There's a new Carpenters Christmas Album!

The new 2024 mix of Ave Maria.

The original 1978 mix of Ave Maria.

Err linky stinky.

Great release. But everyone knows that he was nothing without her in both life and death. Karen was the one with the talent. Richard and their parents were just assholes.

Surprised Richard hasn't AI'd her voice for new albums- including hologram tours.

"Karen was the one with the talent."

This is ridiculous. Karen was indeed outrageously talented, but to minimize Richard's contributions, when he produced their iconic sound, is not right. Is he an asshole? Maybe, but that has nothing to do with talent.

R6 He was on a Tv show in Japan decades ago where they featured a Japanese singer named Keiko Toge singing in English who sounded eerily like Karen. Surprised he never tried to go on tour with her.

R4 you say that but Karen’s solo album was shelved in 1979 by A&M and wasn’t released until 1996 because people realized half the magic was missing. The magic being Richard.

He knew exactly how to arrange a song that was the perfect vehicle for Karen.

Sugary crap. Not what I want for Christmas.

Compare the original version of "Close to You" (recorded by none other than DL gay icon Richard Chamberlain at the height of his "Dr. Kildare" fame) and the Carpenters huge hit version and you can see how much difference a great arrangement and production can make.

OP here again. This album is perfect with a cup of hot tea by the fire. Nothing warmer and more soothing.

Karen's back - and she's hungrier than ever!

Richard Carpenter: major cock hound; big Trump supporter.

I thought she died 40 years ago.

She still sounds fat...

Reading this thread made me think of the song "Paint a Vulgar Picture":

"Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package! / Re-evaluate the songs / double-pack with a photograph / Extra Track (and a tacky badge)"

"Best of! Most of! / Satiate the need / Slip them into different sleeves! / Buy both, and be feel deceived"

Now I’m imagining Karen Carpenter singing Kesha’s song Dirty Picture.

Richard had/has plenty of talent. His voice wasn't a gift from God like Karen's, but he was an excellent musician and arranger.

[quote]you say that but Karen’s solo album was shelved in 1979 by A&M and wasn’t released until 1996 because people realized half the magic was missing. The magic being Richard.

The NY Times Magazine did a fascinating article at the time the album was released.

Karen wanted to keep working while Richard went into rehab for his pill (cock?) addiction, so she went into the studio with Phil Ramone and spent a gazillion dollars of her own money on a solo album that ended up getting shelved. But she had to agree to shelve it, and she did.

Richard's intentions were likely not the purest, but his feedback wasn't wrong: The songs were set in the wrong key for Karen's voice (too high) and a lot of them were disco-inflected, which was beyond passé by 1980 — it was unmarketable.

I remember Ella Fitzgerald pushing back at the critics of The Carpenters, saying that if you didn’t like Karen’s voice, you didn’t like popular music.

Who’s Ellen Fitzgerald? Who are The Carpenters?

Karen Discovers Wegovy.

All I Want for Christmas is a celery stalk.

Have Yourself a Fistful of Ducolax....

Case in point: She's singing too high, and this was very 1978, not 1980.

It would have done nothing on the pop charts. The "adult contemporary" chart had just launched and wasn't a commercial force yet.

This was darkly ironic, and way too disco for 1980.

As long as it’s not Sabrina.

And this was just awkward.

So was this.

[quote]R12 Karen's back - and she's hungrier than ever!

Imagine if she’d done a solo album of voracious classics like [italic]Hungry Like the Wolf ? ?

I see Richard is on here trashing her solo album. Had it been released when it was originally recorded. There would have been several top 40 hits on there. She would have found success on her own. And been free of Agness and Richard and the "Richard is God and you suck" bubble she has been in her whole life. It may very well have saved her life.

R31. Oh, go eat a salad, Fatty!

“We’ve only just begun…. GIFTS, GIFTS, I’m sick of eating…”

[quote]Had it been released when it was originally recorded

It was recorded in 1979-80 for release in 1980, and it was hopelessly outdated.

In fairness, it was a crazy-confusing time for pop artists, especially MOR artists — what replaces disco? — and she didn't hook up with a visionary producer.

But what visionary producer would have taken her? Look at this list of the top singles of 1980; where would this product by Karen Carpenter have fit?

If only I could go back in time to convince Karen not to use cardiotoxic ipecac...

Wegovy's Just Begun

R34: The music was all over the place but the common denominator is that most of it has been forgotten or should be.

[quote]But what visionary producer would have taken her? Look at this list of the top singles of 1980; where would this product by Karen Carpenter have fit?

One of the songs on that list was "Heartache Tonight," which Karen did with the ladies at the link.

The product - her solo album - didn't fit anywhere, but that was because the approach and most of the material were all wrong.

One possibility is she could have taken the Linda Ronstadt route and come out with an album of standards.

The most depressing Christmas music you can listen to.

A I Karen Carpender.

So Richard continues to rape his sister.

Rock With You was offered to Karen for her solo album but she turned it down. I wish she'd recorded a demo.

R40 it’s not AI to go back to the multi-track tape and move the fader up for a more upfront vocal that’s more unprocessed.

I'm Just Pooped!

Look at them! They look so similar they could have been brother and sister.

They would tell the story of how, in their early years as a successful group when they would go from one brainless radio interviewer to the next, they were once asked how they met. “In college,” one of them responded. I’ve used that line about my siblings many times over the years.

Karen did a great cover of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" for her solo album.

Didn’t she have the slimmer’s disease?

They were not so secret lovers

She took up to 90 laxative pills a day.

that contralto voice

DAMM

Christmas cards have all been sent. The Christmas rush is through…

[quote]you say that but Karen’s solo album was shelved in 1979 by A&M and wasn’t released until 1996 because people realized half the magic was missing. The magic being Richard.

Phil Ramone, no slouch in the music industry, produced Karen's solo album. Karen sounds great on the songs, it just wasn't the Carpenter sound and that bothered Richard more than Karen.

I love the one reviewer who called them "Goody Four Shoes."

I agree with above - just spend the money for a Karen hologram on-stage and go on tour Richard.

I'm surprised he hasn't auctioned off her bathroom toiletries by now.

He always comes off as such an asshole - HE wanted to be the star. Yes, he was talented by his sister was magic and he never would have gone anywhere without her.

They were lovers

that contralto

The best song of her solo album.

Richard's version of the same song. Except for the off-handed comment at the very beginning, it's the Carpenters sound, but not the better version.

I'm more than surprised Richard hasn't pitched a 'jukebox musical' of the duo's career for Broadway.

Richard was such a great arranger and producer, it's odd he never worked with other singers in the years after Karen died except for one album in the mid/late 80s. He could've had a whole second career.

R61. He knew he could live off of his sister's dead 72 pound corpse forever.

Donna Summer sings Superstar, accompanied by Richard Carpenter

[quote]It was recorded in 1979-80 for release in 1980, and it was hopelessly outdated.

It took a year to record because Karen was in and out of the hospital at the time. The album was supposed to be released in 79, and it would have fared much better were it released in 79 as disco was still a thing. My Body Keeps Changing My Mind would have been a huge top 40 hit. I agree by the spring of 1980 too much had changed.

Madonna is a huge fan of Karen Carpenters and wrote Rain as a song she imagined Karen would have sung. It would have been interesting to see Karen go in a similar direction as her friend Olivia did and record more sexually suggestive material. Even do music videos surrounded by hot men all doing pelvic thrusts.

While she was recording her solo album, Karen stayed with Phil Ramone and his wife Karen Ramone (who was a good friend of Karen's) at their house in Westchester. One night Karen (Carpenter) took a sleeping pill but her body was so weak she collapsed on the kitchen floor and an ambulance was called. As r64 said, Karen was in and out of the hospital, her last few years were horrible. Nothing could make her get over her eating disorder, even extensive therapy.

A book excerpt of Karen's struggle at the end.

[quote]Richard was such a great arranger and producer, it's odd he never worked with other singers in the years after Karen died except for one album in the mid/late 80s. He could've had a whole second career.

At one point (I think it was in 1989-90) it was said that he was commissioned by Clive Davis to produce a new Dionne Warwick album, but after recording a few songs (which were never released), they all agreed it wasn't working out right (unlike when Barry Manilow and Barry Gibb produced Warwick). Arista released a 'Greatest Hits' album by Warwick, instead.

Thanks for that link, R66. So sad. Such a strange disease.

[Quote] see Karen go in a similar direction as her friend Olivia did and record more sexually suggestive material

Friend, Karen wasn’t sexy. She didn’t have it in her. That’s ok too.

She was actually a MUCH better drummer than singer.

Anorexics are annoying. They don’t need special medicines or as-yet-uninvented treatments. Here’s what you do, dingbats: place a pastrami sandwich in front of you. Pick it up. Bite, chew, swallow. Repeat.

Basically, they create their own problems.

^ Well you've obviously considered the matter very deeply.

[quote]a pastrami sandwich

Ugh.

[quote]Here’s what you do, dingbats: place a pastrami sandwich in front of you. Pick it up. Bite, chew, swallow. Repeat.

Some of them have fucked up their digestive systems really badly from chronic fasting and vomiting. They might have gastroparesis or even have esophageal tears. It might not be physically possible for them to eat a normal meal even if they decide they want to.

They willfully fucked up their own digestive tracts, and WE’RE supposed to feel sorry for them?

I’m sorry, no. That’s like feeling smokers who get lung cancer are innocent victims.

r75 Eating disorders are a mental illness. The person didn't ask for it, just like bipolar people didn't ask to be bipolar.

Even if that's the best song on her solo album, R58, you can hear she was mis-produced throughout — she was singing too high.

It sounds very generic; there was none of that Karen Carpenter contralto magic.

R69 She may not have been sexy but she definitely wasn't ugly either. She's in the same boat as Taylor Swift, Carolyn Jones, Jean Harlow and many others.

[Quote]She's in the same boat as Taylor Swift, Carolyn Jones, Jean Harlow and many others.

Only to you.

[quote] Madonna is a huge fan of Karen Carpenters and wrote Rain as a song she imagined Karen would have sung.

I don't doubt this one bit and yet when did it become hip and OK, if you're a famous music star, to admit you were a Carpenters, and a Karen fan?

As a child and teenager in the 70s, there was no way I ever admitted out loud I was a Carpenter's fan although their songs, and especially the sound that came out of Karren's mouth, held me spellbound.

And back then, I certainly never heard anybody famous praise her.

I did read a story, however, that John Lennon saw her in Los Angeles he told her he was a fan of hers.

Yes, it definitely wasn’t cool to be a Karen Carpenter fan back in the day.