A Guilty Pleasure

We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago……

Very few people I knew in 1971 publicly admitted they liked the Carpenters. It just wasn’t a hip thing to do. And despite that, the brother-sister duo of Karen & Richard Carpenter sold millions of records and were regularly heard on the radio. And even though I didn’t make a big thing about it…I owned a couple of the albums and knew I was hearing pop music polished to a high sheen. And my fandom was mostly about The VOICE. And it should be capitalized. Karen Carpenter’s voice was as potent an instrument as has ever been heard in the history of popular music. And what’s funny is that she really just wanted to be a drummer!

The self titled 3rd LP was filled with the usual assortment of hits and some hidden nuggets of pop goodness. You’ve all heard “Rainy Days & Mondays and “For All We Know”…and a great cover of “Superstar” which Richard saw Bette Midler singing on the Tonight Show and thought it would a good one for Karen to sing.

But some of the non-hits are pretty groovy too. “Let Me Be The One” , “Hideaway” and ‘One Love’ could have been hits as well. Plus a medley of Bacharach-David songs which are right in their wheelhouse.

The one weakness of the LP is the times that Richard decides to sing. As good as he is at arranging this stuff and his great ear at picking hits…his lead vocals only mean it’s a couple of times we don’t get to hear “The VOICE”.

The album was nominated for four Grammys including Album of the Year. It won for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

A number of the songs were also featured on a summer replacement TV show in 1971 hosted by the Karen & Richard called “Make Your Own Kind Of Music”…once again it wasn’t very hip but was a postcard from that time…

It’s OK to admit you like this stuff….and still go put a Deep Purple record on the turntable next. The Carpenters did what they did very well….and the sad demise of Karen Carpenter makes some of these songs even more poignant. Leave your self some extra time…because if you listen to this, you’ll almost certainly search out their other LPs as well.