other words, a case could be made for each and every one of those albums that, at some level, it was an artistic statement, and that people were paying money for the real thing, not just a beauti­fully packaged facsimile trinket. With Now & Then, their fifth record, that consistent streak came to an end: for some reason, the Carpenters thought it would be fun to play the retro-game, and delivered a set of carpenterized oldies — pretty much reinventing the Fifties and early Sixties as having taken place in a rose-colored dollhouse.

The title of the album itself is confusing. Apparently, Side B, introduced by the self-written anthemic state­ment ʽYesterday Once Moreʼ and otherwise consisting of a medley of oldies, is the Then side; however, the Now side also contains a cover of Hank Williams' ʽJambalayaʼ that, by all accounts, should be Then. Moreover, the Now selection in general is rather atypical for the duo: there is not a single Richard original, the only song from a familiar songwriter of theirs is Leon Russell's ʽThis Masqueradeʼ, and on top of this confusion rests their cover of the Sesame Street ditty ʽSingʼ. Okay, so everybody knew that Carpenters were a bit Sesame Street-ish from the beginning, but did they really have to rub it in our faces so ferociously?

No, they did not. And in all honesty, there is nothing serious for which I could recommend this album, with the possible exception of ʽThis Masqueradeʼ — with its late night jazz melody and arrangement, it is the weakest of their Leon Russell covers, but at least it is sufficiently dark and brooding to fit the bill (and Karen's lower range). Plus, you can't get any cheesier if you start covering Johnny Pearson instrumentals (ʽHeatherʼ) — might as well just pack it in and get your­self a paid job in the Top Of The Pops orchestra. Clearly, this is just a mighty embarrassment on all possible fronts, but... but...

...the thing is, Karen Carpenter + doo-wop / girl pop oldies = win. She may sound out of her ele­ment when doing contemporary happy material, but things are different when she sets out to cover ʽDa Doo Ron Ronʼ or ʽOne Fine Dayʼ, songs that clearly uplifted and inspired her back in those days and which she really sings with such pure childish joy that it totally transcends the corniness of the entire project. Yes, Richard often comes along and spoils the fun, fun, fun (al­though, admittedly, his singing voice is hardly worse than Mike Love's), but every time we get Karen behind the wheel, things get back to being irresistible. Heck, even that cuddly version of ʽJambalayaʼ — though it probably has poor Hank spinning in his silver coffin — is... ugh... adorable. There, I've said it. All of these are bubblegum reductions, but every once in a while, it becomes hard to resist a really sweet piece of bubblegum.

It is not difficult to resist ʽYesterday Once Moreʼ, the pathetic introduction to the old medley, because overblown nostalgic sentimentality over the once-liberating golden oldies might work well in a written essay, but not in an adult contemporary ballad. But the medley itself, once you have managed to close your ears to the irritating disc jokey interruptions (done by Tony Peluso in a very manneristic and overacted way), has an odd charm of its own — perhaps it is simply the time effect, though: I can imagine how crass this must have sounded for discerning audiences in 1973, but now that the Seventies themselves have long since passed into legend, it is probably an issue for nostalgia for the Seventies nostalgizing for the Sixties, if you get my drift. There is still a certain aura of touching innocence and sincerity about it all, something that is hardly imagi­nable these days from the likes of, say, Christina Aguilera or Miley Cyrus. (Although, admittedly, we have to wait for 30-40 more years to see how their warped portrayals of the good old days will sound to our ears at that time).

In short, it feels as if time might be kind to this — technically throwaway — moment in Carpen­ters' history, just as it seems to be equally kind to their better records. Additionally, Now & Then is better regarded not as a cheap sellout, but rather as a temporary diversion, a harmless attempt to capitalize on a nascent trend that would be abandoned by the time of their next album (although, as the hit cover of ʽPlease Mr. Postmanʼ would go on to show, they would still keep in mind the goldmine potential of the oldies). Now if only they hadn't included that Sesame Street song... because, look, guys: I know it may seem, from the faraway distance of 1973, that the target audiences of Sesame Street (or any of its pre-1969 predecessors) and ʽFun, Fun, Funʼ were all the same age, but there was a dividing line, and that line is called «puberty». Therefore, do make a choice — putting your toddlers and your horny teens in the same basket is most definitely anti-pedagogical. End of story.

Carpenters: A Song For You

CARPENTERS: A SONG FOR YOU (1972)

1) A Song For You; 2) Top Of The World; 3) Hurting Each Other; 4) It's Going To Take Some Time; 5) Goodbye To Love; 6) Intermission; 7) Bless The Beasts And Children; 8) Flat Baroque; 9) Piano Picker; 10) I Won't Last A Day Without You; 11) Crystal Lullaby; 12) Road Ode; 13) A Song For You (reprise).

My original review of this album was surprisingly cruel — or perhaps I did get mellow as time goes by, after all? Not sure how it happened, but now that I am giving A Song For You another chance, it is not clear even to myself how a Carpenters record without a single Bacharach tune on it, but with at least one Leon Russell and one Carole King original, could get such a low assess­ment. Of course, it is just another Carpenters album, which means there is no escaping mushy fluff at times, but it does host some of the duo's loveliest moments as well; released at the height of the soft-rock era, it is almost inevitably infected by a certain psychological subtlety that was omnipresent in 1970-72, and then, as the formula became a formula, pretty much evaporated from the spirit of long-haired dudes and dudettes with acoustic guitars and pianos.

A whoppin' half of the songs from here were released as singles (most of them high-charting ones), but, funny enough, not the title track — the most serious and solid composition on here, and another great vehicle for Karen to apply her talent. Like ʽSuperstarʼ, the song clearly must have meant much more to its composer and original singer than to Karen Carpenter, but she does a fine job adapting it to a womanly perspective, and she is believable when she sings "I've been so many places in my life and time", even though most of these places were in Connecticut and California. Heck, she even sounds believable when she sings "I've made some bad rhymes", even though she hadn't made any rhymes. The important thing is, she gets this message of repentance and redemption through pure love across in a clean, accessible, and realistic manner, without underdoing it or overdoing it — perfect phrasing all way 'round. The moody sax solo, lacking in Leon's stripped-down piano version, complements her appropriately.

The biggest hit was ʽTop Of The Worldʼ, featuring the duo in their countriest mood yet, with Nashville pro Buddy Emmons on pedal steel and Karen probably sporting her jauntiest cowgirl hat in the studio. The original intention was to use this Richard original as a (filler?) track on the album, but they changed their minds after Lynn Anderson had a hit with the song on the country charts — surprisingly, general pop audiences were only too happy to snap it up with Karen on vocals, perhaps seeing her presence as an excuse to satisfy their internalized country fetish. There is not a lot of space in this happy country romp for Karen's brooding melancholia, but she does at least as good a job with it as Lynn Anderson, sounding slightly more serious and stately in her own way. But on the whole, it is probably good that they did not latch on to this success and make a complete transition to country(-pop): pledging allegiance to cotton fields and rodeos would have ruined the last shreds of their credibility.

Of the other singles, ʽIt's Going To Take Some Timeʼ is nice, but completely unnecessary, since it is all but impossible for Karen to improve on Carole King's personal delivery (cute flute solo, though); the theme song for Stanley Kramer's Bless The Beasts And Children is lush, formless schlock, with the likes of which Karen can do very little; and the cover of Ruby & The Roman­tics' ʽHurting Each Otherʼ is too pompous and overblown to truly make one feel sorry for its protagonists. On the other hand, the obligatory Nichols/Williams contribution ʽI Won't Last A Day Without Youʼ has the catchiest chorus of 'em all; and ʽGoodbye To Loveʼ seems to be one of the finest songs Richard ever wrote — an elegantly flowing proto-ABBA ballad with a couple of brilliant fuzz guitar solos by guest star Tony Peluso; apparently, those solos were the reason that (a) some adult contempo­rary radio stations refused to play the song because of its «hard rock» content, and (b) some critics name it as the first, or at least the prototypical, «power ballad». Both points are fairly ridiculous (no ballad with Karen on vocals can be a true «power» ballad, because her strength is in subtlety, not power), but the solos are truly good, working as faithful outlets for burning emotion that is only subtly hinted at in the vocals.

In addition to the romantic elegance and the slushy schlock, the album features bits of unneces­sary silliness (ʽIntermissionʼ — "we'll be right back after we go to the bathroom"; its chief purpose is not so much to let us know that Carpenters can harmonize like the Beach Boys as it is to let us know that Carpenters, like regular mortals, are endowed with urinary tracts) and goofi­ness (the Richard-dominated interlude ʽFlat Baroque / Piano Pickerʼ, an educated musical joke that probably needs somebody like Saturday Night Live-era Bill Murray to make it work), but they are short, and sometimes they almost seem necessary to cut through some of the schlock. On the whole, though, the tone of A Song For You is set by the spiritually heavy title track — re­prised at the end so the framework could be complete — and despite the goofiness and the happy tunes like ʽTop Of The Worldʼ, most of the time the album wades through sorrow and melancho­lia, culminating with ʽRoad Odeʼ, not the best song here but certainly the most depressed one. Naturally, simply being sad and depressed all or most of the time does not necessarily make for a great album, but this is the best possible state for Karen as a performer, and from that point of view, A Song For You is one of the band's most adequate and well-rounded records, though, clearly, not at all free from poor musical choices and fluffy soapiness. At least ʽA Song For Youʼ, ʽGoodbye To Loveʼ, and maybe even ʽTop Of The Worldʼ, for a happy change, should clearly make it to that top-notch compilation — the rest is up to you.

Carpenters: Carpenters

CARPENTERS: CARPENTERS (1971)

1) Rainy Days And Mondays; 2) Saturday; 3) Let Me Be The One; 4) (A Place To) Hideaway; 5) For All We Know; 6) Superstar; 7) Druscilla Penny; 8) One Love; 9) Bacharach/David Medley; 10) Sometimes.

By now, it is hardly difficult to predict the final verdict on the Carpenters — with that paradigm in place, the duo was fundamentally incapable of recording a consistently great album, because the goodness or badness of a Carpenters tune essentially depends on the degree of Karen's in­volvement in it, and it is unreasonable to expect 100% involvement all over the place. Yet it is also true that almost every Carpenters album would go on to feature at least one or two fantastic atmospheric masterpieces, shallow on the surface but infused with a certain disturbing darkness that seems to undermine those very «family-oriented values» they seem to promote.

For the self-titled Carpenters, these masterpieces are fairly obvious. There's ʽRainy Days And Mondaysʼ, another perfect offering from the Nichols/Williams songwriting team and even more double-edged than ʽWe've Only Just Begunʼ. The verses are poised for an intense build-up, and Karen does a great job going from a deep, dark and brooding start to an expressive, lilting finish. The middle-eight, offering the protagonist a happy cop-out ("funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do / run and find the one who loves me"), seems Hollywoodish on paper, but Karen's talents allow her to do this in «dignified consolation» mode, so that she always seems a bit con­tent in her melancholic brooding, and always a bit unhappy in her romantic gushing. It does not hurt, either, that each verse forms a nice catchy pattern, and that the "rainy days and mondays always get me down" bit is brilliant phrasing all by itself.

The second single was Leon Russell's ʽSuperstarʼ, which had earlier been tried by Delaney & Bonnie, Joe Cocker / Rita Coolidge, and Bette Midler, but did not reach iconic status until Richard nicked it for Karen. His arrangement of the "don't you remember you told me you loved me baby..." chorus is nothing particularly special, and his decision to amend the original "sleep with you again" to "be with you again" warrants a good snicker, but the "long ago and oh so far away..." verses literally send chills down my spine. As an experiment, it is instructive to listen to Rita Coolidge and Karen back-to-back — the first version is all about power and passion, but Karen's is all about bearing the curse of doom. Quiet, deep, mournful, with full emphasis on realistic suffering rather than theatrical technique. Upon hearing ʽSuperstarʼ, it becomes obvious that this sort of tragically soulful material was the perfect choice for Karen; unfortunately, it just wasn't the kind of material to keep on keeping stereotypical «housewives» (and Richard Nixon) happy, and so what we get in addition is...

..."Saturday began just the same as other days... love is in my world since Saturday... sing to the sounds of the day after Friday"... well, you get the drift (hello from the past, Rebecca Black!). This piece of vaudeville fluff, cooed by Richard, is at least short and inoffensive; far worse is ʽDruscilla Pennyʼ, another (in addition to ʽSuperstarʼ) song about a groupie, but this time just a piece of corny mockery, not even saved by being set to a baroque harpsichord melody — and could somebody please explain to me why Richard is lisping on the verses? "I've theen your fathe at leatht a thouthand timeth..." — did somebody smack him in the chops on the day of recording or something? In any case, it results in making an already dumb song sound even more embar­rassing, and its positioning immediately after ʽSuperstarʼ is one of the greatest incentives ever to divorce the amazing sister from the shameful brother (which, I admit, is not entirely just, seeing as how in so many cases Richard's arrangements worked perfectly for Karen).

Anyway, so as not to pin all the bad stuff on Richard, the only really good song on the album other than the big two is ʽLet Me Be The Oneʼ, another offering by Nichols and Williams; and this one is more due to the catchy chorus than any profound psychologism in Karen's perfor­mance. ʽHideawayʼ and ʽFor All We Knowʼ are mushy Euroballads that do not do justice to her voice; Richard's ʽOne Loveʼ is a bit more ambitious, featuring echoes of Brian Wilson in the vocal melody, but somehow still firmly lodged in the rosey my-prince-will-come paradigm; and then there's a five minute Bacharach/David medley that truly deserves no comment other than KILL IT WITH FIRE. Gosh, what a disgrace.

I would not hesitate giving the record a thumbs down if it wasn't for the obvious — on a certain level, all Carpenters albums deserve a thumbs down, so let us keep this option in stock for those records that do not have a smash duo of the ʽRainy Days And Mondaysʼ / ʽSuperstarʼ caliber to redeem it. From an optimistically benevolent perspective, this was a period in which Karen Car­penter was capable of jaw-dropping greatness and occasionally demonstrated it; history will chew over the rest without a blue-type verdict on my part.

Carpenters: Close To You

CARPENTERS: CLOSE TO YOU (1970)

1) We've Only Just Begun; 2) Love Is Surrender; 3) Maybe It's You; 4) Reason To Believe; 5) Help!; 6) (They Long To Be) Close To You; 7) Baby It's You; 8) I'll Never Fall In Love Again; 9) Crescent Noon; 10) Mr. Guder; 11) I Kept On Loving You; 12) Another Song.

It should hardly come off as a big surprise that the first song to break Carpenters big was a Burt Bacharach number. What does come off as a surprise is that the song in question, first recorded by Richard Chamberlain in 1963 and then re-done by Dionne Warwick and Burt himself, actually sounds good in this arrangement — Richard (Carpenter) gave it more of a beat, bringing it closer to a lively music hall number, and Karen sang it like only Karen could: with a pinch of dark de­spair, implying that being "close to you" is more of an unattainable dream than a reality. I could very well live without the last minute and a half of dreamy la-las and wah-wahs that try to dis­solve memories of Karen's dark-golden voice in regular syrup, but the first three minutes prove decisively that even a Burt Bacharach song can be turned to first-rate pop art if it is done properly. (Ironically, the second Bacharach song on here, ʽBaby It's Youʼ, is done in a slower, soapier, and far more generically melodramatic manner — definitely not the right way to cook this goose, so do right unto yourself and check the Beatles' version instead).

The second big hit that confirmed and solidified their pop star status was ʽWe've Only Just Begunʼ, a song that had just skyrocketed the career of... Crocker National Bank! (having been used, alongside wedding imagery, in a TV commercial) — and yet again, Karen was able to make something bigger out of this than just a sappy wedding ditty. The key to this version is that, by her very nature, she was almost incapable of sounding perfectly happy: there are no false sugary notes in this voice as she sings about "white lace and promises" — instead, there is a note of pensive introspection, an implicit understanding that some out of the "so many roads to choose" may not necessarily be the right ones. Even the flute riff somehow manages to combine tender­ness with a warning intonation, and this mix of happiness and worry is precisely what separates the Carpenters' version from just about any other cover of this song that you might encounter. In short, this performance has psychological depth, even if none of this was an intentional decision on the part of either the brother or the sister. (For that matter, just how many people, I wonder, upon hearing the song and seeing the album sleeve back in 1970 thought of Richard and Karen Carpenter as husband and wife rather than siblings?).

In between these two classics (yes they are), Richard and Karen insert all sorts of randomized material that suffers either from being too lightweight and flimsy (Offering-style), or too boring, or both. The idea to repeat the formula of ʽTicket To Rideʼ with another Beatles song falls flat: not only is their slowing down of ʽHelp!ʼ sort of plagiarizing Deep Purple, but, unlike ʽTicket To Rideʼ, ʽHelp!ʼ was actually a showcase for desperation from the very beginning, and there are no new dimensions to be opened here (plus, Karen is mixed way too low for her magic to work pro­perly this time). Pop fluff like ʽLove Is Surrenderʼ and ʽI'll Never Fall In Love Againʼ (Bacharach again!) passes by quickly and inconspicuously, and Richard-led pop fluff like ʽI Kept On Loving Youʼ passes by slowly and painfully. Tim Hardin's oft-covered ʽReason To Believeʼ is quite nice and gives a good hint at how Carpenters could have sounded with a country-western career (not too country-westernish, I'd say), but the definitive version of the song still belongs to Rod Stewart: this one is just way too fragile.

Curiously, the most interesting two songs past the big hits actually belong to Richard, although ʽCrescent Noonʼ would not have been anything other than a midnight piano ballad without Karen: this is her technically strongest and, perhaps, most nuanced performance on the entire album, not to mention the most depressing — it would have been a stroke of genius to place it at the very end, so that the record could go from "we've only just begun to live..." to "all our green Septem­bers burn away, slowly we'll fade into a sea of midnight blue", but I imagine that such grim con­ceptuality would have been banned by the industry people; after all, this is family entertainment here, not an airbrushed take on Jim Morrison. So the song is buried deep in the middle of Side B, immediately followed with ʽMr. Guderʼ, an amusing personal attack on a Disneyland boss who had the nerve to fire Richard once — and, by extension, a general attack on all kinds of corpo­rate behavior, ever so ironic because it does not seem to me that Richard was particularly averse to shining shoes, neat haircuts, coats and ties, either. Still, it is always fun to hear a soft-pop artist go soft-poppily vicious on The System, more so than just have another love ballad from them.

To conclude: Close To You is where the duo truly arrives, especially considering that Karen is handling most of the lead vocals now, and while they would have slightly more consistent albums in the future, on the whole, this is really as good as it gets — for all their career, they had exactly one great asset at their disposition (some people also like to gush about Richard's skill in arrange­ments, but complex and perfectly organized fluff is still fluff), and they did not always use it with wisdom. When they did, though, I can pardon them everything else for it.

Carpenters: Offering

CARPENTERS: OFFERING (1969)

1) Invocation; 2) Your Wonderful Parade; 3) Someday; 4) Get Together; 5) All Of My Life; 6) Turn Away; 7) Ticket To Ride; 8) Don't Be Afraid; 9) What's The Use; 10) All I Can Do; 11) Eve; 12) Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing; 13) Benediction.

The main problem with the Carpenters' generally forgotten debut album is simple, as long as you subscribe to the world view that has been gradually consolidating around the duo's post-mortem reputation — namely, that «Carpenters» (as a concept) were shite, while Karen Carpenter was anything but. Admittedly, it is a flawed and incomplete view, but, unfortunately, I cannot help drifting towards it myself, and nowhere is it more evident than on Offering (what a posh title!), the duo's first big, er, offering to the A&M label. Today, it is better known as Ticket To Ride, after its only minor hit single, but I am keeping the original title for honesty's sake, especially since «honesty» is generally a big concern for bands like these.

Technically, the album was a transitional affair, recorded very soon after the breakup of Richard and Karen's band Spectrum and still containing traces of a «band» rather than «duo» (or, even better, «solo») approach to business. More than half of the songs were actually written by Richard, with lyrics by former bandmate John Bettis — even though Richard never was and never would be a talented songwriter; and about half of the songs are sung by Richard, even though I always end up feeling like a three-year old every time I hear a Richard vocal. The syrupy-upbeat atmo­sphere ends up infecting Karen's performances as well (ʽDon't Be Afraidʼ, etc.), and the result is not so much «soft rock» as it is «Sesame Street rock», a subgenre that the Carpenters would never fully relinquish voluntarily, but Offering is really their only album to have been recorded almost completely in that genre.

There are exceptions, of course — two or three of these, pointing the way to future moments of triumph, and, as anybody can guess, it is first and foremost the songs that put Karen's rich, dark lower range overtones in proper focus, with an aura of near-tragic melancholy that hinted at a very troubled soul (not to mention physiology) even back when Karen Carpenter was, formal­ly, still a lively, fun-loving, drum-toting tomboy. A particular highlight, long forgotten in favor of future hit songs in the same style, is Richard's ʽEveʼ, a lush Euroballad that is, unfortunately, spoiled by too many overdubbed harmonies and strings in the chorus, but sounds near-perfect when it's just Karen and the piano (or, in later verses, a bit of overdubbed harpsichord on top): here, already, she is able to woo the listener with merely the opening "Eve, I can't believe that you would mean what you just said..." — few singers are able to combine special vocal technique with fully believable realism of the delivery, and here we witness the combination of a capable singer, a perfect actor, and a captivating human being.

Compared to ʽEveʼ, the far better known title track is not nearly as impressive. The idea to put the "sad" back into "I think I'm gonna be sad" is brilliant per se — whatever you could say about the original ʽTicket To Rideʼ, you could never truly suspect the song of disseminating an atmosphere of genuine sadness (the irony was, of course, best captured in the Help! movie where it was per­formed to footage of all four Beatles enjoying themselves like ecstatic kids while skiing in the Alps — so who's got a ticket to ride, once again?). Problem is, they lay it on a bit too thick, slowing the song down to an almost ridiculous crawl, and the theatricality here actually over­shadows the realism — much as I'd love imagining the song as a far more hard-hitting retort by somebody like Cynthia Lennon ("the boy that's driving me mad is going away... he's got a ticket to ride, and he don't care" — sound familiar?). Still, the purpose is a noble one, as is their other tasteful choice of a cover: Buffalo Springfield's mournful ʽNowadays Clancy Can't Even Singʼ, another broken down lady tale that they smother in strings and woodwinds, but without sacrifi­cing its tragic-humanistic spirit. Too many Richard vocals, though!

As for the rest... well, stuff like ʽYour Wonderful Paradeʼ is the kind of stuff I would rather be dead than caught listening to by even the closest friends and relatives (fortunately, I always have a «reviewing purpose only» excuse for anything, and you don't!), even if it is a somewhat catchy pop song, with appropriately cartoonish tin soldier drumming from Karen who, at this point, still considered herself strictly a «singing drummer»; but the atmosphere of cutesy-whimsy is unbea­rable — if you're gonna do it, just go all the way and get an ʽAll Together Nowʼ or a ʽYellow Sub­marineʼ out of your system, rather than this middle-of-the-road crap that is too boring as a kiddie tune and too corny as an adult one. The same applies to most of the other songs written by Richard, ʽEveʼ excepted — but when he wants to write a sentimental ballad, he often falls flat, too, as on ʽSomedayʼ, a mushy Broadway tune whose spineless nature cannot even be redeemed by Karen singing it without outside help.

Concerning the overall «coating» of the record, it is clear that it was at least as much influenced by The Beach Boys as it was by show tunes and Bacharach, but the latter influences still prevail, and despite frequent praise for Richard's talents as an arranger, the pretty effects that he got with multiple overdubs of his and Karen's vocals are consistently offset by Mantovani-type strings and the overall silky softness of pretty much every instrument played (yes, even Karen's drums — despite all the quirkiness and even sexiness of her «singing drummer» image, she was no Keith Moon when it came to hitting... uh, caressing that drumkit). Jazz influences are also obvious (the siblings' first work together was actually within a jazz setting), as on the brief jazz-pop experi­ment ʽAll I Can Doʼ, but... well, you know.

In the end, Offering clearly seems to deserve its reputation — a failed first attempt that misuses the duo's talents and is more often boring and/or embarrassing than illuminating; it is much to the siblings' credit that they were able to understand which elements had to be cut down and which ones had to be emphasized in such a record short time. But, like almost any first failure by a future great artist, it does have its flashes of occasional brilliance — and it is at least an intriguing failure, sounding so notably different from whatever would follow. So, one of those cases where a formal thumbs down might still warrant interest for those who find up-and-down curves more fascinating than all-the-way-up-the-hill trajectories.